Progressive Caucus Campaign Committee

I've been thinking lately about how to take on the Clintonistas in control of the purse-strings of the Democratic Party. They're anti-progressive, and wasteful with "their own" money. Exhibit A: Hillary spent $30 million on a campaign against a mayor from Yonkers who she was going to beat by 50 points one way or another. All she needed to spend was about three grand: $2,750 for a facelift, $200 for a makeover, and fifty bucks for a limo to the victory speech.

Contrast the Beltway Feudalist System she and acolyte Rahm Emanuel operate under with what Howard Dean said at the shin-dig all state Democratic party officials from all over the country threw for him:

"We are going to do the 50-state strategy for the next 150 years so we can be the dominant party power in this country again," he said. "You can't be the powerful party in this country who controls the government unless you are willing to let the people control you. And the only way you can do that is ask everybody for their vote, understand everybody is our boss even if they vote for you or not."

We need to start a Progressive Caucus Campaign Committee. Why? Oh, I dunno. Maybe to spend campaign donations wisely and back candidates who represent actual living, breathing people. Rather than immortal, massive legal entities (corporations) and the moguls who control them, like the system does now. To take it on successfully, we'll have to understand how it feeds itself, and then out-compete its food source through better efficiency and attacking its weakness. Researching how the netroots were so effective placing their relatively small amounts of funding, and demonstrating the high bang for the buck quotient they must have achieved, will provide Howard Dean (and us) with the foundation needed to eclipse the inside-the-Beltway DCCC machine. Getting this research done will be an ongoing project, and I'm going to need ideas and help. Where would you start?

Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake put me in touch with Howie Klein of ActBlue. He's on vacation in South America for a month, and I want to have a good plan for putting data together by the time he gets back.