The best district blog I've seen so far is OH-02, which covered the Hackett race, and continues coverage of that district to this day. You might email him for advice, or maybe he'll post here.

blog.oh-02.com

The issue in CA-26 is the campaign and getting support from them. Once they agree that a campaign/district focused blog is a good thing and they will support you then everything can fall into place.

I've not been impressed with the actions of our candidate but its a long way from  election day! Maybe he'll catch fire. But in Claremont, the most liberal part of the District by far because of all the colleges (I used to live nearby most of my life), his answer to why anyone should believe he was going to win was, " Well, last time he only won with 13,000+ votes and his opponent only had 50K. We have 200K+."

That's a damn weak answer. And as of 5/17/06 he had 105K available against a candidate with $2.9 Million on hand and that doesn't count all his other resources.

I hope his fundraising is going to go better. Certainly having Wes Clark's very personal endorsement is helping.

They need a good blogger that will have regular chats with the candidate, create a community site to keep the district up to date on activities etc.

You can get blogger software for free or use any of the free blogging services. Personally I'd use a Content Management System or maybe SoapBlox that is easy to use and can create a community. Scoop is too complicated unless you're a computer guy.

Certainly the campaign should announce the Blog, once ready, to their entire mail list. Claremont could be your start with the college community.

You could get press coverage of the public launch of the blog in the Claremont Press...maybe even the Pomona paper if done right. I'd start a Drinking Liberally chapter at the same time to give supporters a place to go and get together. That outfit recommends two meetings a month. I might consider starting another on the other end of the District so there's a meeting each week.

Certainly, the candidate should be posting weekly on what's happening. And the campaign and the blog should be collecting email addresses!

There are many other things that can be done including Flash Audio and Video if the campaign were interested. And they can be distributed by email.

I think you'll find Brian at Calistics a great help! There are a lot a local SoCal bloggers that would help with advice etc.

To track Dreier try Govtrack which will track any member or issue. Also set up a Google search for anything that is about a person or issue. (That Google News Search works. As of today, starting from the Draft movement I have 1075 pieces that mention Clark in one form or another.)

But it all starts with the CANDIDATE and his manager, if he has a professional...last I heard it was a relative..., agreeing to be REALLY supportive.

Remember this campaign is attacking one of the most powerful members of Congress. A good well promoted blog might really help.

Claremont should be core of his support and volunteers I would guess.

Good luck. As you can see I've thought about this race a little.

Thanks so much for all the thoughts. (I haven't finished digesting them.)

I don't think I was quite clear enough on one point though...the blog is up!

Seth in CA (for the summer

Do you think it'd be really effective for my blog to have community-type aspects rather than Warner's site? I've got experience with Drupal and Joomla so it's certainly possible, but would it be useful? Are there other Congressional race specific blogs where the community features have proven effective?

The real test of a political blog is the extent to which it is an INTERACTIVE COMMUNICATIONS TOOL. First thing I look for is the number of COMMENTS. If there are no comments it is just like a piece of campaign literature...or a static Website. The message from the Dean campaign three years ago is that the Internet can be used to move people from their keyboards into the streets. The challenge for the political blogger is to create an engaged motivated community that will work for the candidate. It goes without saying that the candidate must use the blog to "converse" with potential voters.

This is a little more specific than the other comments, but it might be useful.  In my local race the democratic candidate has a rather weak web site, and doesn't do much in terms of publicizing corruption ties to the incumbent.  So I started doing the work myseful using the FEC website.  Every time a new scandal comes out I search all the players (Abramoff, Scanlon, Pombo, etc.) to see if their is a monetary connection using this page:

FEC Transaction Query By Individual Contributor

and then ctrl+F/apple+F to find the incumbent's name on the list of contributions.  I was the first to show that the incumbent had taken money on two occassions from Neil Volz (of Abramoff fame).  In fact I have yet to see the challenger mention it.  So someone has to do the work.  With Drier's connections there certainly must be a lot of dirt to dig up.

I would check in with http://districtblogs.com/, I believe they are doing exactly what you're thinking of for various other districts.

I started writing a blog for Al Weed in the VA-05 back in February. I already knew about him because he ran in '04, but I went to talk to him about some opportunities to connect with the netroots and he just sucked me into his campaign circle. Since then I've had the opportunity to inject blogospheric ideas into the campaign, developed a readership which (though small) includes other bloggers and even some reporters, and pursuaded the campaign to pursue a psychographic poll (still waiting to see if that works out; they cost a lot of money).

As for letting other CA blogs know you're there -- email them and ask if they want to get press releases when the Communications Director emails them out to the papers. This way you get to touch base with each of them once and there's some direct contact between the campaign and the blogs. Whether or not every blog-reader knows about you, the blog-writers will, they'll blogroll you, and when there's something big on your blog, they'll link to it.

Check out the Virginia Blogger Summit. 75 bloggers from both parties and around the state, as well as political reporters from all over, are coming to UVA for a weekend to meet, eat, and talk. Our keynote speaker is Jerome Armstrong (Jerome Armstrong!) how cool is that? Find some big CA blogger and get him to help you publicize a blogger summit of your own. Ours was set up by a local blogger and his wife.

These are just some general suggestions; hope they help.

Oh, and get some big CA blog to host a liveblogging session for your candidate, just like RaisingKaine is hosting a LiveBlogging session for Al at 2 p.m.

I grew up in Dreier's district until I left for college. Subsequently the CA Dems gave my hometown to Adam Schiff, who I am not a big fan of.

The problem with David is that he's in DC nearly the whole time and rarely if ever comes back to the district there. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have exploitable avenues.

1) David Dreier is one of the many GOP legislators in the closet. No one ever seems to bring this issue up...but then again the gay nightlife in DC outshines San Dimas anyday.

2) David Dreier is one of the biggest GOP turncoats on immigration. He used to in the 1990s rail against illegal immigration and shutting the borders and now he's a big reason that resistance for strong border security has to come from Duncan Hunter and James Sensenbrenner. Simply going around and highlighting his hypocrisy on the issue would probably fill your blog's pages.

3) David Dreier is eagerly trying to get federal money to build an extension of the light rail system through his district. It's not feasible for the local and state authorities in Los Angeles County to fund, so he's going to dig up the $3 billion or so to do it from the federal coffers.

4) David Drieier is perhaps the biggest whore to the Chinese government in Washington. He's never met a bill for either trade relations or diplomacy or worker standards non-protection he doesn't like.

The 26th race will soon become a huge focus of national energy. If you look at registration statistics, this district is more winnable then the Busby, 50th district. Add to that the fact that Dreier recieved on 53% of the vote in 2004 and you have a mix that can lead to a democratic victory in 2006. I know Russ Warner and he is definately the man to do it. He can represent the people of the district and has the life experience to understand the issues. Looking at the other candidates, Cynthia Rodriguez Matthews has received virtually no endorsements, has raised no money and has hardly any support. The one thing she had going for her was her was name recognition from the crazy 2004 campaign, which she lost when she changed her name to add in Rodriguez. The third candidate, Hilsman, has done no campaigning, received no endorsements and does not plan to spend any money. Russ Warner is the front runner, clear favorite and the person to unseat Dreier. Looking forward to hearing more from you regarding the race.

Hello!

Claremont's great, isn't it? I attend the high school, and it's sort of a funny place; there's liberalness associated with the colleges, yes, but there's also a strong Republican contingency nearer to Baseline. Of course, most of the high school is just apathetic, but that's a whole other issue.

As for the district, I wouldn't call it political contested; it was made the way it is to permit the four around us democratic leanings, so it would be a very pleasant but very startling surprise if we managed to sweep the entire area. Rancho's demographics are definitely changing, so it's possible - although, unfortunately, the newcomers tend to be pretty apathetic themselves. Hopefully their apathy will benefit us more than Republicanism might.

Anyway, I've been involved with our MoveOn group out here and met some pretty cool, involved people. Claudia Strauss is the group's leader; her email is straussri@aol.com. You should contact her! It's a great group, and even if you don't wish to be involved, she can help you locate some good information. We've some pretty excellent campaigning things, and definitely some associated with Dreier as well - Claudia can explain better than I can. Recently - although I haven't been super involved, with AP exams and finals and everything - they definitely have been working with Russ Warner; Bob Gereke (gerecke@surfside.net) is spearheading that one.

Personally, I went to a house party for him and wasn't hugely impressed, particularly because of his opinions on the Patriot Act and Iraq war, but I'd take him over Dreier any day.

You probably know as much as I do about the campaign, as I've been less involved than I'd like to be, but here are a couple of important points:

- Dreier is gay. No big deal, right? To us, perhaps, but the Christian Right doesn't like him for it. The part I don't like is the fact that his partner is his chief of staff, who also happens to be the highest paid House chief of staff by a considerable amount. What kind of uproar would this cause if this chief of staff were his wife? I'm certain it'd be getting more attention - and this from the politician championing clean politics!

- Dreier is in a curious position with his own constituents. Why, just today, I got not one but two different pieces of anti-Dreier literature in the mail -- but they weren't sponsored by local Democrats or by MoveOn. One came from Christians for Honest Government; another from a self-avowedly Conservative Republican challenger named Sonny Sardo. Both mailouts let loose tirades on their party's champion, criticizing in particular, of course, his record on immigration. To you or I, this record would be quite obviously and solidly Republican, but in a district where race relations are becoming increasingly tense, it's unsurprising that this rhetoric has entered the political sphere. Because Dreier has not voted 100% anti-anyone not white all of the time - arguably something he could not have done if he wished to remain in office - these groups are spending a lot of money and effort getting their message, and hopefully their disliked politician, out. Who knows what the effect will be; I'm somewhat jaded, personally, and I think that neither Sardo nor a democrat will unseat Dreier, who is a pretty powerful guy with some pretty powerful positions. It would definitely be to our benefit, however, if Sardo were successful in his challenge, as I would be very surprised if he could win the race overall.

- No one ever seems to talk very much about Cynthia Rodriguez Matthews, but she's another Democratic candidate, and I, personally, quite prefer her. She's very anti-war, very pro-immigration, and a very active, smart, capable woman. For all of these reasons, she will probably neither be the Democratic nominee nor the victor in the race if she were indeed so lucky with the former achievement, but she is definitely much more of a person and much less of a plastic face than Mr. Warner appears to be. I met her at the Farmer's Market last Sunday and got a road sign and was at least nominally impressed. I suppose my point is that her issues deserve coverage, too, even if politically Warner seems the district's best chance.

Good luck in your endeavor! I think this is a very important issue to cover, unusual for a district as solid as ours.

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