I just typed a 500 word post about yesterday that I lost because of our hotel's Internet access. This is my attempt to recreate it.

Much of the media attention at a national convention is necessarily devoted to the party's elite. It's easy to watch the news and see nothing beyond the speeches at night and the interviews throughout the day.

But that big picture ignores a lot of good work at the grassroots that is happening this week in Denver.

There have been panels on campaign strategy and round tables to consider public policy. I managed to sit in one one discussion that had been organized by Matt Glazer -- from Burnt Orange Report -- and Jim Walsh -- from Wired for Change -- about wiring local candidates.

With Jim and I sitting in the room, much of the conversation turned on DLCCWeb, and the feedback we received was very, very positive.

This is what Matt wrote about the discussion afterward:

Florida, Alabama, Michigan, D.C. California, Texas, and other states were all represented well represented. ActBlue was there along with the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and Wired for Change.

We talked about the $40 a month package for state legislative candidates for unlimited e-mail and a new web site. We talked about how ActBlue can be used to raise tens of thousand of dollars for state and federal candidates. We talked about how we can win today and be ready for redistricting in the future.

I began this job believing that future success would depend on working with passionate, plugged-in activists. I'm even more convinced of that today.

Once that panel wrapped up, I headed to a couple meetings before heading over to the Pepsi Center. That was probably a mistake. As you might have heard from the news reports, the convention was packed last night. Eventually, the fire marshals decided that there simply was not room for any more people. Those standing in line were turned away, and those who were in their seats were told that they could not return if they decided to leave.

I made it through security and into the Pepsi Center, but not without waiting in line for an hour.

I'll be headed over MUCH earlier today.

We only have so many chances each year to see our lawmakers in person. The National Conference of State Legislatures organizes a week of policy discussions at their annual meeting, and obviously, that's one opportunity. We also try to set up our own events -- chances for our elected officials to meet with each other and our staff.

This week gives us a chance to do that on a scale that is hard to match.

Yesterday afternoon, we held our first event of the National Convention -- a luncheon to celebrate our majorities. For two hours, several hundred legislators joined us as the Downtown Aquarium in Denver for a tour of the exhibits and an opportunity to connect with each other. Some people brought their families, others brought friends, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

After we packed up, we almost immediately headed to the Pepsi Center. Given that this was the first day, no one knew how long it would take to walk there or get through security. We knew that we had been given a cloakroom for meetings during the convention but not where it was or how the room was laid out.

As it turned out, many of our fears weren't necessary. The walk was easy (and there were many transportation for those who needed it). The security process was efficient and quick (and kind of fascinating -- convention staffers had some sort of hand-held scanners to test the authenticity of the credentials worn by all of those headed inside). And our room was great -- a perfect place for legislators to pop inside for a snack and a couple moments of conversation.

The convention opened with an invocation from former Colorado state Sen. Polly Baca. The Pepsi Center was full and energetic, and the stage looked great.

I'll be back with Tuesday highlights tomorrow.

We're here in Colorado for the Democratic National Convention. So far, the weather has been lovely, folks have been excited, and the atmosphere has been great.

I want to try to give you as much flavor for this week as possible. My plan is to recap, briefly, the previous day's activities each morning.

If there's anything in particular that you want to hear about, or if you're in Denver and want to say hello, I hope you'll shoot me an email or leave a comment here on the blog.

Last night, I read a piece on MyDD which made me smile.

In her journal, a blogger named desmoinesdem carefully laid out five reasons for supporting Democratic legislative candidates in the fall. She's spot on. (And by the way, the candidate she mentions first -- Jerry Sullivan -- is putting DLCCWeb to good use. Check it out).

I encourage you to read her entire post, but I want to draw attention to one particular argument she makes:

You may think that Obama will give down-ticket candidates all the help they need in November. But depending on where you live, the Obama campaign may not be putting its GOTV muscle in the crucial legislative districts.

I was very concerned to learn a few days ago that the Iowa Democratic Party has in effect shut down its "coordinated campaign" and transferred control over GOTV statewide to the Obama campaign.

What's best for maximizing Obama's presidential vote is not necessarily what's best for maximizing the number of Democrats elected to the state legislature.

This is great point that is often missed in national political analysis. Even by organizing an unprecedented ground game, the national ticket might not help some of our candidates. And in those places, we're going to depend on volunteers and activists (like desmoinesdem) to contribute their time knocking on doors and making calls in order to win legislative races.

The guys at Wired for Change have put together a little introductory video for DLCCWeb. I'm a fan:

It occurs to me that I've never done a formal introduction of DLCCWeb. Allow me to remedy that.

As you may have figured out already from some of our previous posts, DLCCWeb is a resource that we have developed with Wired for Change that makes it easy and affordable to campaign online. Democratic legislative candidates can use it to create a professionally designed web site and access powerful online advocacy tools.

We've made it easy for individual candidates to customize and edit their own web sites no matter how comfortable they are with technology and the Internet. We provide a full selection of website templates, headers, and color schemes. Campaigns can publish a blog, set up photo gallery, or publish an issue survey with the click of a mouse. All the content can be altered online using a very simple editor tool, so no additional software or technical expertise of HTML is required.

Again, as I've said before, more than 200 of our candidates in races in 30 states are using DLCCWeb to power their campaigns.

As this election cycle unfolds, we'll have a lot more to say about this resource and the candidates who are using it.

If you have a minute, check it out, and let us know what you think.

Matt Yglesias, a blogger for The Atlantic, wrote a post today that I’ve been thinking about a lot.

He attended a presentation on new media given by Rep. Steve Harrelson, the House Majority Leader in Arkansas, at the DLC National Conversation. Harrelson writes a blog called Under the Dome, which just for the record, it is pretty incredible. Matt agrees, calling it (and other blogs like it):

[A] kind of fascinating development that potentially has a lot of promise for state and local officials who don't necessarily have big staffs.

Harrelson is not alone in writing online -- in Virginia, Dels. Kris Amundson and Bob Brink write a really good blog called 7 West; in Idaho, Rep. Nicole LeFavour writes a fantastic blog, which is authentic and honest in a way that I really love; and there are many others.

But often, these leaders are the exception and not the rule.

In his post, Matt describes how the state and local officials in the room were scared about the consequences of being involved online:

All anyone wanted to talk about was fear about what might go wrong on the internet. Could one of my kids write something on their Facebook page that embarrasses me? What if I become the victim of unfair attacks from anonymous people writing online? What about journalistic standards? Wither truth? The whole litany of internet-related fears.

I’d love to say that this is the reason that we developed the DLCCWeb. But in truth, we built it to counter a second set of problems -- making the Internet simple and affordable enough that all of our legislative candidates can build and update their own websites.

Encouraging the mentality to engage in online democracy is a different proposition. But we’re trying. Blog publishing is built right into DLCCWeb, along with volunteer tools, online fundraising, and social network integration. This cycle, several hundred candidates (with a whole range of technology comfort levels) are using the Internet in a way that they haven't before because of this service.

And we're doing our best to take the lessons of the Internet to heart in house and to practice what we preach on this blog.

I’d love to hear some feedback from the people who are reading this. Are we succeeding? What can we do better? Submit a comment or send me an email -- compton[at]dlcc.org.

Democrats won't pick up a chamber in Kansas this fall; I can almost guarantee that.

The Republicans hold a 20 seat advantage in the Senate, and a 31 seat advantage in the House. I'm not giving away any trade secrets when I say that the state isn't one of our top targets this year.

That's not stopping Kansas Democrats, however, from putting in maximum effort.

They're fielding candidates in 36 of 40 Senate districts and in 96 of 125 House districts, all with the aim of making the GOP compete for its majorities.

That's valuable for a number of reasons.

First, even in a state where voter registration favors Republicans by a 2-1 margin, the political climate has damaged the GOP brand. In Kansas, you've also got two-term Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and two Democrats in Congress who are popular and vocal leaders. Here, Democrats might have the potential to pick up some seats this year, even in districts that we don't normally have any business winning.

Second, by running so many candidates, Kansas Democrats force the GOP to spend resources protecting their incumbents that they could otherwise devote to more competitive races. Sure, the U.S. Senate race doesn't exactly seem like it's going to be a highlight (though Jim Slattery does show some life in the latest poll), and Kansas is also one of those states where Obama doesn't stand much of a chance. But competitive GOP incumbents in the statehouse can't count on monetary support from their colleagues who also have opponents. And that's a good thing.

Finally, every additional seat at the legislative table helps to change the conversation in the state. Even if we don't control a majority, we need more Democratic lawmakers talking about health care and education in Kansas. We need more Democratic incumbents developing relationships with constituents and providing leadership for the party. And importantly, even if the Democratic women and men elected this cycle never serve a day in the majority, some of them will some day become future candidates for higher elective office.

One of the things that I like best about the DLCC is our work to win majorities gradually by building infrastructure, providing resources, and training staff. Kansas is one of the states, for instance, taking advantage of our DLCCWeb program -- which provides our candidates with cheap and powerful Internet tools for campaigning.

It's also a place where we can afford to take the long view -- patiently laying groundwork for bigger wins in the future.

On Friday, Crisitunity -- one of the front-pagers on the Swing State Project -- put together a pretty good rundown of the state leg races that Democrats should pay attention to in the fall.

In his post, he looks in depth at five chambers where we have pick-up opportunities: the New York Senate, Texas House, Pennsylvania Senate, Nevada Senate, and Tennessee Senate. He also briefly mentions the Oklahoma Senate (split right down the middle -- 24/24), which deserves to be higher.

I really like his list of ‘moneyball’ chambers -- which might be flipped with just a reasonable investment: the Montana House, Delaware House, North Dakota Senate, South Dakota Senate, and Alaska House.

In terms of pickup opportunities, I think there are only two big omissions. Right now, there is a 46/53 split favoring the Republicans in the Ohio House. We only need four seats to pick up a majority, and the environment is awful for the GOP. The other opportunity might be the Wisconsin Assembly -- where we are only 3 seats down.

Crisitunity also points out five chambers where we will be playing defense: the Pennsylvania House, Michigan House, Indiana House, Oregon House, and Illinois House. To that, I’d add the Colorado Senate, the Maine Senate, the Montana Senate, the Tennessee House, the Wisconsin Senate, and both chambers in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Nationally, the environment looks awfully good for Democrats, but locally, things can be very different. And in many districts, the performance numbers are what they are, even in a Democratic year.

We’re cautiously optimistic about the fall, no doubt. But a big victory on Election Day is predicated on lots of months of work between now and then, which in that final set of states means paying careful attention to incumbent protection.

Hello!

My name is Greta Davis and I am the Deputy Political Director here at the DLCC. One of my many tasks is making sure that we are a hub for providing the most up to date information regarding state legislative chamber margins. Please use this memo as a resource for your state legislative needs.

2008 Chamber Margins

Please check back often as I do update these monthly.