The Forecasts were great and should be repeated. And the Use it or Lose it was truly great for getting a much better idea of who is owning up to being in the Democratic party via activity, as well as keeping them in line with the action against those who are not up to snuff. Net Neutrality is obviously the issue that if lost has the chance of killing any use for sites such as these, and the netroots at large.

For new ideas, I'm always like the person who just gets comfortable in a chair, then realizes another pillow is right at my feet to be used. I tend to think, "Man, there are so many good things out now, there can't be anything else we haven't thought of." And then I'm proven wrong within at the very most a month.

The Use It of Lose It project was very helpful--one could really measure the impact.  Next time I'd start it earlier in the cycle.

Adwatch was good, though I hope that you shared the feedback with campaigns.

Googlebomb was useful, though without an active website or blog I could just cheer you all on.

The CA-50 polling was arguably the most important thing done this cycle--depending on who read it.  Perhaps the situation will come up again, though we should be sure that the results of the poll a) can be widely applied (as in this case) and b) that they are.

I found the awareness-raising/advocacy material, like Use It or Lose It and the Net Neutrality series, to be the greatest contributor to the larger cause. I did enjoy the forecasts as sort of a guilty pleasure, and I used ActBlue several times.

You've already begun what I'd like to see happen next, at least peripherally. I would love to see the netroots grab onto New Orleans make it our cause. It's so hard to keep focus on a crisis that's been ongoing for so long, but if we can muster the political will, maybe we can really make some good happen down there.

For my personal benefit, the House forecast was awesome. And it seems like Use It Or Lose It had some good impact, so I'll give that one the other double-super-big thumbs up.

I'm not sure what the activist element would be, but the best thing that could happen for the left would be an alliance between labor and the netroots (something starting to happen on MyDD).

The most divisive split we've had has been between the well-educated who have historically cared most about social issues and the working class whites who are more liberal economically. The netroots and labor overlap demographically with this divide, even if that split is less salient now than it was 20 years ago. An alliance would help to ease internal tensions and make everyone stronger. Moreover, the only way to end poverty in America is to change the existing power dynamics of the economy by organizing workers.

Maybe it's posting info from SEIU and UNITE-HERE about how to help with organizing drives, broken down by region. An ActBlue page for strike funds when necessary? Helping locals to develop an internet infrastructure if they don't have one?

The distinction here was the soundly ethical way in which this was conducted.  It involved reputable links of actual, substantive ethical problems about these candidates.  It wasn't jokes like "miserable failure" and "flip flop" as in 2004.

It reminds me of that Adlai Stevenson quote:  "I'll make a deal with the Republicans, if they promise to stop lying about us, we'll stop telling the truth about them!"

We'll never know how many votes it turned, but I think it has positive effects beyond just 2006.  Each of those media outlets will have seen elevated hit counts on the negative republican articles.  That might incent more good journalism about corrupt GOP reps.  Each voter that read one of those, had their opinions shifted just that little bit to the left.  Some will have voted democratic, others are just that little bit more convinceable for 2008.

The best part, is that it takes advantage of the progressive netroots massive size advantage.  The media treats the left/right blogospheres "equally" (arguably favouring them actually), even though we smash them numerically.  Google, by virtue of being a computer algorythm is immune to the need-for-balance meme.  We can post way more links than they can, and google will reward our selections even more.  Fighting on our turf.

For next cycle, we should certainly consider including positive write-ups for any especailly endangered Dems next cycle.  We didn't lose any this time, but that won't happen in 2008.

I'd suggest we consider googlebombing other things, not necessarily people - terms like "universal health care", "socialism", "liberal" or the like.  Let Americans who want to look up major issues or concepts find the info we want them to find...

I suppose picking the googlebomb isn't very ethical of me.  I actually ended up being most into the one that I originally supported the least- the polling of CA-50 and the resulting memo.

I thought all the action projects like the Candidate memo, the Use It or Lose it,  the Google Bomb (brilliant idea and must have been an incredible amount of work), the Adwatch, etc. were wonderful and had a real impact on the election..

I loved all the forecasts and read them obsessively.  They saved my sanity.

I confess I did not read the Candidate Interviews.  Capsule summaries would have been better for me, although I realize that an interview is fairer to the candidates..

If the largest block of non voters in 04 was single women, who are surely a naturally Democratic and even Progressive opportunity, would it be possible to do some polling or even some Greenberg-type message testing on them? What, if anything, would motivate them to go to the polls and vote?  They could really help us in 08.

I saw Charlie Rangell on C-Span today moderate a panel of mayors--which included Bloomberg.  Rangel felt that mayors could lobby Congress more and have more impact.  I would love to know more about this.  If any one is willing to profile the big city mayors or to figure out how they could have more of an impact on social policy, that would be fascinating and perhaps useful.  The Democrats are going to need all the help they can get to pass their agenda.  

Those were some great projects for 2006. I'd like to see more projects that other bloggers and blog readers can participate in or help out with, like the Googlebombing for example (which I participated in).

Another thing MyDD might look into helping sponsor is the 2008 Race Tracker, which is currently sponsored by the Swing State Project.

I really wish that the Googlebomb had never happened.  It makes research of connections between electeds almost impossible.

As many here know, I have been working to bring Mike Ferguson's stuff to light for years.  But toward the end of the election if I tried to find a connection between Ferguson and anyone else on the list I got sites with all the Google bomb efforts and nothing real.

Plus, all the folks who stuck the Google bomb in their templates would up showing in the Google results for Mike Ferguson (or any other person on the list) and tons of keywords.

Essentially, the Google bomb effort as practiced here nearly destroys the ability to use the Internet for research.  

I'd recommend everyone remove this stuff from their sites and let real content show up in the results.  Otherwise you will just have people looking for info about members of Congress leaving the web and looking elsewhere.

A single name, word or phrase Google bomb is funny.  But this kind of mass effort is ultimately self-defeating.

What other ideas do you have for what we can do next?

Follow the race for the Virginia House of Delegate race in the 13th District. Featuring Republican Bob Marshall (not related), sponsor of the loathsome Marshall/Newman Get the Gays amendment. The Democratic candidate is Bruce Rommelt, all around good guy.

This race is critical for Virginia Democrats to take back the state legislature and a great opportunity for netroots to help lay the ground work for Virginia to go Democratic in 2008.

I've increasingly found MyDD to be the most useful blog for my interest, which is gaining a better understanding of "the political situation" and the various elections/activities across the country.  WRT the past cycle, MyDD impressed me in two categories of projects: things that no one else was doing, and things that significantly added to the momentum of other projects. This is tied to the role of MyDD, and where it fits in. I mean, we don't have the readership of Daily Kos, but we are at least as important in creating BW for our audience. Our audience includes activists, campaign volunteers and workers, and mainstream press.

(1) Ad watch.  You know, I didn't personally track these articles, but I don't think anyone is holding the ad agencies' and consultants' feets to the fire. Money ill-spent is just wasted.

(2) Act Blue. "Money doesn't talk it swears". If we can deliver votes and money, then we are inevitably significant to the political process. Combining with Daily Kos and many other blogs, a call to Act Blue can shift significant cash in one day to key campaigns. This tie-in between information and advocacy to cash contributions and votes turns us into a significant player, like Move On, Emily's list, or any of the larger single-issue advocacy groups. Hmmm. Anybody keep a summary list of how much came from where?

(3) The two (?) polling projects really interested me. Did they have an impact? I'd like to think that they high-lighted the importance of Iraq. But, perhaps more imporant was the fact of doing the polls, analyzing the results and publication. It is like MyDD were a magazine or newspaper, with the readership journalists, campaigns, activists.

Not useful

The forecasts. I know much effort went into them, but ehhh. I personally liked them because I'm a data geek, but I don't think they were significant mainly because there are already so many other forecasts out there. What did they add to the national dialogue, or even the blog dialogue for that matter. Did they help our our understanding? Mystery Pollster aka Pollster.com blew everybody out of the water by the end.

Not mentioned

MyDD (and some of the other blogs) were extraordinarily helpful with something we can't get in our daily newspapers, political magazines or Al Franken or Terry Gross or even our local blogs: MyDD is uniquely able to create of name recognition, early notice, early funding, creation of buzz and awareness on new candidates. Especially in the recent election which had such a rapid expansion of vulnerable seats. The BUZZ was nicely tied in to the Actblue pages.

Second. We were pretty effective this past cycle at creating candidate buzz and seed money. This has begun to have a significant effect on the MSM. I know it might not seem like it, as there are still so many clueless journalists, not to mention reactionary publishers.

All year I noticed the stain of BW creeping into articles and op-eds here and there. I would bet that if you surveyed the readership you would find a large number of journalists. It makes sense. We have well-placed writeres in every political district if not in the campaigns themselves. Journalists are news junkies like any political activist. Their nature drives them to track stories like a hound dog.

Finally, The 50 state project. We provided major cover for Dean in the face of demands to satisfy short-term tactics.

Remember a sense of Perspective

Although I feel we have significance in terms of influence (if nothing else, our readership is well-placed), the blogs are really a very small segment of the voting public. We can creat buzz, and shift early money, but we don't directly affect very many people. It is similar to the situation of party activists vs the primary voters. An insurgent candidate might be able to do very well with the high-information, passionately political people who attend party caucuses, but that same candidate can fail in the broader forum of party voters at the primary.

What does this mean in practice? We are only one force with a little bit of influence on what happens in the Democratic Party. Even growing 10-fold we can't change things by ourselves. We have to think about our allies, and how we relate to them.

Could we take a stab at coming up with some basic things we'd like to see from those running for the Democratic party presidental nomination?

There's going to be a lot of differing opinions, but I think a lot of coming together on things that we can agree on.

I offer up the following as a begining for discussion:

1) Supportive of labor, minimum wage increases

2) Against NAFTA, CAFTA, and other such agreements and policies that make it easier or reward american corporations to move jobs overseas

3) Serious about alturnative energy investment

4) Serious about dealing with global warming

Your ideas?

The psychographic polling was, I think, by far the most interesting thing you all did here. It was incredibly informative.

As far as what I'd like to see repeated... I'd love to see something like the CA-50 poll done again, but obviously it would have to be for a different purpose the next time around. I'd love to see some retrospective polling on a majority minority district, or multiple districts combined into one polling universe.

The premise is that black voters are far more engaged where there is a black mayor, or a black candidate is on the ballot, but since candidates in majority minority districts are usually so safe, what we really need the vote totals for is the upticket races, so we need to know why some vote and some don't.

I don't know the electoral landscape all over the country, but the VA-03 would be an example of a district where that might be useful (or you could pick a sample that spans several districts, maybe including some with large numbers of latinos). It's Bobby Scott's district in Richmond, VA. He runs unopposed and gets 90% of the vote every time, but if turnout in the VA-03 had matched republican turnout statewide we would have had 70k extra votes (according to someone else's math), and the Webb-Allen race wouldn't have been close.

Here's my favorites:

1) The two CA-50 polls.

2. The Candidate Memo.
   
3. The House forecast.
   
4. Net Neutrality coverage.
   
5. Use It or Lose It.
   
6. Adwatch.

Some thoughts about the forecasts:

I think Chris' House forecast did bring a number of things to the table that other sources' lists of competitive races didn't.  It had well-grouped tiers of pickup opportunities, which resulted in an impressively accurate final forecast.  (Tier 0: 11-13 pickups, got 13.  Tier 1: 11-12, got 11, with a few still in play.  Tier 2: 4-5, got 4.  Tier 3: 0-1, got 1.  Wow!!)  Getting permission to include Charlie Cook's PVIs added insight, as did the Dem Cash %, the incumbent's 2004 margin of victory, whether the seat was open, or had a one-term Pubbie running for re-election, or what...all sorts of good info in one place.

The two things that the 2008 House forecast should include are (1) some index of how cheap or expensive that district's media market is, and (2) some index of how much the parties and outside groups are spending in the district.  I wish I'd known before contributing to Burner's and Duckworth's campaigns that they were in a couple of fairly expensive media markets that the parties were going to dump millions into; I'd have taken my money and given it somewhere where it would have more effect.

But on the whole, Chris' House forecast gave me a sense of the state of play for the House that I wasn't getting anywhere else.  Great job.

By comparison, though, the Senate and gubernatorial forecasts were probably wasted effort.  Since only a handful of races in either category were being contested, we could all look at the latest poll results and pretty much do our own scorecards.  But having a good guide to the House races was indispensable, and I found Chris' to be the best.

I have been pushing the idea and will keep doing so :)

An organized progressive takeover of college radio stations. These stations are open to the public as part of their community service commitments. Lets organize a way for people to easily get shows on college stations--this will both spread ideas and incubate progressive broadcasting talent. A perfect project for mydd. my email is sonandar at gmail dot com -- and i live in philly.

Keep up the Net Neutrality coverage. It's still unresolved.

One of the things that I am working on is a new project called BlueRecruit where we very early on identify ten to fifteen districts that are tough but winnable but highly unlikely to attract initial DCCC and national support and build the kitty to attract high quality progressive candidates with an early cash infusion to build their initial campaign infrastructure in 2008.

   Chris has noted several times, most recently after the TX-28 loss of Ciro Rodiriguez that the netroots have the habit of getting involved late in the picture for most districts, and that kills us as the surge money in the hands of weak candidates is wasted.  If we are able to start attracting good candidates eighteen months out, our playing field of winnable seats dramatically expands as we will have better candidates, and the seat at the table for the netroots as a whole gets bigger as we will be piloting a capability very few national organizations currently possess.  

    I am writing the business plan now, but I would greatly appreciate any thoughts on this type of project.  Either post them here, or e-mail me at fester986@yahoo.com

hard to pick just one project.

as for new ones to add, hmm, is there a way we could do even more to connect state and local campaign offices with the resources (human, financial, legal, media) they need?  

not suggesting a training institute or internship placement project, but just a way to find out what's needed, not only in a few competitive districts but throughout the 50 states as we build the party.  

obviously this idea isn't even half baked yet.

if MoveOn gets its voter phonebank project tweaked up for 2008 so that Democratic activists don't have to duplicate efforts, and all the rest of us build up fundraising, media, and field, we will kick butt.  

I like all 14 projects!  Seriously.

Looking forward to the time between now and the 2008 election cycle, I see five major areas where MyDD can help: state organization, redistricting, developing our leaders, challenging the media, and advancing our national agenda (no order of priority intended or implied).

(1) State Organization.  Facilitate organizing the states down to the precinct level so that each precinct has a captain and an assistant captain, and each neighborhood has a "neighborhood lieutenant" and each block has a "block sergeant".  This is particularly important in large states such as California, which has 25,090 precincts, low voter registration, and low voter turnout.  In addition, we need to get progressives onto county central committees to exert influence at the local level.  Finally, when election time rolls around, we need to have a coordinated effort among unions, MoveOn, local party workers, and other allied groups from the state down to the precinct level.  I bet we can use the net to do all this.  

(2) Redistricting.  The 2008 and 2010 elections provide opportunities to elect governors and expand control of state legislatures.  This is important for legislative reapportionment following the 2010 census.  In 2010, we will need an effort to make sure that everyone is counted in blue states, so that we can increase the number of House seats (read: "Electoral Votes") in states friendly to Democrats.  Then we must make sure our Democratic legislators create Congressional and statehouse districts that are maximized to Democratic advantage (as opposed to maximizing for incumbent advantage).  

(3) Leadership Development.  We must support leaders in the Democratic party who support us, encourage younger ones who are with us, and challenge those in office who are not (possibly Tauscher CA-10?).  One aspect of this is early identification of candidates, especially for major offices in large states.  For example, now is the time to begin looking for a Democratic candidate for Governor of California in 2010.  One name that comes to mind is Jackie Speier, who just termed out as a state legislator.  She has a good track record as far as I know.  Rumor has it she may want to replace Art Torres as chair of the California Democratic Party and is interested in becoming Governor even though she lost a primary bid for Lt Gov last June.  Thoughts, anyone?

(4) Challenging the Media.  We must hammer the press for bias and incompetence whenever and wherever they occur.  I think MyDD could act as a catalyst for a sustained effort in this area.

(5) Advancing our National Agenda.  Having prevailed in the November elections, we are now in a new phase of this fight.  Thresholder has an excellent diary on this very point and how we must change tactics, using the prescription drug issue as an example:  The Game Has Changed, Folks:
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/11/27/124 116/17 . Some other issues with mass appeal are increasing the national minimum wage, lowering college tuition, and, as mentioned in a previous comment to this diary, rebuilding New Orleans.  These are some issues where we can throw down markers and clearly define ourselves.  There are also less sparkling but very important matters such as net neutrality that we need to ride herd on, all while motivating slackers, protecting our newly-elected Democrats, expanding the legislative field, and reclaiming the White House in 2008.  All of this must be done without the leadership and guidance that comes with a strong executive.  With a large group of Representatives and Senators, we are now in the "cat-herding" stage, and we need to make sure our cats don't become fat ones imitating the GOPigs feeding at the K Street trough.  MyDD can help round up the stray cats and pressure the others to advance the legislative agenda while holding the administration accountable on Iraq and everything else they have done or failed to do.

In addition to the five major areas outlined above, MyDD might be able to suggest specific experimental policy initiatives at the state level and help find Democratic legislators willing to sponsor them.  Some states are acting on health insurance.  California acted on the minimum wage and greenhouse gases.  Along these lines, the following might be worth pushing at the state level to help increase party growth, voter registration, and voter turnout:

(a) Beefing up the content of high school government classes to require active participation in the political process such as either poll watching, being a poll worker, working on a campaign, attending local city council meetings, etc.

(b) Making registering to vote a requirement to graduate from high school and/or attend a publicly-funded state college or university

(c) Revoking the drivers licenses of those who are eligible to vote but don't

There may be flaws in these specific ideas, but I toss them out for consideration, along with the overall idea of state-level experimentation.