A Really Important Thing Happened This Weekend In Texas

Competing political campaigns and a state political party worked cooperatively with an independent blog - A BLOG! - and its readers to report the results of a party process that will have a meaningful impact on the Democratic nominee for President. From the Burnt Orange Report:

Dear Readers,

We are pleased to announce that we at Burnt Orange Report will be reporting the results of this weekend’s county and senate district conventions. We will be partnering with the campaigns of both Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama – with the support of the Texas Democratic Party and countless county and local party leaders – to provide you the most accurate, up-to-date vote totals of this weekend’s extraordinary process.

This is an extraordinary opportunity for our community to demonstrate the virtue and value of a people-powered movement.

This is indeed a very big deal.

The Texas Democratic Party has a very complicated process for selecting all of its delegates for the Democratic National Convention. They have a primary, and a caucus, and these rather eclectic "county conventions." However, the responsibility for reporting the results for activities like these has traditionally rested with "mainstream" media - you know, those folks with the resources and reach and professionalism to get the facts straight.

Until now:

The Associated Press had around 1,800 delegates reported tonight. We've brought you three times that amount, documented it all, and have over 72% of the delegate totals across the state. That's the value of a people-powered movement.

We've passed the point where blogs are just these online diaries written by one person or a small group. Blogs serve as community hubs, where communities can congregate and can share information quickly and accurately. They're not the only online community hubs, but the ones run by creative, smart and ambitious people like the folks at Burnt Orange Report are among the best.