Jane Hamsher (firedoglake.com)

started with scooter libby trial

came of age when you could build a community based on opposition to george bush. fragmented with the last election.

DNC rules and by-laws committee. 1.5 million views of video of a DNC protestor. networks never covered it. they used my youtube eventually. people decided what would be news, not the networks.

we're under increasing pressure from blogs like swampland and abc news, which have learned that people want an interactive space.

in the old world, a news story that doesn't make any sense might only get 2 letters to the editor.

journalists were initially scared about blogging, but now they're happy because their jobs are being saved.

what can we do that swampland can't?

we can recontextualize the media narrative. if there's a narrative that says, don't talk about the war, then we can challenge that. which is what we did in the lieberman, ned lamont race. liberated democratic candidates to the idea that they can run as an anti-war candidate and win, and it was liberal blogs who pushed this idea.

we did an ad that we can adapt for different races. not just a community, not just commentary, but a way to change something.

we were able to flip 4 out of five votes.

liberal blogosphere is white, male, in terms of readership. tend to be old. blog-age reader is between 40 and 60 years old. affluent (100-150K/year). working to broaden that coalition. allied with immigrant groups.

steny hoyer -- fisa ads.allied with colorofchange.org

will we lose our audience with new elections? blue dog dems in the center control the house right now, getting K street money. they're open to the highest bidder.

ActBlue -- online clearinghouse for Democratic Action. (raised 300,000 in 72 hours)

Obama campaign has shown people about the possibilities of changing the political system online.

Obama 55 million dollars in March, without attending one fundraiser.