In the 2006 cycle the candidate who attracted the most support from Blue America donors was Ned Lamont, with his campaign that served notice on the Democratic Establishment that the grassroots was unwilling to just eat up whatever crap it was served up from Inside the Beltway hacks. Blue America raised over $77,000 for him in our first year in action. The following cycle, saw another inspiring progressive primary challenger, Donna Edwards, attract the most donors and the largest amount (almost $65,000). It may be too early to tell, but it looks like 2010 cycle will mark the year of Alan Grayson. It's still only 2009 but Blue America has already raised over $30,000 for him-- without having even made an official endorsement! We've been collecting contributions for him at No Means No, a page dedicated to members of Congress who voted against Obama's supplemental war budget in June, and at Getting Grayson's Back, a page dedicated to standing up for him when he got GOP noses out of joint by telling the truth about their health care obstructionism.

Today Blue America is joining a netroots money bomb effort on behalf of Grayson, urging our community to band together and answer the Inside-the-Beltway and Villager mentality that says there's no room for a plainspoken truth-teller like Grayson in Congress. Nevermind, they tell you, that he studied economics at Harvard, then worked as an economist, then studied law at Harvard and then successfully pursued war profiteers and Bush cronies in Iraq-- even before being elected to Congress in a Republican district and becoming the scourge of banksters and assorted evil-doers dragged before the House Financial Services committee. No, to the Villagers, he's all about "outlandish rhetoric;" he's "the left's Michele Bachmann;" he's "pugilistic" and a "wing nut."

Rep. Grayson joins us below in the comments section where you can see for yourself he's quickly become the favorite member of Congress of Democrats and independents from across the country. And please, help out with the money bomb today.

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The Villagers on the Chris Matthews panel all agree on a couple of points. The dirty f-ing hippies on the left have no right to demand anything of President Obama and were silly to think he’d live up to his campaign promise to reform our health care system. And two, any bill, whether it’s terrible or not that the President signs will be “transformational” and “historic”.

It doesn’t matter to them if it’s a crap sandwich which ends up being nothing but a giveaway to the insurance industry. What matters is that it passes. Andrea Mitchell seems positively giddy at the idea that it will be “criticized from all sides”. That’s a good thing Andrea?

While I agree with them on Afghanistan and that the President did not promise to get us out of there, President Obama did promise some real reform on health care and he also talked about cleaning the lobbyists and their influence out of Washington. This is hardly what’s going on now with Max Baucus and his lobbyists writing the health care bill in the Senate Finance Committee.

And Clarence Page conflates going between single-payer and the public option to the compromises being talked about now. Note to Clarence Page. Going from the public option to a trigger—or no public option at all—is not the same as hedging between single payer and the public option. One is an already bad compromise that might lead to reform. The other is just loading up the pockets of the insurance industry by forcing everyone into the system with no price controls.

Transcript below the fold.

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Chris Matthews is getting all hot and bothered because liberals in Congress and from the netroots are pushing hard to get a public option included in health care reform. That's called legislating, Chris. It's a long, hard process sometimes.

The Village really gets upset when dirty f*&king hippies get uppity and speak out on issues that matter. Villagers don't care that America voted in Obama with a mandate on health-care reform. Villagers don't care that America rejected conservatism, which practically caused the world to almost spin off its axis. It's getting to the point that Tweety is pulling stuff out of his pie hole because he hates us so much. And apparently Tweety forgot that "the left" was elected in droves in 2008. "The Left" is not a fringe teabagger, tax evading group, it dominates the House of Representatives. Here he is on Andrea Mitchell talking about Obama and Afghanistan and see where Tweety goes with it all.

Matthews: Everybody is doing their politics here. She represents San Francisco and she represents, I know the Speaker's role. you have to respond to the nosiest elements in your caucus, and the most passionate and apparently, I assume just knowing the Democratic House, the voices she's hearing from every single day are the left who want out. Now this president never promised to get out of Afghanistan. And he's not gonna...

He never promised to pull out, that was the good war, the necessary war. Oh, by the way he never ran on the public option. Somebody's got to tell these people on the left and the netroots and some of our colleagues, yeah, he might like the idea of a public option, he may prefer it. He didn't run on it. He didn't get elected for it. So this idea that he somehow betrayed a left wing mandate is nonsense.

Where to begin. Why is it OK to attack Nancy Pelosi for representing San Francisco? What did they ever do to Bill O'Reilly and Tweety? Aren't they part of the US of A too? That she is from the Bay Area somehow minimizes the fact that she's the Speaker. On Afghanistan, he's right. President Obama did not promises to withdraw from there. That's why we on the left have to put pressure on the administration or we could be there for decades.

But President Obama did campaign on the public option., It was part of his health-care plan that he unveiled in the primaries. I asked Ezra Klein to verify it for me and he did.

Berkeley's Jacob Hacker, who was the first to persuasively articulate it; to the Economic Policy Institute, which fleshed out the specifics; and to the Campaign for America's Future, which took the lead in selling it to advocacy groups and the presidential campaigns. John Edwards picked it up and made it central to his proposal, and the other candidates followed suit to protect their left flanks.

And I found that Paul Krugman has it also.

The idea of letting individuals buy insurance from a government-run plan was introduced in 2007 by Jacob Hacker of Yale, was picked up by John Edwards during the Democratic primary, and became part of the original Obama health care plan.

Tweety needs to apologize to President Obama, the netroots and the liberals in Congress who he just smeared in this clip. We are fighting for real health-care reform in America and not some mythical-bipartisan Beltway compromise bill that is completely useless to all the real working families that the Villagers like to pretend they speak for all the time.

(h/t Heather at Video Cafe)

Dkos released yesterday the first public polling numbers on Ballot Question 1 in Maine, which asks voters if they want to repeal the marriage equality law passed by the legislature and signed by the governor.

We are up by the narrowest of margins: 46 YES, 48 NO. That is essentially were we were at this point in the Prop 8 campaign, prior to the Yes side's devastating ad campaign.

The other side is excited about these results. From a Yes on 1 press release:

We are encouraged by the results of a poll released today by Daily Kos which shows that Mainers support protecting marriage between a man and a woman over legalizing homosexual marriage by a 48-to-46 margin.

Our lead is particularly significant given that the poll was conducted after our opponents had the television airwaves to themselves for two-and-a-half weeks and our ad had aired for just two days. It is clear that their message of fairness and equality do not compel voters to support homosexual marriage, particularly against the backdrop of the serious, real consequences to individuals, small businesses and religious organizations that we raise.

They are right. We are yet to see the effects of their messaging on the polling and that makes me really freaking nervous. We have never won a marriage fight at the ballot box. Losing in Maine would really set back the marriage equality movement, particularly after all of the momentum post-Prop 8.

But we all have the power influence the outcome of the race.

Maine is small. (For us out in California, it is really freaking small.) They are only expecting about 500k voters and have a budget of $3 million. They are as they like to say, "a cheap date".

That means we, the netroots can have a huge impact on this race.

I'm proud to announce that Blue America's 2010 ActBlue page is now live and No on 1 Maine is the first campaign to be list. They need your help to make sure unlike the Prop 8 campaign can stay up strongly on the air and continue to build their robust field program.

Give whatever you can. Early money is much more useful than late money, especially when so much of the vote will come in through the mail.

If you have some airline miles to spare, you can donate them here to fund volunteers traveling to Maine for a week, as part of their volunteer vacation program.

I'm headed to Maine myself in a week, on loan from the Courage Campaign. I can't wait to work beside the wonderful volunteers featured in this video:

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Well, you can't say Andrew Breitbart doesn't have an active imagination.

The Hollywood right-winger went on Glenn Beck's Fox News show yesterday -- guest-hosted by Judge Napolitano -- and proposed the following conspiracy theory: The White House is collecting e-mail addresses so it can send out "netroots gangs" to physically attack and intimidate its critics.

Breitbart: Well, what people need to understand here is that they're being community organized. And the White House absolutely understands how the Internet works, and understands that there are countless blogs, Media Matters, the Daily Kos, which are collecting information and putting out the disinformation.

What the White House wants to do is create a hierarchy of who its enemies are. Every week, or periodically, they meet with the netroots. And the netroots acts as an action gang that can go out there and attack the enemies of the president and attack the enemies -- the, the, the people who would attack his plan.

So it is vital for this White House to find out who its enemies are, and then to sic its gang of netroots people on the American people.

Breitbart goes on to contend that the non-prosecution of two Black Panthers for polling-place violations was connected to this conspiracy:

Breitbart: That sends a direct message to the netroots people out there: Don't worry, this administration has our back. Those people that would community organize on behalf of the president and his initiatives will be protected.

Yeah, I should have guessed that black-radicals/liberal geek connection from the Black Panthers booth at Netroots Nation last week.

Wotta maroon.

The progressive blogosphere is rocking D.C., and we really want to thank our readers for their support in our drive to reward the supporters of the public option. Progressives in Congress are learning what it means to do the right thing by your actions. Please donate if you can.

And Digby reads the NY Times and gets annoyed because they can't frakkin' read.

This NYT story indicates that it comes as some sort of surprise that progressives have just suddenly decided to hang tough. That's just not true. I first wrote about this back on June 3rd:

Darcy mentioned to me that this week is an important moment in the health care debate, in which it might be helpful for members of the netroots to weigh in with a little positive reinforcement to the progressive caucus, which has been holding the leadership's feet to the fire on the public plan option. Everyone pretty much agrees that if that goes down, health care reform will be a meaningless shell game.

I was somewhat surprised frankly (in a good way)to hear the the progressives caucus had pulled together on this one and was actually wielding some clout. They represent over 70 m4mbers of congress, which is a big bloc of votes. If they can stick together on the public plan, it will happen.

If one of these House members is your Congressional Representative, all the better. But contact one or more of them even if they aren't. They need to know that people other than lobbyists and big donors are engaged and informed on this and that we know what's at stake with the public plan.

The Village seems to have just awakened to the fact that the progressives are holding the line, but they've been organized around this for months.

Digby is usually ahead of the curve when it comes to matters of intelligence. There are so many people that have helped in "holding the line," but if you read the MSM you'd never know it.

Blue America, CPC, PCCC, DFA, C&L, Hullabaloo, Howie Klein, KOS, the Courage Campaign, Calitics and FDL -- to name a few -- have been targeting the House and the Baucus Dogs in the Senate for months now. Kudos to all. You know that the Ben Nelsons are dying to get their grubby hands on some of our money, but they'd have to act like real Democrats for that to happen.

This was a really productive discussion, and I'd like your thoughts. I talked to Joe Sestak (PA-7) backstage after the panel, and he told me he would start a netroots caucus in the House - and one in the Senate if he wins!

It might be the answer we're looking for; I believe it could increase our clout. (As someone commented to me today, politicians just don't care about one $20 contributor. But a few thousand $20 contributors can inspire a little respect.)

If Joe makes this happen, it means that caucus members will keep us informed on developments regarding our issues, and it means that caucus members who respond to our issues will be able to use us as attack dogs more effectively. This seems like a win/win.

Rep. Pat Murphy (PA-8), an early netroots favorite who joined the Blue Dogs after his election, approached me in the convention center lobby and quite enthusiastically told me if there was a netroots caucus, he would "absolutely" join. (This was after I first called him a few rude names over his FISA vote. But we kissed and made up, and he told me to call him any time I had a question. The fact is, he is with us on most of the issues. Not all, but most.)

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I grabbed Darcy Burner for a quick minute to say hi to C&L's readers at the 2009 Netroots Nation shindig. She was recently named to serve on the board of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation. It's been an amazing time and just before she did this video, Darcy was named to give the keynote speech Saturday night. Good times.

The netroots has made a huge stand for health care reform and we're not sitting around doing nothing. Blue America hit Blanche Lincoln hard which forced her to write an op-ed in Arkansas to try and redefine her position and now the PCCC and DFA just hit Ben Nelson in an action called: Health care Can't Wait. Lincoln, who is up for re election took an approach in which she informed her constituents that she's considering the public option now which is a good start, but Ben's response was to cry, stomp his feet and declare that health care reform will be killed if Americans stand up and demand that he be part of the solution.

Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) lashed out Friday at the ads being run against his position on health care reform in his home state, saying they would backfire -- and might even derail the entire reform process.

In a statement issued late in the afternoon by Nelson's office, spokesman Jake Thompson warned that if the new series of ads calling out the Senator's "stalling" on reform were "an indication of the politics going into August, then health care reform may be dead by the end of August."

"Nebraskans don't need outside special interest groups telling them what to think. Senator Nelson has nothing but praise for Nebraska groups working toward health care reform. Unfortunately, he says, these outside groups undermine the sincere and dedicated efforts of people in our state," Thompson wrote. "Recently, similar ads have run in Nebraska. Those ads by other special interests prompted hundreds of Nebraskans to call our offices, with 9 to 1 urging Senator Nelson to do exactly the opposite of what the special interest group wanted. In short, the ads backfired."

Politicians who dare to say that they will kill health care because the American people want change just proves our point about the gasbags that reside in Washington that rule our country for themselves and not for the people they were elected to represent.

Olive Willis:

They seem to think that the support they got in 2006 and beyond is going to keep them up if they just have a (D) behind their names. Conservative democrats who obstruct meaningful progress in Washington are the political equivalent of Bush Republicans, and they’ll be treated that way.

Do your job, Senator.

We will not back down and we will not go away. Blanche Lincoln will hear from us shortly too.
PCCC and DFA are doing their part and so are we. Please donate to Blue America's Health Care Choice so we can keep the pressure on.

Joe Sestak made a video to thank the netroots for our support during the Sestak/Specter Straw Poll.

Adam Green:

By creating one place where the public, political insiders, and the media could look to see the grassroots discontent with Specter and the level of support for Joe Sestak, progressives could alter the environment in which potential challengers made their decision about whether to run -- and alter the media dialogue to make the idea of a primary challenge less far-fetched.

Below are over 35 media stories and blog posts about the Straw Poll's launch and the final results -- personally, I'm most thrilled with all the local media coverage...read on

I want to thank all the C&L readers who participated in the Straw Poll. We had an enormous number of our readers weigh in. One of the main reasons for this campaign was to send a signal to the Beltway elite that christening Arlen Specter out of the gate as he actively voted against the party was not OK by us.

Digby has some good news:

More good news on the progressive front:

A group of progressive operatives from MoveOn and labor circles have teamed with a prominent Internet pioneer to try to give the Sam Bennetts of the world the final push they need -- and send even more Perriellos to Congress. The organization will be the first of its kind exclusively to focus on electing progressive Democrats in congressional elections.

It won't focus its energy on unseating conservative Democrats, but Green, a cofounder, didn't rule out the possibility. Instead, it will prioritize competitive open-seat primaries and help general election candidates like Bennett and Perriello run effective campaigns.

The group's first forays are likely to be in the Illinois district vacated by Rahm Emanuel, who left to become Obama's chief of staff. Green says the group is in talks with a progressive labor lawyer, Tom Geoghegan, in that district. Another potential target: the California district emptied by Hilda Solis, who's been tapped to be labor secretary. "Our belief is there are many more Tom Perriellos out there who are on the cusp of winning," says Green. "There's a pattern of progressive candidates who are written off in the beginning and who come inches away from victory, but lose due to inefficient campaigns.

Check out the 'Bold Progressives' website:

The PCCC is a new PAC dedicated to helping bold progressive candidates run first-class campaigns and win.

  The Nation:

Protesters are storming Barack Obama's website. But they all support Obama.

A grassroots group of activists has been organizing on MyBo, Obama's official social networking portal, to protest the Senator's recent decision to back controversial legislation granting the President more spying powers. The effort hit a big milestone on Tuesday afternoon: It is now the largest self-organized group on Obama's website, topping networks that were launched over a year ago. The spying protest, "Senator Obama - Please Vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right," launched last week. (See Obama Network Organizes and Revolts Over Spying, The Nation.)

Membership spiked to about 8,900 people on Tuesday, edging out a student group with roughly 8,600 members, and one organizer estimated that the growth rate reached a rapid four percent during the daytime. The group initially spread through the Obama network, since the site's platform instantly connects members through a dedicated email listserve. On Monday, for example, over 200 emails shot across the wire, reaching the roughly 2,300 members who opted to receive individual messages. The exchanges ranged from policy debates, like whether immunity was acceptable if the telephone companies acted in good faith, to organizing strategies, such as promoting the group on sharing sites like Digg. Then some activists open-sourced the project, creating a wiki-hub for additional actions -- from calling Obama's office to urging Keith Olbermann to promote the group -- and launched partner groups on other sites like Facebook.

"To reach number one, we're going to need all of us to start talking to - and emailing - their family and friends," wrote blogger Mike Stark in a missive to the group at 3:46am on Monday. "[Obama] said he'd open up government and respond to the people instead of the special interests," he added, "so let's force him to respond."

 You can join the Sen. Obama, Please Vote Against FISA Telecom Immunity here.