The Communications Workers of America (CWA) NJ offices is holding another stewards training to educate a new group of member activists for the fight against the attack on workers rights in New Jersey.
I was invited to present Blue Jersey and discuss the power of progressive blogging and activism through sharing stories and struggles from the offices and homes of working class families under attack by people like Chris Christie, Stephen Sweeney and George Norcross, III.
The last training brought about 80 members out of the dark and into the light of social media and activism. This new training is adding to the ranks and giving more power to the voice of workers in a fight for our very way of life and careers.
The training will focus on the many different avenues of communication available on the internet through Blue Jersey, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and personal blogs.
Five years ago tonight was maybe the best night I ever had in politics. Best victory party ever. Best crashing of the gate. But it didn't happen in New Jersey.
Five years ago, I was in a crowded print shop hastily slapped into a campaign HQ for Ned Lamont's upstart primary challenge to Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, who functioned - along with others like Rob Andrews of NJ - as a chief propagandist for George Bush's big lie of WMD's in Iraq. This was Bridgeport, Connecticut. I got pulled in by Jim Dean, DFA Chair and brother of founder Howard Dean. The Deans were a study in brotherly self-control. Howard, then-Chair at DNC, couldn't get near endorsing one Dem over another, but he had just run for President on the same anti-War platform 2 years earlier. Jim was all-in. So was DFA.
Bridgeport Lamont HQ was an undulating mosaic of open laptops, pizza boxes and water bottles, TV cameramen stepping over canvassers on 10-minute break, and people speaking in half-sentence shorthand. DFA signs everywhere, SEIU's purple bus parked outside. A woman came over to yell me back onto the phone bank. But one of the CT bloggers told her that every time I got on my computer, New Jerseyans piled into cars pointed at the Nutmeg State (one of those was future NJ Senate candidate, and my DFA compatriot Jeff Gardner).
Last week, a bunch of you dropped a nice comment about Blue Jersey in The Fix. That ramps up the likelihood Chris Cillizza'll add us to the Washington Post's state blog roll again. And that helps drive our traffic. Thanks! Not too late ...
So - it's a good time to let you know what else you can do for your homeblog. All easy, but incredibly important.
Advertise - The care and feeding of this blog takes a budget. Individuals can become Blue Star supporters for as little as $5 bucks/month. But you can also talk to your candidate, your company or your group about advertising at Blue Jersey. The readership's well-read, politically-active, chock-full of opinion leaders and seriously good-looking.
Advertising and traffic are tied. The more readers, and the more users, the more attractive the site is for someone who wants to reach an audience of people like you. So ...
Sign on - Blue Jersey's a community blog. We have a staff, but our readers are our writers, too. And you can't do anything but lurk unless you get yourself a username. So, sign up. You'll get an email with easy instructions and you're in business.
Log in - Every time you visit. Let us know you're there.
Write - What's going on in New Jersey politics that matters to you? Here's your chance. Read the Rules first, please.
Comment - Jump into the conversation.
Don't be an ass - The same rules for diary writing apply to comments. I'll add one: Hostile mano-a-mano fights with another reader are boring as hell. Be cool.
There are few things that the front-pagers here at Blue Jersey are more committed to than Progressive politics. Why else would we have invested so many hours of bringing you a quality product with so little in return? We're nuts. Crazy. Loco in la cabeza (everyone blow a kiss un beso to Murray Sabrin!).
But we aren't stupid.
We know there is more going on out there than we can ever hope to cover. We know that part of what we can't manage to cover - or to cover adequately - is what you are interested in seeing covered. We can't even get adequate coverage at one person per county, much less devote enough people to cover every race.
That means, we need you.
We need you to cover the struggle to tear back the soft underbelly of government and drag it into the daylight. We need you to tell us what is going on in your neck of the woods. We need to know what your candidate is doing and how your group is fighting for the cause.
But we need for you to do it right.
Now some would say there is no wrong way to blog. These are the same people who say there is no such thing as bad media coverage - at which I point out that being investigated for kiddie porn is a very quick end to every political career. If you don't like "right/wrong", then think of "effective". There is always a more effective way to do things. This is how to blog more effectively.
First - what not to do. DO NOT cut and paste a press release and expect anyone to even act like they see it. There is nothing that says, "I really can't be bothered to engage you people," like posting a press release. Okay, actually saying that may be half a step lower on the ladder of idiocy.
DO NOT pretend like you aren't connected with the campaign/issue if you are. DO NOT register as different usernames to reply to your own posts and pump up your own volume. We busted Jill Hazelbaker for this when she was losing a campaign for Tommy-boy Kean. We'll be happy to do the same to you - because it tells us, loud and clear, that you think we're dumber than a steaming pile of dog droppings on a silver tray under glass. Telling people they are stupid is just generally not a good way to get elected.
DO NOT only answer our calls or emails when you have something that you want to get more attention. You don't treat the folks at the Star-Ledger that way - or, if you do, it will explain a lot about why you are struggling. And throw us a freakin' bone, for Heaven's sake. If this was easy to do you'd have a site with a few thousand hits a day already. Bob Menendez at least told us "keep..on..blogging" during his victory speech. It isn't going to rank anywhere close to MLK's Nobel Acceptance speech, but we know he knew we were working.
Also - DO NOT email or IM one of us and ask if we'll front-page your latest effort. Chances are that we have either seen it or are busy doing something we get paid to do. If we haven't seen it, we will soon. When we look at it, we'll make a decision on whether it is worth putting on the front page or not. Some stuff simply isn't news - like a four hundred year incumbent getting an endorsement from the Mumblypeg Progressive Group. Sometimes - sorry to be the one to break it to you - the writing just isn't up to par. We don't tell you what to put on your next mailing, don't tell us what to put on our front page.
Today was the DFA training session that took place at Raritan Valley Community College and below are some photos from the event. I'd estimate about 100 people came out for the training, which continues tomorrow as well. Also, our very own Jay Lassiter had a chance to interview DFA president (and Howard Dean's brother) Jim Dean (not to be confused with the famous sausage entrepreneur). We'll have a podcast of the entire interview hopefully by Monday, but for now, here's a video clip of Jay asking Jim about the future of blogging.
When Congressman Rush Holt blogged his campaign kickoff yesterday, he noted that he's reaching out through the internet in order to "seek input from citizens." During our discussion yesterday, Rosi asked Congressman Holt where he stood on a discharge petition which would "requir[e] the President to develop and implement a plan for the withdrawal of United States Armed Forces from Iraq," and would force 17 hours of debate on the issue. Holt responded that the text of the bill, which calls for a withdrawal plan by Dec, 2005, is already outdated, but that he would sign on to it since this is the best chance for a discussion on these important issues.
Yesterday, Rush Holt became the 117th signer of the discharge petition. Rush Holt really is a different kind of Congressman. The internet and blogging in particular isn't just a curious gimmick for him. He sees it as another means of communicating with constituents and in that regard, he's well ahead of most of his colleagues.
All politics is local, yet local politics is what the public tends to know the least about. That's why municipal governments can often get away with outrageous things that wouldn't be possible if a little bit of sunlight were cast to add transparency to the system.
That's why I think it's great that we have blogs like Hoofin to You! (Bridgewater), The Truth Hurts (Evesham Twp), Everything Newark and Tammany on the Hudson (Jersey City) to keep an eye on local matters. There are also a couple blogs that track Congresscriters in the 2nd (2), 7th and 11th (2) districts. But there 13 Congressional districts, 21 counties, 40 legislative districts, are 566 municipalities in the state.
Do you know of any other blogs in the state that focus on local politics? If so, let us know in the comments so we can add them to our blogroll. And if one doesn't exist in your town, county or district, consider starting one up, and let us know about it. With blogger, it's easy (and free) to create a blog.
The podcast has been a huge success so far. There have been over 100 downloads today alone (click here to subscribe). The website continues to grow - today our 300th registered user signed up. If you haven't signed up yet, you should do so now.
Tomorrow, Congressman Rush Holt will join us on Blue Jersey to give his response to the State of the Union address, and to have a live discussion with us. You must be a registered user to join the discussion.
Several other Members of Congress will be responding to the State of the Union through blogs as well. Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr will be blogging at NJ for Democracy and Congressman Jim McDermott of Washington will be blogging at WashBlog.com. Make sure you register for an account at those sites, too.
We're very excited to announce that our first podcast is live and ready to download. If you've already subscribed to our feed through iTunes, it should download for you next time you start the program.
For this month's podcast, we sat down with Congressman Rush Holt to hear his thoughts on the upcoming State of the Union, political blogging, NSA domestic spying, rising energy costs, the President's upbringing (hint: it involved immersion in oil) and more.
On Medicare Part D: "I'm not going to accuse them of designing it to fail - although that thought has crossed my mind."
Holt answers the question: "Where are the Democrats?" and shares his thoughts on how to regain a Congressional majority.
If you're already subscribed to our feed, the podcast should download for you the next time you start up iTunes. If you have iTunes (free download) and haven't yet subscribed, just click the button below to subscribe to our feed. Otherwise, you can access the mp3 file directly through this link.
Today Jan 20th, the Philly NPR show "Radio Times" did a cool interview with the Atrios blogger in their second hour.
I sure am learning a lot. It's worth checking out. the link to the show is here http://www.whyy.org/91FM/radiotimes.html
We're very excited to announce that our first podcast is live and 
