From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
"Grasstweeting" to Victory
During the campaign to uphold Maine's same-sex marriage law, Kossacks Spedwybabs and Stranded Wind made creative use of Twitter to round up volunteers for both in-state canvassing and out-of-state phonebanking. It worked really well. I kept getting update emails from 'em saying, "500 hits to the 'No on 1' web site!" Then a thousand. Then two thousand. Then three. These little tweets generated surprisingly robust traffic. (The vote ultimately didn’t go the way we wanted, but 47 percent approval for gay marriage on the first try is pretty impressive considering we're still, historically speaking, living in primitive times.)
Today I'm happy to introduce a new consulting service Spedwybabs, Stranded Wind, Andsarahtoo and Redstatesblueworld are launching to take full advantage of "instantaneous mobilization of social networking in service of progressive causes and candidates."
It was an idea hatched at Netroots Nation last summer and it's called Progressive Politically Strategic Campaigns for Twitter---or Progressive PST for short. And it's pretty cool:
Progressive PST campaigns are customized to narrow targets: active supporters, likely voters, potential contributors, press contacts, etc. Through Twitter, your campaign staff can immediately reach your exact target with the right message timed precisely for maximum impact. Communicate schedule changes instantly, inform supporters of breaking news or a new commercial debuting on YouTube, solicit donations from donors, inform press contacts of critical campaign developments and encourage traffic to specific websites.
Progressive PST campaigns radically expand the target base for campaign messaging...and by focusing the efforts of hundreds of progressive volunteers actively involved in Twitter, Progressive PST can reach not only your existing list of supporters, but can recruit new supporters and donors predisposed to your message.
One of the ways in which the progressive grassroots has cleaned the other side's clock is through superior use of technology. But conservatives, fueled by teabagger madness, are catching up, and that's why it's great when new organizations like Progressive PST arrive on the scene. The more we stay a step or two ahead, the greater our chances of winning races at the local, state and national level---whether it's a candidate or a ballot issue.
Their web page is here. Or contact them at progressivepst [at] gmail.com. And they'll be posting diaries here on Daily Kos, including news on the growing list of campaigns they're helping out by energizing the "grasstweets."
P.S. I thought I was so brilliant for coming up with the term "grasstweets" yesterday...but credit where credit is due: Kossack ProfJonathan seems to have thought of it first. Well done. And also...Doh!
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Note: "Upsot???"
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Winter Solstice: 20
Days `til the Holiday Fair in Greenville, South Carolina: 2
Estimated cost per U.S. soldier per year of deployment in Afghanistan: $1 million
(Source: The White House)
Number of millionaires in the House and Senate: 237
Percent of all congresscritters that represents: 44%
(Source: Politico via The Week)
Tons of road salt the city of Portland, Maine is sitting on for the '09-'10 winter season: 8,000
Tons of road salt that we'll eventually track into our house by the time winter ends here in May: 250
New England: 17,000,000 New Orleans: 38
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
I was so delighted when [Palin] categorically rejected the global warming nonsense in an interview with Rush today. This is something that she was unable to do during the campaign because of McCain’s climate facisim views. This issue is one of the most important for me. Global warming facisim is the buggest threat to our liberty, prosperity, free markets, and way of life. Sarah is so far the only possible 2012 contender that holds this view. Don’t let Pawlenty’s 180 degree turnabout fool you.
---dhorowitz at RedState
All together now: One...two...three... Classy!!!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: The Arf-ful Dodger.
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CHEERS to December. The year's glorious, sparkling, musical, snow-bedecked, bell-ringing, Norman Rockwellesque grand finale. And won’t it be nice to have a White House tree decorated with actual ornaments instead of Dick Cheney's spent shell casings. Bring on the swans a'swimming, sharpen your dreidel tip, and polish your Festivus pole. Oh, and check the expiration date on the eggnog that's been sitting in the back of your fridge since last year before you take a swig. (If it's turned semi-solid, you can use it to patch potholes in your driveway.) And remember the Republican mantra: "You can't spell Noel without 'No!'"
JEERS to December. The year's stress-filled, frickin' freezing, mall-mad, dark-by-3, be-cheerful-or-else, I-didn't-get-your-Christmas-card-yet and how’s-about-a-blizzard grand finale. The Harry Simeone choir will make curmudgeons' ears bleed by the bucketful, and you just know there are a handful of beloved mega-celebrities who will inconvenience us by dying this month. (I miss you already, whoever you are...you brought joy to millions and broke new ground in whatever you did). Pass the expired eggnog...I'm checkin' out.
JEERS to Obama's Kobayashi Maru. After agonizing (yes, I believe that's the right word) over what to do with Afghanistan since, oh, January 20th, President Obama makes his case for Afghanistan tonight. Depending how you look at it, he's either Quixotically escalating the war by throwing in a paltry 35,000 fresh troops (he needs 300,000 to do it right), or he's carefully threading a microscopic needle-eye to try and wind the damn conflict down without igniting a backlash of reprisals against the population there (especially women) while trying to keep the whole thing from spilling over into Pakistan. There is no right way to do it, but one thing I know for sure: I'd much rather turn on my teevee tonight and see Barack Obama explaining the situation, as opposed to John Sidney McCain. So I'll hear him out. But it better be one of those "most amazing speeches of his life," and it must answer the question: what are we asking our troops to die for? Oh, and no drinking game tonight. Just drink...period.
CHEERS and JEERS to World AIDS Day. 33 million people around the world live with HIV or full-blown AIDS. A minimum of 25 million have died from it. Kinda makes the swine flu look like a weekend at Club Med. UNAIDS executive director Michele Sidibé says the 21st anniversary of World AIDS Day arrives amid both hope and concern:
Hope because significant progress has been made towards universal access. New HIV infections have dropped. Fewer children are born with HIV. And more than 4 million people are on treatment.
Concern because 28 years into the epidemic the virus continues to make inroads into new populations; stigma and discrimination continue to undermine efforts to turn back the epidemic. The violation of human rights of people living with HIV, women and girls, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users and sex workers must end. ... On this World AIDS Day, let us work urgently to remove punitive laws and practices and put an end to discrimination against and criminalization of people affected by HIV.
By the way the last time the AIDS quilt could be displayed in its entirety was 1996, and if laid out today it would cover more than 1,293,300 square feet. Not coincidentally, this is also Give A Virus The Finger Day. Knock yerself out.
CHEERS to America's cleaning service. On December 1, 1970 the Environmental Protection Agency was born during the reign of that fucking Marxist, Richard "Hitler/Mao/Stalin" Nixon. Under his orders the government was directed to ration environmental care by putting bureaucrats between you and your polluter under the guise of collectively "protecting human health and the environment." Yeah, right! Just one more way the Republicans are trying to take power away from the individual and use it to advance their radical socialist agenda. Oh, and did anyone bother to check Tricky Dick's birth certificate? Someone get me Orly Taitz on the phone---this is serious!
CHEERS to going where no upper chamber has gone before. Debate on the Senate healthcare reform bill started yesterday. Here are the highlights:
Meow?
[Hiss!]
Meow?
[Hiss!]
Meow?
[Hiss!]
Now you know why spectators in the gallery are told to keep their hands from dangling over the balcony. On today's agenda: Republicans poop outside their litter box. In other words, business as usual.
CHEERS to civil disobedience. On December 1, 1955, black seamstress Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama public bus. Her arrest---and the ensuing boycott of the bus system---became a signature event of the civil rights movement. Last year I tried something similar for the gay rights movement by refusing to give up my seat to a straight dude. He just shrugged and sat somewhere else. Lesson: being a pioneer is harder than it looks.
JEERS to voting your fears. Employing logic with more holes in it than their cheese, Swiss voters went to the polls Sunday and outlawed minarets. Not that we have much room to talk. Just recently, Best Buy wished Muslim shoppers a "Happy Eid al-Adha." Wrote one disgruntled customer: "BB has the Muslims covered with the 'Happy Eid,' but what about the rest of us Americans?" Don’t worry, pal...you still have a constitutional right to be petty.
P.S. I've just been informed that Switzerland has also voted to outlaw minotaurs, mini golf, minestrone, Minnetonkas, Minnie Mouse, mini-bars, and Minwax. Paging Dr. Phil...!
CHEERS to nail-biters. On this date in 1824, the presidential election got tossed to the House of Representatives because the votes were so close between John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay. As Joseph Cummins notes in his book, Anything for a Vote, it was nasty:
After twenty years of sleepy presidential elections, the pamphleteers were relieved to be slinging mud again. They satirized Adams's sartorial inelegance (he was, admittedly, an eccentric dresser---when he couldn’t find his cravat, he'd sometimes tie a black ribbon around his neck), called Clay a drunkard, and accused Jackson of murder for having executed mutineers in 1813 (charges that would follow Jackson into the next election). Crawford---still running even though paralyzed and sightless [from a stroke]---was accused of malfeasance in his role as treasury secretary. If all these charges were true, one politician said, "our presidents, senators and secretaries are all traitors and pirates."
Adams won...and was miserable for the next four years. File that under, "Be Careful What You Wish For."
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Five years ago in C&J: December 1, 2004
CHEERS to the New Kids on the Blog. Kos welcomes five new Irregulars rarin' to stir things up on the main page. Sweets and flowers to A Gilas Girl, Armando, DavidNYC, Hunter, and Kid Oakland. Ready...Set...Snark!
JEERS to Pope John Paul II, M.D. (Medical Dickhead). Just in time for World AIDS Day, the Vatican---that bastion of medical breakthroughs like the 5-day exorcism---says AIDS is caused by a lack of moral values. Oh, and if the victim floats...definitely a Witch.
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And just one more...
CHEERS to wrapping yourself in the warm embrace of the Great Orange Satan. Sara R, who creates those now-legendary "Get Better Soon" patchwork quilts, sends us an email:
I'm making a community quilt for [C&J splasher] "one bite at a time" who recently lost her house and almost everything in it to a fire. I'm having some trouble getting enough messages. I am only up to eighteen total and I'm looking for more than forty.
I know one bite is a longtime Cheers and Jeers member and I wondered if you would be kind enough to help get the word out.
Most of the quilts have been for people who are seriously ill. But the trauma of losing a home is horrible enough in its own right.
Thank you for any help you can provide.
I'll start a thread in the comments that you can latch onto if you'd like to leave a note that will go on one of the quilt panels. And in other news, Bill O'Reilly still thinks Kossacks are the most evil people on the planet. Film at 11.
Oh, and guess what? Atlantic Hurricane season's over! (The most awesome and fearsome of the season? Billy, of course. Raaahrr!!!) Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
A government minister has blamed Indonesia's recent string of natural disasters on Bill in Portland Maine's immorality. Communication and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring said that Cheers and Jeers destroyed morals. Therefore, the minister said, natural disasters would continue to occur.
---BBC News
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