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Master Illusionist Lyn Dillies has announced her public service campaign, "Your Vote Is Magic".  

Your Vote is Magic is a non-partisan public service campaign whose goal is to bring more voters into the electoral process and offer them information on the candidates and issues for the upcoming election.

Your Vote is Magic is currently seeking support across the political spectrum for this campaign. The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy and bringing citizens into the process to allow their voices to be heard is a goal that transcends party and politics.

Maryland 3rd district Congressman John Sarbanes is working hard to build the party and put a democrat in the white house!

Since Sarbanes is in a safe district, he has decided to build the democratic party and help ensure our success in November. The congressman is putting together a volunteer coalition to help the democratic party not just at the presidential level, but at the senate and house level as well.

Sarbanes' operation involves calls to Virginia for Obama and Warner, and canvasing and calls to the eastern shore for Kratovil in this red to blue house race. Sarbanes helps win these races for us with events every week, and an office full of activity, with the goal of building a democratic wave in November.

Manchester, Tennessee, an hour south of Nashville will be jumping this weekend with some 80,000 attendees each year for the four-day music fest that started in 2001.

The New York Times says that the festival has "revolutionized the modern rock festival."

Rolling Stone magazine dubbed Bonnaroo "The American music festival to end all festivals" and named Bonnaroo in 2004 "one of the 50 moments to change the history of rock and roll."

Think we can do some outreach?  YES WE CAN!
See how/why below the fold

Serious pandering is needed BIG time.

Oh, Daily Kos, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

It is undeniably gratifying to find my fondest views reconfirmed by even a few scattered Obamacrats and half-reformed John Edwards devotees at different corners of the country. So, whether it's my father parroting Hannity talking points verbatim, my ex-boyfriend not seeing how Bill Clinton's latest rhetorical atrocity was all that excessive, or my co-workers managing somehow to be both anti-war and pro-Clinton, it is always reassuring to have a "Calgon take me away" moment and come to Daily Kos, here to partake in the soothing leftist echo chamber, and occasional field of bloody internecine war.

So what's wrong with that? This morning, I found profounder pleasures elsewhere, and finding them, indulged myself to the utmost, so that I return to you newly incarnated a voluptuary:

Someone with more tech-savvy than me needs to do a screen-grab of what's on Sen. McCain's site right now:

*Spread The Word*

Help spread the word about John McCain on news and blog sites. Your efforts to help get the message out about John McCain's policies and plan for the future is one of the most valuable things you can do for this campaign. You know why John McCain should be the next President of the United States and we need you to tell others why.

Select from the numerous web, blog and news sites listed here, go there, and make your opinions supporting John McCain known. Once you’ve commented on a post, video or news story, report the details of your comment by clicking the button below. After your comments are verified, you will be awarded points through the McCain Online Action Center.

Featured Blogs...

Daily Kos
A liberal online community, focusing on national political issues from the liberal point-of-view. Click Here.

Yes, that's right: not only does Sen. McCain want to encourage people to promote his candidacy here, but you "will be awarded points" for trolling this site!

For what can you redeem these points, one wonders?  A $5 gift certificate for your local Applebee's?  Discounts on Fixodent?  A year's supply of Eagle Snacks?   Twizzlers?  (Who doesn't love Twizzlers?)  A "maverick" secret decoder ring?

The mind reels with endless possibilities ...

We're all fully aware of what's been going on with Mukasey's statement and the implications therein. Where we sometimes lack, I feel, is in our outreach to the "regular world." This is a critical component for us. Part of breaking the MSM's monopoly definitely lies in getting more people into the blogosphere, yes - but another part also lies in getting our additional information into the public access in our own right.

Last time I argued for the power of humour and slogans for conveying that information. Tonight I'm going to share a post I made in a non-political journal I keep on a social networking site for ravers. It's a post designed to bring the less informed and probably less enthusiastic up to speed on what happened, break down the implications, and hopefully send a few shivers - and a little steel - down their spines. And it's written informally but aggressively - it's a social networking post, but it gets the point across.

I encourage you to look into the opportunity to pursue similar ways of getting our message and beliefs and, most importantly, information out there. People don't realize how important politics can be to their day to day lives - but we do. Consequently, it is up to us to be the educators.

Article below the fold.

Politics played as a zero-sum game has a major flaw: there are three ways votes can go: your way, the other guy's way, and neither way at all.  The art of using negatives to peel away voters from other candidates has become extraordinarily well developed... and incredibly overused.

It's lead to a situation where politics simply depresses people, makes them feel like not participating.  It leads to a situation where the people who become our leaders are often the people most equipped to be divisive, in temperament and principle, and least equipped to actually gather support across different lines.

We must learn to look at politics in a manner that extends beyond party boundaries, that extends beyond the convenient borders consultants draw around Demographics.  Forget Soccer Moms: the real constituency we need to pursue is anybody we can interest.

What I have to say is going to require an open mind, so take some time to consider what I am saying. I am proposing stepping outside of our boundaries. I fear my words may fall upon deaf ears because of the strength of custom, but what I have to say is very important, so please try to step out of your habits and move outside of your accustomed circles. This is what is needed. We have to leave the corral and go out among the masses. We HAVE to. When we talk here at DailyKos, we only talk among ourselves. We have to go outside ourselves. We HAVE to! I have gone out. I have seen. Wexler's petition is NOT on the radar of many other political blogs. The media is not covering this, and there are MANY who do not know. Talking among ourselves will not produce the kinds of numbers we need. It may be uncomfortable to step outside of what we are used to, but this is the SACRIFICE we must make. It is WORK. It is not a hobby. It is DUTY. Leave your ruts and go out.

Now jump.

This was written as outreach to readers of Freedom Democrats and Swords Crossed, some of whom dismiss the risk of climate change. Republished here for those who are interested.

When dealing with an issue like greenhouse gas-induced climate change, productive discussion needs to stay focused on the practical questions: what is the general nature of the risk, and how can we mitigate the risk. Discussions of climate change often become sidetracked by non-productive investigations into the detailed nature of the risk, which are often initiated by individuals who are afraid that general recognition of risk implies that particular strategies/policies must be adopted.  I hope to keep this discussion on track by starting with these two declarations:

1. We don't know exactly how the climate will respond to our greenhouse gas emissions, and it doesn't really matter.
2. There are many different strategies available to us.  

Let me give the complete sentence from which my diary title comes:

Anything that undermines student voting is bad for politics and bad for the nation.

  That is the the final line of a New York Times editorial entitled Iowa's Student Vote   It is a sentiment with which I strongly agree precisely because I teach young people about government.  

I will below the fold explore the editorial, which is not long, and then explain why I feel so strongly about this subject.  In inviting you to continue reading, I also remind you that I have am neutral with respect to the candidates in Iowa, and that my sentiments are on principle, independent of whether the result assists or hinders the effort of any presidential candidate.

After watching the "debates", the talking heads, the online supporters, and general discussions, I am quite disappointed/annoyed about the whole primary season.  With such a long lead time, I would hope for more of a conversation, but I haven't really seen it happening that much.  Except in 1 instance, and that instance I think can be the basis for something that could change things.  come over the fold with me.

We talk to our own -- red and blue blogospheres, media outlets, newspapers, cliques at work, tribes of interest. I was reading Atrios's semi-rambling bit on field campaigns, and I thought about the problem of centralization, where a poorly organized field campaign can thus fail, centrally.

It seems to me the netroots could do something better than field campaigns.

What we need (dare I say it) is more direct, direct activism. We need person-to-person contact.

I experimented with this in the waning days of the 2004 campaign in PA. I wrote an impassioned letter, and had a friend of mine from a religiously conservative area in Pennsylvania send me some phone-book pages, and then hand-addressed, and hand-stamped, and hand-"Dear John"-ed eighty-eight letters, in mid-October. I paid for the stamps myself, got the addresses myself, and sent the letters by hand.

I'm one of the people who David Brin has been talking about in his excellent diaries, someone who is philosophically a moderate conservative but is planning to vote Democratic for the first time in my life. At this point I have little confidence in either party, but find the Republicans so repugnant that I am willing to contribute both time and money to elect Democrats. I think it might be useful for DailyKos readers to know a bit about me and the people like me, because the values that made us your opponents may now bring us together.

For some time, I’ve called upon moderate and liberal Americans to gather the fortitude and determination to fight for our nation’s survival  where it matters most.  

Not by attending rallies, or going door-to-door, or energizing the base, or hanging around like-minded people, or posting livid screeds, or even sending cash to your favorite candidate.   Those are all fine things.  But they miss the most important fact -- and opportunity -- about this crucial election cycle.  

Today’s critical issue has nothing to do with the outdated so-called "left-right" political axis.

With the very survival of Constitutional government and the American Experiment at stake, we cannot afford to leave this to simpleminded partisanship.

Our opportunity - and obligation - is to rip open Karl Rove’s "big tent conservative coalition."

To pry it apart - one person at a time - by approaching millions of decent fellow citizens who were duped into supporting a criminal gang.

One person at a time.

This Gallup Poll on 2007 Mar 26-29  registered public perceptions of politicians' interest in key issues. It contains a number of thought-provoking results, most of which are reasonably good news or Democrats, albeit fairly predictable. However, I want to focus on the American public's perception of Washington's concern for small business.

Many of my small business colleagues believe that Republicans are their champions. Yet, these are the same people that are being torn up by health care costs, excluded by big business purchasing practices and generally ignored by a government that behaves like the bankers in the Capital One ad. So, when you go over the fold and see the survey response, please stick around long enough and offer any of your ideas for ways to fix this problem. I'm hoping that a little bit of brainstorming might generate something worthwhile.

Cross posted at Future Majority

The Democratic Strategist has an interesting piece in this month's issue on how the Democrats can capture the partisanship of the "MySpace Generation."

From an historical standpoint, its a great article.  Lots of information about partisan ID of young voters between 1976 and 2006.  Watching the youth vote swing from Democrat, to heavy Republican, and back again is fascinating (yes - in the 1980's, the Republicans owned the youth vote).    It also reiterates a few key points that have been made before on Future Majority: