grassroots activism

Yesterday I had a bit of fun at the expense of the Republican noise machines and their efforts to paint themselves already as a loud and marginalized minority in Capitol Hill. I was so caught up on the moment that I didn't blog about it until this morning but Kenneth Quinnell described it as a "Twitter Bomb" and has happy to spread the word :

Twitter Bomb

This wasn't my idea (although I came up with the cool name), I think Liza Sabater was the one who started it, but it's too brilliant to pass up.

Those of you who are on Twitter, send as many tweets as you can over the next few days with #dontgo in them. The conservatives are using this hash mark (like a tag) to spread misinformation about offshore drilling and their latest publicity stunt. What Liza and a few others started doing was to flood that hash with counter-commentary or irrelevant posts. Sort of like a google bomb, this can either disrupt what they're doing or, at the very least, annoy the crap out of them. We can all do this.

Whatever you're posting on twitter, try to fit #dontgo into it. And make sure you include the # sign, which is key.

If you aren't on Twitter, this might be the type of thing to get you into it.

And before I even start to explain, let me break down the lingo for you.

Recently, Republicans targeted one of the organizations they fear most: MoveOn.org. Their excuse was an ad MoveOn.org ran that essentially accurately accused General Petreus of betraying American interests by mouthing the Bush line on Iraq. And sadly, several Democrats went along with them. In the discussions that followed, I have heard comments accusing MoveOn.org of being more of a problem than a benefit for the Democratic Party. Well, I think it might be time to remember what MoveOn.org did in 2006. From the MoveOn.org website:

* Volunteers made 7 million phone calls, organized 7,500 house parties, and launched 6,000 in-district events. More people volunteered in 2006 than in 2004.

* We raised and spent $27 million in this two-year election cycle. We spent $25 million on taking back the House. Over 250,000 members contributed $3.6 million to individual 250,000 members contributed $3.6 million to individual 250,000 members contributed $3.6 million to individual House candidates and over $2.8 million to fund MoveOn TV ads in targeted districts.

* Our “Caught Red-Handed” TV ads demonstrated early that Democrats could win a majority in Congress by taking on Republicans others thought couldn’t be defeated. Of the nine long-shot races we targeted with these ads, Democrats won at least five.