Political Support Update: Reinventing the Party Online

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Seattle Weekly

Berkeley, Calif., had, by his estimation, about 50 readers. Today, his blog has more than a million visitors a day and is by far the most prominent among dozens of burgeoning national liberal blogs. The readership for Kos and his other front-page contributors exceeds that of almost every daily newspaper in the country. The front page is a gateway to a vast network of blogs, threads, diaries, and links, making Daily Kos a community and a participatory phenomenon. Zuniga has managed to do something the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has almost always failed to do: tap the energy, enthusiasm, ideas, and anger of the party's activists.

And so when Zuniga and Jerome Armstrong write a book suggesting how the Democratic Party might get its shit together, people are going to pay attention. Crashing the Gate has been getting glowing reviews and is selling briskly. Armstrong is the founder of one of the earliest national liberal blogs, MyDD, and architect of Howard Dean's pioneering 2004 use of the Internet in his run for president. The pair were in the Seattle area recently, promoting their ideas and book at Microsoft, a packed Labor Temple, and a drenched Marymoor Park. I talked with them before the Labor Temple gig and again with Zuniga in Olympia the next afternoon.

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