I'm going to control myself all day today (24 hours... starting... NOW) and not do one ask for a candidate-- not even for Donna Edwards or Angie or Victoria Wulsin, Tom Allen, Charlie Brown or any of our other Blue America candidates (although make sure you come back Saturday and meet Jon Powers). But you thought Blogosphere Day is all about asking for grassroots donations right? It is. And in past years we helped some great candidates, like Ned Lamont and Paul Hackett, get their candidacies off the ground.

But this year we've decided to try something different. The infrastructure behind our Blue America Page is ActBlue. About a year ago one of the founders of ActBlue, Ben Rahn, was our guest for a chat and he explained how ActBlue works. Since 2004 our online community has raised over $25,000,000 for Democratic candidates through ActBlue. Ben tells me we can fly past the $100 million mark in this election cycle-- but they need to build up their infrastructure a bit to handle that. That's what Blogosphere Day 2007 is all about.

So far ActBlue has had 200,000 individuals contributing to around 1,700 candidates. Many of these contributions are for $5 and $10 and $20 and the power of 200,000 people loving our country and what it's about enough to donate what they can afford is a power the Republicans will never duplicate. Their donations come primarily from businessmen looking for special consideration and for government handouts. Our contributions elected a Democratic House of Representative and a Democratic Senate and in 2008 we will elect a Democratic President. Together we are powerful. I want to plead with you today to help insure a blue America by helping ActBlue stay strong and vibrant. Remember, even $5 helps build an America that will be safe for our families. Here's the place to do it.