MAINdigest

Happy Monday! Don't worry... its just a few more days until friday!

In case you forgot, MAINstream is offering a Advanced Web 2.0 workshop on Wednesday at 10am and Thursday at 7pm. If you are interested in attending please call our office! 913-649-3326

Did something important happen this weekend? I wasn't really paying attention...
Ok, just kidding..



Jim Wallis author of God's Politics and his recently release book The Great Awakening was spoke at a MORE2 reception on Sunday night.

“I believe we are seeing the beginnings of a new great awakening in America that could become another spiritual revival that will change big things in the world,” Wallis said in a recent interview.

“Hope and change are really possible, and we can make a difference. People of faith have done big things before and will do them again.”

“Church-based ministry that serves those in need is important, but organizing a movement that can work for social justice is critical,” Wallis said.

“And congregations have a central role in that organizing. We can provide message and motivation — a sense of meaning, purpose and moral value that is often missing in the larger society.

“As a countercultural community, the church can have a prophetic public voice.

“And, as often the last standing social institution in many communities, churches have the institutional presence and constituency for effective organizing.”

This can sound like politics, so I asked about that.

“People of faith should insist on the deep connections between spirituality and politics while defending the proper boundaries between church and state that protect religious and nonreligious minorities and keep us all safe from state-controlled religion,” Wallis said.

“We should demonstrate our commitment to pluralistic democracy and support the rightful separation of church and state without segregating moral and spiritual values from our political life.”

Wallis also told a great story about being at an event with some of the pastors from the largest churches in Cleavland Ohio. . . large meaning 2,000-5,000 people at the church. Wallis told them that its great that their people are that enthused and that involved, but that their community was failing. Here they have 5 or more churches with over 2,000 people in them and their whole city is falling into disarray. How is this possible? What is the church doing to help the community, Wallis asked them. It was a great event.

Sen. Obama will be at an event in St. Louis this week.

Arch City Chronicle looks at the issue of legalized gay marriage in California and how it is being received here in Missouri. No mention that Missouri and California are over 1800 miles apart.... hurm... 1800... reminiscent of the year right wingers want us to return to... coincidence?? Or conspiracy???

David Sirota author of Hostile Takeover and the new book The Uprising was on PBS on Friday. The PBS website now has an excerpt of the book so you can read and decide if you want to buy.

Conservatism with Heart wants her readers to not give up on the Republican Party as U.S. Sen. John McCain could pick a running mate that speaks to other factions within the party.

Also... another reason that John McCain should NEVER ever ever.. stand in front of a green screen...



Hot Rasmussen Action over at OL

First, there's the latest information on Partisan ID from Rasmussen, based on their daily tracking polls. Here's the chart I generated from their data. It shows how Democratic Party identification jumped sharply from the beginning of the primary season, after falling into the doldrums during 2007, when the Democratic Congress basically failed to deliver much of anything. It's remained fairly steady the last few months, but at record high levels:

I love graphs....

Super interesting bash on EMILY's List on OL Sunday....

Emily's list is far from alone in this-the problem is endemic. The basic problem, as I will argue below, is that groups like Emily's List are not guided by the mission of building progressive power for all of us to share. Rather, they are guided by a focus on individual politicians using a limited set of criteria--criteria that in the end often fail to add up to a united progressive front. It is custom made for schemers and demagogues to take advantage of-and over the years they have increasingly done so, at the expense of the true progressives that we ought to be supporting.

V.v.v.v interesting... me thinks...

Also, on a whole different Nerd level... TP talks about the establishment, big money, and ... other wonky goodness in relation to new political organizing...

But there's another big reason why Obama's victory is so important. He is riding herd on the largest and most potent new political organization anyone has seen on the American landscape in at least sixteen years. He's probably got anywhere from four to eight million email addresses on top of his 1.5 million donors and 800,000 registered users of my.barackobama.com, his social networking platform.