The American Promise

Harry Reid has launched a promising new web site called Democrats.gov. It looks to be a central point at which people can learn what the Democrats are doing now in the legislative arena and maybe get involved in the process.

The first entry is a new Democratic Agenda called The American Promise. It's a good first step, though I am a bit disappointed that it makes no mention of Social Security. Perhaps Reid's thinking behind this agenda is that he only wanted it to cover the positive legislative efforts Democrats will undertake this session. The Social Security fight is primarily a negative effort to defeat Bush's plan to gut Social Welfare. If that is his intent then I applaud it because Democrats can't just be the party of "no". But maybe part of the Social Security fight could be a positive reform proposal from the Democrats?

Still, I am happy with this first sign that Reid wants to make use of the internet to organize Democratic legislative efforts. It remains to be seen how it will be used when the real fights begin. It will be a failure if all it is is a place to post news. It will be a success if it is also used to rally the troops to get behind legislative battles. That two-way relationship is the key to the success. The site does provide a page where you can "co-sponsor" the agenda. Hopefully that means more than just being a signature on a petition.