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What makes Biss different from other entry-level wannabes is that he made the rounds at Yearly Kos last week, and he’s been a presence on ActBlue.com, the PAC billing itself as the “online clearinghouse for Democratic action.” Since making an impression on the Kossacks, Biss has raised $31,287 from 422 donors on ActBlue.com, placing his campaign second only to John Edwards’ presidential campaign’s in fund-raising on that site last week [SEE CLARIFICATION IN COMMENTS] — and a couple orders of magnitude ahead of any Illinois state-level candidate on the site. (Edwards picked up $3.6 million, third-place finisher Rick Noriega, who’s running for US senator in Texas, $16,000.) More to the point, this is a significant chunk of change for a candidate running in a small suburban district.
He thinks netroots groups like ActBlue are a way for left-wingers to do now what right-wingers did after 1964 — organize locally to change the pattern of politics in the US from the bottom up. Here‘s his interview at Firedoglake: “I keep coming back to etymology: progressives like progress, which means that we’re focused on the future. Believing in a better future has to also mean planning for and making a better future. And I find it flabbergasting how little of that goes on in our politics today.”
