By: Kendrick Meek

As a candidate running to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate and as a four-term member of Congress with a 15-year public service record, I have taken great pride in representing my constituents to the best of my ability.  In recent years, there has been an explosion of new technologies that help elected officials stay more in touch with their constituents.  Later this week, in Pittsburgh, the top people behind the creation of that technology and the best practitioners of this new media will be gathered at Netroots Nation.  I'll be there with them learning from the best.

Netroots Nation is one of the most important annual events in the progressive movement and it is both a place where I can reach out to some of the key opinion leaders in the online world and, hopefully, a place where I can learn how to more effectively use new media tools.  I tweet, and maintain a fan page and personal page on Facebook, but new media is not only about the latest social networking sites online or applications on my iPhone.  It's about issues and public policy, and finding ways to help our economy move from recession to recovery and the men and women who attend Netroots Nation have critical ideas on how we move our country forward.

Last week, 2008 congressional challenger Annette Taddeo suggested she might be interested in a possible run for CFO.  This would be a very good idea.

If you already know about Annette and agree, go sign the petition and encourage her to jump into the race. You don't have to be a Floridian to sign the petition, either, we want to show her that people across the country support her.  And, trust me, you want talented, progressive Democrats in charge in Florida, it'll help everyone.

Taddeo ran a strong campaign against Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Florida's 18th District.  Despite widespread support and much excitement generated by her candidacy, she was unable to overcome the popularity of the incubment, who had the vast resources of her office and long career in politics to hold off the newcomer.  Taddeo did establish herself as a progressive politician to keep an eye on, though.  

Netroots Nation 2009 is fastly approaching.  The annual convention of progressive and Netroots activists takes place in Pittsburgh this year from August 13-16. There are few events that I look forward to more each year than this one.  There are few times it feels more exciting to be a blogger or a progressive activist than when one is at the meeting formerly known as Yearly Kos.

If you are an activist who uses the Internet to try to change the world, there is no better place for you to be.  What could be better than being surrounded by thousands of like-minded people, all of whom are dedicated to the same things you are, all of whom have ideas and strategies on how to make change come alive.  Regardless of the official program, the key reason you should be at Netroots Nation is the opportunities you get to interact with an undending stream of people from whom you can learn about how to better do whatever it is you do.  It's also a great place to make contacts and connections that will further your own activism and your own career.

Florida currently is in the early stages of a U.S. Senate race to replace congressional waste of space Mel Martinez.  Provided that Governor Charlie Crist doesn't jump in the race, the seat should be a solid pick-up opportunity for the Democrats. But we certainly don't want just any Democrat replacing Martinez, we want a progressive Democrat who will fight for our values and will work his or her ass off to make America a better place. That's why I'm personally endorsing Dan Gelber and will do what I can to help him win the primary.

Why Gelber?  The reasons are many, but let's start with a big first one -- he's as progressive as legislators come.  Dan is a thoughtful man who actually takes the time to understand the issues and how government actions affect people in the real world.  And he's a big fan of things like logic, reason and evidence.  Combining these things, he comes down on the right side of the issues about as often as anyone I can think of, particularly in the Florida legislature.  Take a look at his voting record and you'll be pleased to see such a principled, liberal record from a member of the Florida legislature.  And when people hit him with the same old, tired conservative Rush Limbaugh-style attacking points, he's prepared for them and can counter them as good, if not better, than the best pundits and bloggers out there.  

We know how Dan thinks and feels on the issues because he doesn't shy away from taking a stand and he comes right to the people and tells us what he's doing and why.  A simple look at his blog (http://www.dangelber.com/blog/blog_archi ve.php) will show you that he's not afraid to take his case to the people.  And that use of the blog is another big reason why I support Gelber -- he's on the cutting edge of online technology.  As I mentioned, he's a blogger, but he's not just any blogger.  Take a look at the average blog from a politician and you'll quickly be asleep.  Most of them tend to be boring -- lacking in any passion or anything that might give us some insight into what the politician is thinking or feeling.  There isn't anything dangerous on the average politician's blog -- nothing that could get them in trouble.  Gelber, on the other hand, is a real blogger.  He writes like a blogger who happens to be a politician, not the other way around.  We know what he thinks and he doesn't hold back when he goes after the other side. And he does it with a personal touch -- we actually get to know Dan. The Netroots activists of Florida recognized the quality of his blog last year at our statewide awards ceremony by voting him the winner in four categories in our Annual Netroots Awards.  That made him the top winner.  Bloggers and online activists recognized him as one of us.

With the legislative session that starts today, Gelber is going even further with the use of new media, by livetweeting the Florida legislative session that will meet over the next 60 days.  This isn't unprecedented at the national level and I some legislators in other states have done similar things, but Dan is breaking new ground here in Florida.  And with the decline of our state and local media, we'll actually know more about what's going on in the capitol by reading Gelber's tweets than we will from reading our newspapers or watching the local news. Gelber has also been a repeat guest on our Florida Progressive Radio show on BlogTalkRadio and has made public appearances at our Netroots events.  The point is he's a big supporter of the Netroots and shows that by participating in the things we do even more than many of our bloggers.

Maybe the biggest reason I want Dan Gelber representing me in Washington, though, is that he is a fighter.  I've alluded to this a couple of times in terms of his blogging and things like that, but he doesn't just sit behind a computer and throw darts at the opposition, he gets out in the real world and mixes it up with Republicans as often as he can.  He knows the legislative rules better than they do and despite being in a steep minority in the House, he was able to slow down Republican activity with procedural moves when they decided to ignore even basic rules of decorum and professionalism and prevent Democrats from even exercising their rights to free speech on the legislative floor.  Gelber outmaneuvered Republican "star" Marco Rubio and forced the Republicans to back down and do the right thing.  And he has a long track record of fighting the excesses of Florida Republicans, something that will serve him well when fighting Washington Republicans, who are mild compared to the subspecies we face here in Tallahassee.  And it isn't just on the floor of the legislature, either, when election time comes around, we know which side Gelber is on and we don't have to worry about him using his position to help Republicans get elected.

None of this is to say that I would have any problem working to make sure that Kendrick Meek or Kevin Burns (or a number of other Democrats if they jumped into the race) won in the general election.  Meek has a great voting record and it would be great to have more African-Americans in the Senate.  Similarly, Burns would be the first openly-gay member of the Senate and that would be a significant step forward for America.  I do question Meek's priorities, though, and I'm unconvinced that Burns could win the general election at this point.  I want a proven fighter representing me.  I want someone who is on the right side of the issues, knows how the system works and who believes in expanding the tools we use to change our country.  I think that candidate is Dan Gelber.

(Sent to me by a friend in South Florida who wishes to remain anonymous...)

Florida Congressman Tom Feeney gave a fake apology over his ethical troubles in the Jack Abramoff scandal, here are the facts, mixed into the original television ad...

If you want Feeney out of Washington, contribute to Suzanne Kosmas

In our fundraising efforts to attend the Democratic Convention in August, we've decided to focus on a small donor campaign.  We figured out that it'll take us 240 people contributing $25 each for us to reach what we need to go to Denver and provide you with the best convention coverage in America.  So far, we have the equivalent of 42 ($1050), leaving us 198 to go.  Anyone reading this should be able to donate $25 to help us get there.

Go to PayPal and donate through our Florida Progressive Coalition account (quinnelk@gmail.com), or you can write a check to Florida Progressive Coalition and send it to me:

One of the key things that we should start to do as activists is expand our playing field when it comes to thinking of elections.  Howard Dean's 50-state strategy and Barack Obama's commitment to fighting in every state and territory have produced results that show us this approach is one that can lead to positive change.  It can give candidates a chance to win who might not otherwise do so, it can send a message to Republicans that places they have assumed are theirs by birthright must be earned and it can sap Republican resources and make them spread their spending and activity to places they usually wouldn't bother to worry about.

A first step we can take down this road is to support good candidates in supposedly red districts.  Frequently this will mean spending money outside your own congressional district.  If we only focus on our own districts, we'll never be in the majority, we need to work together to change the state, not just our own backyard.  And the more candidates we help and the more candidates we help win, the more our congressional delegation will owe progressives when it comes time for them to vote on things like the recent FISA/telco immunity fiasco.  Like it or not, politics works on the you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours level a lot of the time.  If we scratch their backs with our votes, our voices and our checkbooks, they'll have to scratch ours.

At the recent Jefferson-Jackson fundraiser in Hollywood, I met a candidate in this exact situation.

Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress District FL-14, Larry Byrnes is challenging an unfair and undemocratic ruling that has kept him off the ballot for this August.  

The Republican-controlled Florida Division of Elections (which you may remember from its recent appearance in the movie Recount) has determined that Byrnes will be a write-in candidate in August, defying the will of the people and the intent of the law.  Laws like the one used to keep Byrnes off the ballot are meant to prevent voter fraud and to help ensure that the will of the people is reflected at election time.  

On April 15, 2008, Byrnes received a letter telling him that he had qualified as a candidate in the upcoming election.  They didn't tell him that he needed anything further.  He later noticed that his name was not appearing on the elections website.  He called the division and learned that he had not submitted a required notarized loyalty oath, which was required to be submitted the following day.  He sent it by overnight courier and it arrived by the deadline.  After the deadline, he was told that he had submitted the wrong loyalty oath.  He had inadvertently signed the loyalty oath for a write-in candidate, not a Democrat.