Acton Institute PowerBlog - Entries tagged as sam adams alliance

The Sam Adams Alliance hosted a session titled “Samsphere” here in Austin, Texas at the Defending the American Dream conference. After a brief biography of American Founder Samuel Adams, discussions turned to improving networking and message organization for individuals and groups committed to freedom and political liberty.

In a nutshell, the purpose of Samsphere is to network pre-existing bloggers together into single or shared networks. The Sam Adams Alliance also spent much of their discussion focusing on the importance of strengthening the grassroots aspect of community activism. The Chicago based thinktank also promoted their new web project, Blogivists.

Additional discussion was related to comparisons of conservative and libertarian online groups with the grassroots effectiveness of groups such as Daily Kos and MoveOn.org. We also had group discussions about how ideological differences play into the different organizational components of the political right and left, which led into discussions about the motivation and objectives of online activism.

By contrast with the Netroots Nation agenda, there are no sessions devoted to how faith relates to political conservatism. The absence of the faith element in this discussion is a reminder of just how well-positioned and unique the Acton Institute is within the broader community calling for limited government. During the session we were able to connect with a writer from the Reagan Coalition. Also, Erick Erickson from RedState.com dropped by and offered some helpful comments on limited government, election strategy, and organizational technique.

The PowerBlog is well-represented this weekend at the Defending the American Dream Summit in Austin, Texas. Ray Nothstine and I have made the trek to Texas to engage and learn from a variety of organizations seeking to bring the power of new media to bear on the conservative movement.

The Americans for Prosperity Foundation and RightOnline are the major sponsors of the Texas summit, which features keynote addresses from Barry Goldwater Jr. and Robert Novak, as well as talks by John Fund of the WSJ, Erick Erickson of RedState.com, and Michelle Malkin.

One of the purposes of the summit and a special focus of the Sam Adams Alliance is to get state policy thinktanks in touch with local bloggers, as part of an effort to get tap into the dynamism of grassroots web media. If all politics are local, than new media efforts of thinktanks need to connect to the particular knowledge and insight of state and local bloggers.

Last night the Texas Public Policy Foundation hosted a barbecue social. I talked with David Guenthner, director of Media and Government Relations, and he told me about a tool they had developed, TexasBudgetSource.com, to make government expenditures across the state more transparent. This is a remarkably powerful concept that has the potential to be duplicated in other states to galvanize attention to issues of government spending, accountability, education reform and more.

Also happening across town is the annual Netroots Nation, a large gathering of progressive and liberal new media activists.