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Yes, that is a live cam, and yes, that is me (and Ryan) in the office, talking to people on the phone who want to become members of the FDL membership program. If that’s a group that includes you, click here or give us a call (yes, call me!) at (202) 506-3907.

Our goal is 1000 new members.

[But wait! There's More!]

We had a FANTASTIC webinar conference with our members last week. We wanted to know what they thought FDL’s role should be in the 2012 election, and beyond. Every person who wanted to speak about their ideas got the opportunity to do so, and we got to hear a lot of amazing suggestions:

  • Marion M: Get nuclear power plant loan guarantees out of the 2012 budget
  • Spocko: Build teams and train them to work together to question candidates effectively at town halls
  • Tim F: Find a way to communicate without the web, protecting our community in the event ‘someone’ decides to terminate or severely limit access to the internet
  • Spocko: Get FDL members on corporate financial conference calls to question their Citizen United and Crossroads funding
  • Kelly C: Create a member working group to develop both the standards and technology for FDL candidate scorecards
  • KS Populist: Focus on redistricting
  • Dean M: Work on campaign finance reform – strike at the root.
  • John A: Build stronger media infrastructure, strategic political infrastructure, and coalition building so that we can mass our energies and speak with a louder voice.
  • Susan V: My first concern is protecting the environment. If our planet is trashed, we’re SOL
  • Donald S: Jobs, jobs jobs.

There were people who thought Obama should be primaried, and people who thought we should stay out of the Presidential race entirely. There were people who wanted to focus on Congress, and others who wanted to ignore elections at the federal level and work solely on state races. Some wanted to work on electing better Democrats, some wanted to focus on the Greens, and some wanted to form a new third party.   Still others wanted to use the election as an opportunity to get movement on issues, and ignore candidates altogether.

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Clearly there are a lot of different ideas that need to be explored further. Everyone’s suggestions were treated with respect, and we focused on what kind of “next steps” we could take as a group to learn more about them.

We’re in the exploratory phase right now, and we’re going to be inviting experts on to   talk with our members on  future webinars before any conclusions are reached.  We want to create an environment for learning about what’s possible.  We’ll also be dividing up into member committees to explore different options.

And we’ll be constantly asking our members what they think, and what they want to do, in surveys that we share with them so that we can all have an idea of where we stand as a community as we make our plans for the future.
It is a really exciting effort, the 3.0 version of online activism, that allows us to use new technology for a much more interactive working relationship with the FDL community. And we want you to be a part of that.

Our goal is 1000 new members.

If you’re not a member already, you can join today right here.  Or, you can call me at (202) 506-3907 and do it over the phone.  As you can see, Ryan and I are standing by to talk with you right now!