Texroots: How the Texas Netroots are Helping Move Texas Forward

With Matt Glazer

We are honored to write this piece for The Texas Blue; however, we must be upfront: we are only two voices in the highly active, constantly evolving Texroots community. Texas is home to one of the most vibrant progressive group of bloggers in the country, and that Texroots community (Grassroots + Internet + Texas = Texroots) is working every day to help move Texas forward.

Spanning dozens of blogs and even more active bloggers and readers, the Texroots community is home to Democratic activists as different and diverse as Texas. Still, our ultimate goal is the same: to fight to enact public policy and elect public officials that represent the best progressive interests and ideas of Texas.

A Megaphone in a Crowd

Before blogs, if a Democrat in El Paso wanted to learn about a state house race in Dallas, they had to read the Dallas Morning News and hope there was coverage on the race. Today, that same Democrat need go no further than the nearest computer, as almost any Google search on a state house race will come up with a report from a blog in the first page of results.

The Texroots community serves as a megaphone in a crowd of news. In addition to highlighting political stories from any of hundreds of press outlets from across Texas, blogs can expand on stories with additional research, often times helping to keep a story alive for weeks. Take, for example, the recent "Rent to Own" scandal that helped knock off two Republican House incumbents.

On August 28, WFAA TV in Dallas ran a story that Republican Toby Goodman was using campaign funds to pay for a private condo in Austin. Burnt Orange Report - the blog we both write for - noticed the story during our daily scan of political headlines. We posted on it the next day, and passed it around to our fellow Texroots bloggers. After a week of continued online coverage, it built steam as a real news story, and subsequent articles from the Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle made it into the first real scandal of this election cycle.

Then, Republican incumbent Gene Seaman got caught up in the mess. An article in the Corpus Christ Caller-Times led to another post on Burnt Orange Report. This time, the headline in our post ended up in a television ad against Seaman. On Election Day, both Goodman and Seaman were defeated by Democratic challengers.

Can the Texroots community claim credit for pushing the "Rent to Own" scandal? Not entirely, but we certainly helped. We firmly believe we played an important role in the process of getting the story out, an ability that is one of the most important things every Democrat should know about the Texroots community:

We can spread information and ideas in support of Democratic candidates and progressive ideas to the two audiences every political group works tirelessly to reach - Democratic activists and the mainstream media.

Breaking Into the Fourth Estate

In addition to the "Rent to Own" scandal, here are a few examples of stories that originated in the Texroots community that broke into the press:

Research carried through by Muse of the blog Musings showed that Republican State Representative John Davis was in violation of several ethics complaints. Her posts went up on September 17 and September 19. Her research led to the filing of official Ethics Complaints, and on October 8, KHOU in Houston ran a story on the local news titled, Clear Lake area politician under investigation. Though Davis won re-election, he later admitted the misuse of campaign funds.

In late September, gubernatorial candidate Richard "Kinky" Friedman was under criticism about comments he made about Hurricane Katrina survivors in Houston and comments he made during a CNBC interview - an interview Burnt Orange Report originally posted in March 2006. The interview resurfaced in the major papers after the Katrina remarks. Then, in what became perhaps the most controversial story of the 2006 election cycle, Burnt Orange Report obtained and released audio clips of a controversial comedy performance by Friedman. The controversial show made the front page of every major paper in Texas and was a story on most every major network television station.

On November 15, Eileen Smith wrote a post on her blog, In the Pink Texas, calling out Republican State Representative Vicki Truitt for filing a bill that appeared to target bloggers for libel. Immediately picked up by dozens of bloggers, the stories made waves across Texas blogs, most interestingly in a post done by Vince Leibowitz of Capitol Annex, who researched the legal consequences of such legislation. Then, in a crowning moment for Texas blogs, a story ran in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram titled, Truitt heeds blogs' ire over Web bill. The article announced that, because of attention from the Texroots community, Truitt planned "to enter substitute language in January" to change the legislation she filed.

These are just a few examples of original research and stories written by the Texroots community cracking into the press and changing Texas politics. And while not every post makes its way into the press, our posts are read by Democratic activists in every town and every region of Texas.

By building a network of committed Democrats, we are able to generate interest for campaigns, press stories, legislative agendas, and progressive ideas that may otherwise go unnoticed. Ultimately, such a network of activists can change the conversation, change conventional wisdom, and change the way everyone participates in politics.

Building a Bridge for Democrats

The Texroots community is a key part of building the future of the Texas Democratic Party. As more and more people reach out to the Internet for information, blogs and bloggers continue to play an increasingly instrumental role in every phase of politics.

In the coming months, the Texroots community is hoping to build a successful bridge to the major players in the Democratic Party. Anyone who follows national politics can see the incredible impact blogs such as Daily Kos and MyDD have on politics. Our hope is that we can do the same in Texas, and that begins with the Texas Democratic Party itself.

Over the next year, our aim is to engage in successful talks about how bloggers can work with the TDP and supporting infrastructures to advance our candidates and our causes. We believe we can play a major role in the continued rebuilding of the party here in Texas if we can develop and maintain a healthy, responsive relationship with the major players in the party. At times, that's been difficult - partially because many Democrats don't know or understand the Texroots community. Our hope is that this article, as well as many discussions we hope to have in the future, will help answer some of those questions.

Despite the diversity of the Texroots community, our ultimate goal is to help move forward. We can make that happen by following the advice of one of the greatest Democrats of our time, President Bill Clinton. He taught us that politics is all about people, and in order to be successful we must respect one another and build bridges to bring everyone together.

Texas Democrats are diverse and independent creatures. We're farmers and teachers, businessmen and college students. We're consultants and candidates, blockwalkers and bloggers. We argue because we have different perspectives, and we challenge each other because we want what's best for Texas. The only way we can build bridges to bring all those groups together is by listening to one another, respecting each other, and working together.

User Shaped Community

Online, we've already come together. The interesting part of our Texroots medium is that our users are able to fill in the vacuum of stories we overlook or are simply unable to cover. Our users can critique and edit our words in real time.

Imagine a world in which the Houston Chronicle or Austin American Statesman could be edited or changed live. Imagine the ability for those we critique to respond live. We provide that ability because of the dynamic nature of our medium of communication.

Our readers shape the debate and move the conversation along without any prompting from writers or editors. The readers self activate to make phone calls, get out the vote, spread a story virally, or donate to a cause we mention.

We represent our interests and ourselves when we write, but readers contribute to our online community in more ways than we can truly appreciate. They are the ones that further the development of the Texroots and our sites.

After all, if we truly want to do our best for Texas, then isn't it best we all move forward together?