Blogging a Red State Blue
State and local blogging is critical for building a community of progressives and working together on critical issues and elections on a smaller scale. State and local blogging is especially important in red states, where the media and the culture may not be reflecting progressive voices at all. How do you do meaningful blogging in a place where the deck is stacked against you? Can bloggers make a difference in a red state?
In 2009, I created the blog Blue Arkansas while working at a local Subway to help progressives around the state organize and push progressive values and policies. In the year since, the response around the state has been extroardinary and Blue Arkansas has become a top political blog in the Natural State. Besides being instrumental to the Draft Bill Halter effort and the ensuing primary campaign, Blue Arkansas has played a large role in a number of other races and in giving progressive values and ideas a platform they wouldn't have otherwise. And what we've done in the past isn't anything compared to what we have planned!
Karl-Thomas Musselman is the Publisher of Burnt Orange Report, a five-time Best of Austin award winning political blog. Over the past 14 years he has served as a writer, columnist, photographer, editor, publisher, founder, owner, or promoter for over a half dozen print and online publications. His has managed and worked for political campaigns as well as partisan organizations since 2003. He is currently the treasurer of the Texas Blog PAC.
I'm an internet & communications consultant for progressive candidates and causes. I have been in Arkansas for the past year and a half, first doing advocacy work for the AFL-CIO, then as new media director for the Bill Halter for Senate campaign. I've done red state blogging and coordinating with bloggers from the campaign and organizational side.
I am the founder of the Florida Progressive Coalition blog, which launched in 2005, and Florida Progressive Radio, which started in 2007. FPC, a group blog, was the official Florida blog for the Democratic Convention in 2008. I have taught college-level political science classes since 2001 and have lectured and served on panels about state-level blogging in Florida, Washington DC, Chicago, Austin and Denver.
In the past I have worked on a number of state and local campaigns and am currently working as the new media director for the Kendrick Meek campaign. My blogging and radio show are currently on hiatus while I work on the campaign, but Florida will still be a red state after November and I'll turn back to full-time blogging then.
Pam Spaulding is the Durham, NC-based founder of the award-winning political blog PamsHouseBlend.com. She has also guest blogged on Firedoglake and for Glenn Greenwald at Salon. Pam was named one of Huffington Post's Ultimate Game Changers in Politics, received the Women's Media Center Award for Online Journalism, and was named one of the OUT 100 for 2009. This year Pam also landed on Politics Daily's Top 25 Progressive Twitterers list.
