There are many things I've learned through this whole local blogging process. I have to tell you upfront that covering local politics, especially New York City politics, is a whole different animal than covering national politics. This is a city that still relies on good all face-to-face meetings, secret handshakes and political club hopping.

All what most bloggers covering national politics need to do is scan other blogs and the media. They really do not have to do anything beyond spending their employer's time tapping into their Blogspot accounts or Scoop sites. At the local level? In New York City? Nuh-uh. You gotta get off your ass and hit the pavement. Big time.

Which is why I have to say, blog bless anybody who wants to run for office in New York City and is not Michael Bloomberg. I honestly do not know how any of the Democrats running for the mayoral primaries could do it. And then Ferrer had to marathon-it to the elections? In New York City you need a batallion of people to play the old school politics that only billionaires can afford.

Which is why liberals, not just Democrats, but hard-working liberals and progressives in this city have to counter billionaire politics with a real grassroots. Hence, my Letter to the Editor at Newsday:

[via Newsday.com: LETTERS]:

Liberals, unite

Volunteer political activism in New York City is hard work thanks to the huge scale of the city. Everybody I know who has volunteered on a campaign or is doing citizen journalism through their blogs says the same thing: It's exhausting.

That's why Mayor Mike Bloomberg spent more than $75 million on a re-election campaign. He knew that the vast majority of New Yorkers do not have disposable income to make contributions, nor can they afford to lose paid work to do volunteer work.

The loss of City Hall should be a wake-up call to the Democratic Party. This is not the liberal city we used to know, with voting blocks of democratic constituencies. VotingResearch.org recently published a survey of the 25 most liberal cities in the United States. Ours ranks No. 21. This year's election may well knock the city off the list.

We on the left need to work hard to create support systems not just for the poor but also for the working stiffs of the middle class. The Democratic Party will not win 2006 or 2008 if it keeps running away from the obvious: To fight big money you have to grow a strong grassroots.

Liza Sabater
Manhattan
Editor's note: The writer is a political activist and editor of the blog The Daily Gotham.

First, even though I'm not that hot about the title they gave the letter, here's a shout-out to Newsday for publishing it in it's entirety. Let's hope next time my writing hits the Op-Ed section. Heh.

Second, this letter is another one of those big post-election lessons I learned : keep a stack of letters to the editor at the ready to send to each and every local newspaper. Actually, let's back-track it a bit. First and foremost, get the local media to know you exist.

On the one hand, we need to read the local media to follow what's happening. On the other hand, given we here at The Daily Gotham are committed to be activists first and bloggers second, we need to keep the local mass media aware of what we are doing.

Big media and blogs --they are a symbiotic relationship. Hopefully, we'll get more writers from the blog publishing their articles and letters and broadcsting their opinions all over New York City media landscape. End of journalism? Is that going to happen? Nah. I have gone on record as saying that journalism as we know it has gone out the window and I stand by that belief. Blogs in the hands of 'We The People" can be very powerful.

For now though, many of us do not have the resources to kick it to the next level vertically. Which is why growing horizontally is imperative for the local liberal blogosphere. The Daily Gotham is a truly bootstrapped labor of love with a budget of $0,000,000.00. We could never ever have the reach that regular newspapers or news shows have. But you know what? We could never have the reach we have just by blogging.

The Daily Gotham has grown in visibility and influence because the people who are here blogging like Mole333, Our Gal in Brooklyn, Bouldin, TakeBackThe City, Atomic Bird Song and others are hitting the pavement, working for their neighborhood political clubs, attending council meetings.

We are living and breathing New York City politics, not just writing about it.

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