There isn't a state in the country with a better group of online activists than Texas. The more attention I pay to their work, the more impressed I become.

First, you've got the individual efforts of many, many talented bloggers. There are a lot of states that would be fortunate to have a single, progressive site as good as Capitol Annex, Burnt Orange Report, Off the Kuff, or Greg's Opinion (a list heavily biased by the folks I read regularly but by no means exclusive). That's not even counting relatively newer bloggers who are engaging in the state (folks like Rachel -- who actually wrote an open letter to her state rep, offering to set him up with a DLCCWeb-powered site).

Second, these folks have organized an alliance to unify the efforts of bloggers and netroots activists in the state to promote progressive ideas and candidates. They promote each others' posts, raise money for candidates, organize offline events, and have developed an advertising network.

Third, they have formed a political action committee with one important goal:

During the 2008 election cycle, the TexBlog PAC will work toward winning 5 additional seats in the Texas House, allowing Democrats to elect a Democratic Speaker. A net gain of 5 house seats will put an end to the Republican claim of unilateral power and bring back the democratic process to the people’s House.

By contributing to progressive candidates, fostering the energy of the netroots, supporting party infrastructure, registering new voters, funding civic education programs, and assisting like-minded grassroots activists, the TexBlog PAC will help elect progressive candidates in 2008 and beyond. We will pave the path to a brighter tomorrow by putting Democrats back in charge of our state government.

Obviously, that's a mission that's near and dear to our hearts at the DLCC.

And yesterday, Vince from Capitol Annex shot me note to let me know about a new project that he and some of the other bloggers from the state had just launched: TexRepublicans.com (how they managed to come into possession of that particular URL, I'll never know, but I love it). These guys have collected research on GOP legislative candidates throughout the state and offered it up for all the world to see.

Some of the facts they've found are truly astounding. Rep. Betty Brown, for instance, actually sponsored a bill to legalize the sale of horse meat for human consumption. Rep. John Davis has spent thousands of dollars from campaign funds on personal expenditures without reporting the spending to Texas Ethics Commissions. Then there is Rep. Bill Zedler, who allowed Texans for a Republican Majority, a group founded by Tom DeLay to pay thousands of dollars in his legal bills.

I really can't say enough for this kind of activism. Winning back the Texas House isn't going to be an easy task this cycle, but support like this helps to make it easier.

Sean Tevis -- my current favorite elected-office-seeking geek -- has gone from profiles on BoingBoing (and DLCC.org!) and landed in the Wall Street Journal.

As you'd imagine, the story is largely about the campaign's fundraising success. So far, Tevis has raised more than $95,000 -- almost entirely from small online donations. His GOP opponent plans to rake in just $35,000 (with very little of that money coming from individuals in his district).

The story includes one detail that I'm both simultaneously relieved and embarrassed that I didn't notice:

Mr. Tevis's coup de grâce was to embed a hidden message, in the source code. He knew that only fellow techies would bother scrolling through the dense lines of programming, so he rewarded them with a message asking them to tack an extra 88 cents on to any donation so he would recognize them. Nearly 20% of his 5,700 or so donors have done that. Mr. Tevis has become such a fund-raising machine that he is fielding calls from legislative candidates in other states asking for advice.

Sure enough, when you pull up the source code, there it is:

Hello person who cares enough to read source code.

Please donate $8.88 to my campaign. Any amount with 88 cents at the end is flagged for me to let me know that it came from someone who I guess is a lot like me. You'll also be entered into a drawing to win a prize and it will help save the world. Thank you.

I just can't get over how terrific and clever this whole thing is.

It’s not easy being a first-time candidate running against an incumbent. Especially if you are a Democrat campaigning in Kansas. To be successful, you need to have something going for you -- even if that’s just the drive to outwork your opponent every day.

But it really does pay to be smart.

Sean Tevis is an information architect from Olathe, Kansas. He’s running against Rep. Arlen Siegfreid, a deeply conservative Republican (even by Sunflower State standards), and apparently, he's got polling showing him running three points back.

He’s also a geek.

Faced with the challenge of raising the $26,000 it will take to make this stage of the race competitive, Tevis found a brilliant, clever way to tell his story and in doing so has captured the imagination of a certain part of the Internet.

Writing in the style of xkcd (a web comic read by the geekiest of geeks), Tevis laid out his reasons for running and asked for 3,000 people to contribute $8.34 to his campaign. And then the Internets responded.

His appeal was picked up by BoingBoing -- an incredibly popular geek culture blog -- and promoted thousands of times by news aggregators Digg and Reddit. All the traffic overwhelmed the servers hosting his website, but the donations kept pouring in.

By 9:30 on Monday morning, 5,298 people had given to his campaign. Previously (as Tevis notes in his comic), no state rep campaign in Kansas had ever attracted even 650 donors, and more remarkable still, Tevis lives in a district where just 6,327 people voted in the last election.

Obviously the specifics of Tevis' story can't necessarily be repeated (no way that every candidate will be able to finance her campaign with a clever comic strip), but there's a whole lot to be said for his creativity.

This is the Internet -- a place where leaders can connect with thousands of passionate potential supporters...if the campaign can find a way to stand out.

(cross posted at TDS)