Grassroots activism is alive and growing in Ohio. He is another great initiative! This movement is from Sherrod Brown and Tim Tagaris.
http://www.growohio.org/snip>
A little less than a year ago, a friend of mine, Bob Brigham, and I found that almost 3/4 of the Democratic state party websites were void of any sort vehicle for direct participation and communication with the grassroots. In short, thirty-six state party websites did not have a blog or a forum to communicate with potential voters, volunteers, and contributors (Ohio was one of the ones that did).
At the county level in Ohio, the problem is much more acute. Forty of our eighty-eight counties do not even have a website, the most basic and cheapest way to organize and mass communicate with communities in Ohio. As an early recognizer of Grow Ohio, today's readers are no doubt aware of the baseline ways a website and online interactivity can help organize, fundraise, communicate, inform, drive press coverage, and countless other applications useful to candidates and organizations. In fact, if you look closely at the blogs listed in the regional blogrolls, you will find many Ohioans (and early Grow Ohio readers) are picking up the slack at the local level.
Organizations, campaigns, and committees can use a website for a number of different applications. The Ohio Republican Party has great tools for letter writing campaigns and mobilizing participation for radio call-in shows. The Ohio Democratic Party makes it easier for citizens to run for local office, and a more active blog (when updated frequently). Without going into too much detail right now about using the web as an effective tool in politics, take a look at these statistics I found looking over 2004 election results by county and correlating them to which county Democratic parties have websites in Ohio: