I have a couple of pieces of news to pass on this afternoon: One, I will be slightly curtailing my writing on MyDD for the next 10 weeks or so. Two, as a result, we have brought on Josh Orton to write for MyDD on a full-time basis.

Some might have noticed that I've been a bit quiet this week. To give everyone a heads up, the reason why I have not had an opportunity to write much this week and why I'll be slowing down for about two months (though writing more than I have in the past three days) is that I have begun work as a summer associate in the Political Law Group at Perkins Coie in Washington, DC.

For those who are unfamiliar with the firm or the practice group, Perkins Coie is rated as the top political firm in the country. The firm's clients include the Obama campaign, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaigns of various Democratic members of Congress, various Democratic candidates around the country, and other Democratic interests.

Because of the nature of the practice and what I will be doing for the firm over the course of the summer, it is important to me to make clear that what I write on this blog constitutes my own opinions and not those of the firm or of its clients.

You know me. You know how I write. I am a supporter of the Democratic Party, and will continue to be. I largely write about campaign and elections, and, to the extent that I will be writing this summer, I will continue to write about campaigns and elections. In short, I do not foresee that taking this position for the summer will significantly impact the content of my writing. Nevertheless, I am entirely in favor of as full disclosure as possible, so in addition to this post I have updated the About MyDD page and my user page to make clear of my work at the firm.

Now to the more exciting news, the addition of Josh Orton to the MyDD team. Those who have been around the site in recent weeks likely have noticed that Josh brings a lot to the site in terms of quality and depth of analysis. Prior to coming on board at MyDD, Josh served as executive producer for the Majority Report with Sam Seder and Janeane Garofalo, and worked in press and online outreach for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Obama campaign. He also currently serves as the political director for Netroots Nation. As you can see, he's a great addition to the site.

We're almost at the end of the 2008 MyDD Fundraiser.  Soon there won't be anymore Please Contribute to MyDD Today links and that means we only have a little more time to do the right thing and make this campaign a success.

I just made my own donation and I'm proud to tell you a little bit about why I did.

I made my own modest contribution, because I know that the money I contributed will go directly to defraying the expenses of two extraordinary bloggers and pillars of this community, Todd Beeton and Jonathan Singer.

These two guys work their asses off on a daily basis to bring you unmatched political reporting.  I know, because I've seen them in action.

Yesterday, I was at the Obama rally in Alexandria where Todd, after a late night covering the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Richmond, was listening to an education round table event with Senator Obama and some concerned citizens.  When I say he was listening, I mean it.  The whole room could hear the Senator, but only one small speaker was picking up the feed from the other participants' microphones.  While many national reporters took this as an invitation to catch up on their email, Todd was part of a small group clustered around that one speaker, listening to the Senator answer questions about special ed and math homework.

I walked over with Todd to the main event, a rally in the home gymnasium of the T.C. Williams High School Titans of Remember the Titans fame - I wrote about it earlier here.  It was my first Obama speech since the 2004 convention, but Todd had seen a pretty similar speech the night before, so he jumped in the car to drive an hour North to Bowie, Maryland to hear Bill Clinton speak.

The night before that, I was hanging out with Jonathan Singer, who isn't letting a full course-load at law school get in the way of his work for this site.  It was a Saturday night in a city of beautiful women and strong drinks.  Or maybe it's strong women and beautiful drinks, it doesn't really matter.  The point is, that he spent most of it on the couch in my apartment watching election returns and blogging.  I finally dragged him out a little before midnight and despite the late evening, he was up before me the next morning to watch Dubya' on Faux y Amigos.

I can't say it any clearer, Todd and Jonathan are deeply committed to this community and this movement.  They support our habits as political junkies and their insights make us better activists.  Now it's our turn to support them.  Please give what you can so they can keep going and make MyDD even stronger in 2008.

Click here to contribute.

Hi, I'm dipping my toe back in the water here at MyDD for a brief moment.  In June, Chris and I launched OpenLeft to explore politics in a more explicitly ideological direction.  Since we left, Todd has come on board here, and Jonathan has really put his stamp on this place.  I miss posting here, but it is a different place now, one that the two of them (and Jerome) have really created along with all of you.  They took MyDD, which if I may say so was a great blog, and have made it simply indispensable.

Now, I could go on and talk about how awesome they are, but that's not the point of this post.  Blogging the way they do, with 50K people screaming every day about how they are biased against one candidate or issue or another, while going on the road and doing interviews and constantly scanning the news, is hard.  It's really damned hard.  It's also incredibly fun, which is why they do it and why all of us are here and write diaries and whatnot.  But it doesn't really pay the bills, and it's axiomatic of our society that there's no such thing as a free lunch.

The reason the corporate media is so shitty is because it's free.  NBC and CBS and Fox News don't charge you anything for their content, because you are the product that they sell to soap companies and car companies and defense contractors.  They don't really care about the truth and they certainly don't care if you know what the truth is, because the truth to them isn't very profitable.  In fact, if NBC tells the truth about the war or the housing bubble, they may cost their defense contracting or financial services arm more money than they make in a whole year of advertising at CNBC.  You are their product, so while their content is free, it comes at the cost of systematic lying.

Blogs are different, but they are not immune from the golden rule, that he who has the gold makes the rules.  If you want Jonathan and Todd to be limited in what they can do, in the interviews they can get, in the places they can travel, then by all means keep them dependent on advertising from soap companies, movies, and progressive nonprofits.  I can assure though that content on MyDD that you consume every single day will suffer in ways you will never notice, but that will be immensely costly to all of our understanding of politics and ability to affect change.

If you believe, as I do, that quality in content is important and that it is way more expensive in the long-run to consume lies for free than to pay for truth today, drop $50 in the kitty for Jonathan and Todd.  Truth, like our democracy, is only sustainable if we fight for it, and sometimes that means investing in the people who are obsessed with bringing us news, content, and often original information with a deep sense of integrity.

Let's keep this institution growing and flourishing, and together we will change the country as fundamentally over the next thirty years years as we have in the last five.  

So please, throw them some coin, and thanks for letting me come back for a moment.

Today's a travel day for me as I head up to Portland to celebrate Thanksgiving. But before I board my flight, I wanted to note quickly that it has now been two years (and a week) since I joined the team here at MyDD on a full-time basis.

I has been a very enjoyable couple of years for me (as I hope it has been for you, too). I have had the opportunity to interview most of the major Democratic presidential candidates, as well as dozens of congressional, senatorial and gubernatorial candidates around the country. I have been smacked down by Charlie Cook (though I think my prediction didn't pan out too poorly). I have made some predictions that have turned out pretty well (though Lord knows I've made some poor predictions in the past, too). And I wrote a post that apparently convinced the media that I didn't in fact exist (and that neither did Matt Stoller, Chris Bowers or Scott Shields). Fun times.

Anyway, given that it's that time of the year, it's worth saying that I'm thankful to be a part of this community, which I continue to believe is as good as they come on the internet, and look forward to continue to do some good things with you over the next while. Happy Thanksgiving.

Feel free to also consider this an open thread... What's on your mind?

Yesterday posts appeared on Kos and MyDD telling of the disasterous new numbers that have been polled for Mitch McConnell recently. While these numbers were music to my ears, I noticed that only one link to one potential challenger of Mitch McConnell, Crit Luallen was linked in the story.

I guess I'll start explaining why I'm leaving MyDD by giving you the real story of why I'm in politics, and what I actually believe.  I wish I could say that it starts with a noble battle with developers, a war, or a fight with an employer, but the reality is that it's a lot more petty and unnoble.  It started with my relationship with my immediate family, along my relationship to the past.

I have a quick announcement to make to the MyDD community if you'll indulge me for a moment. I am excited to announce that starting next week I will be doing netroots consulting for Congressman Earl Blumenauer, my representative here in Oregon's third congressional district.

You may know Earl from his blogging here on MyDD and at Daily Kos, his comments on sites like Blue Oregon, his strong backing of Democratic candidates around the country in 2006 (you can read his response to the "Use it or Lose It" campaign here on MyDD), or from his support for the Yearly Kos convention. You may also know Earl from his strong progressive and forward thinking stances like bringing an end to the war in Iraq, calling for improved levees for New Orleans long before Hurricane Katrina, and working to reform federal farm policy (including reducing costly sugar subsidies). The bicyclists among us may also know Earl as the founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus.

Now for an important note: The views expressed by me on MyDD (and MyDD Blog Talk Radio, etc.) should not be read as reflective of those of Congressman Blumenauer. In other words, unless expressly stated, I don't speak for the Congressman. That important disclaimer aside, I'm stoked to be working with someone on Capitol Hill who really gets it and look forward to helping get out his message so that he can work even more closely with the Netroots to effect positive change, both here in Oregon and around the country.

Usually I feel more comfortable asking the questions, but last week the tables were turned on me by Paul Van Heden of Brainshrub.com, who hosts a program, "Tips for Political Bloggers", on WPVM-FM in Asheville, North Carolina. Every week or so, Van Heden speaks with a political blogger of just about any ideological stripe about blogging, politics and basically what they do all day. If you're interested in taking a listen to some of my thoughts on the Netroots, how I got into blogging, how others might and things of that sort, you can check it out in the player below.

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I'm not the first MyDDer to go on the program. Back in November, Van Heden interviewed Adam Conner about his experiences in blogging, including for MyDD. You can listen to that interview below.

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