Amanda has announced her resignation from the Edwards' campaign.

Announcement at Pandagon:

I was hired by the Edwards campaign for the skills and talents I bring to the table, and my willingness to work hard for what’s right. Unfortunately, Bill Donohue and his calvacade of right wing shills don’t respect that a mere woman like me could be hired for my skills, and pretended that John Edwards had to be held accountable for some of my personal, non-mainstream views on religious influence on politics (I’m anti-theocracy, for those who were keeping track). Bill Donohue—anti-Semite, right wing lackey whose entire job is to create non-controversies in order to derail liberal politics—has been running a scorched earth campaign to get me fired for my personal beliefs and my writings on this blog.

In fact, he’s made no bones about the fact that his intent is to “silence” me, as if he—a perfect stranger—should have a right to curtail my freedom of speech. Why? Because I’m a woman? Because I’m pro-choice? Because I’m not religious? All of the above, it seems.

Regardless, it was creating a situation where I felt that every time I coughed, I was risking the Edwards campaign. No matter what you think about the campaign, I signed on to be a supporter and a tireless employee for them, and if I can’t do the job I was hired to do because Bill Donohue doesn’t have anything better to do with his time than harass me, then I won’t do it. I resigned my position today and they accepted.

May I say this is the most opportune moment for all bloggers, but most important feminist bloggers, to consider the importance of what's next?

I don't see any other way around it but we are now playing big leagues. The stakes are too high to drop the ball and go back to doing what we know best to do : rant at 'the man', pick blogfights, rally around other people's political interests, rinse and repeat.

We have influence.

We obviously have some power.

We need money to use it like a club.

We need a Feminist BlogPAC.

The taste of victory, albeit small, has been sweet. Whomever said feminists and gays don't win elections obviously did not expect for a coalition that included feminist and gay of organizations and bloggers to win one for the democrats with the election of (not-yet-minted) State Senator Craig Johnson (grock, how I love to say that).

It was not just empowering but a truly historic election.

Which is why today I was fixing to post my thoughts on a feminist version of BlogPAC and I got pinged with the news that Amanda had resigned. The timing could not be more ... timely?

As I woke up yesterday morning, I couldn't shake the feeling that what we are witnessing and experiencing is real change. That we are mired in something historic for which we need to have in hand resources and money. Because with blogs and good intentions alone we cannot take further into action our commitment to a rebirt of democracy in the United States.

I really don't see our movement maturing without money to grow it in the first place. Which makes Amanda's situation not a setback but an opportunity.

Chris Bowers wrote this late last night :

MyDD :: Why Attacks Against Bloggers Fail:

But I want to return to the point of this post, which is how the blogger "scandal" didn't hurt Edwards at all. This poll was conducted during the heart of the flap over the issue, from last Monday until last Thursday. Not surprisingly (at least from my perspective), it turns out that the advice of the conventional, establishment consultants who thought McEwan and Marcotte should be fired was completely wrong. Instead of facing any negative repercussions, Edwards actually ended up with a slight bounce in the polls. Maybe we should call it the Marcotte and McEwan bump, since the progressive netroots is chock full of Democratic primary voters.

Once again, Republican attempts to make Democrats look bad though guilt by association with us crazy bloggers were a miserable failure. The reason why is simple: the vast majority of voters will have no idea this "scandal," ever happened, and most of those who know it happened will have forgotten the next day. Bloggers, even the most prominent ones, have national name recognition numbers in the single digits. Even after 300+ newspapers picked up one of more of the various wire reports surrounding the flap, and even after numerous cable news network segments on the story, I still bet that less than 10% of the country knows this happened. Further, I bet there are basically no undecided, general election voters among that 10%. Anyone who knows about the story is already locked down hard into one partisan camp or another. As such, there is simply no way that this story will, in the long run, have any measurable, negative blowback for the Edwards campaign.

This report confirms my take on these bloggers events : When it comes to the general public they have no impact.

The problem though is that bloggers are not just the general public anymore as in "citizen journalists". We happen to be an increasingly organized block of political influentials.

As long as we are influencing 'the people who know people' and the decision makers in the parties and Capitol Hill, we will make and break campaigns. Which is why that poll is a bit misleading.

Rasmussen has not polled influentials, the blogger's real base and constituency. If they were to poll us, the numbers may be significantly different.

Which is why Amanda's departure from the Edwards' campaign should not be taken as a sign of relief. It should be a warning.

The Bill Donohue's who litter the political landscape are stooges in a bigger fight. Bill Donohue the stooge is a mere distraction thrown by the extremists in their fight to dismantle our democracy.

I believe we will enjoy using Feminist BlogPAC to fund candidates who would enjoy tearing a new one to the fundies.

Feminist bloggers represent a larger group of issues bloggers that are becoming better networked and thus, more influential. Once we have money to wage out battles, we may well be the force that not only swings but decides 2008. We need be able to go after Donohue and all the motherfuckers who support them with a vengeance.

We are in this to win, not just to cheerlead from the sidelines.

Extremists : Y'all on warning.