Jerome Armstrong

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Jerome Armstrong (born 1964, in Los Angeles, California) is an American political strategist aligned with the Democratic Party. In 2001, he founded MyDD, a blog which covers politics with an openly Democratic partisan perspective, making him one of the first political bloggers. He coined the term netroots[1], is sometimes called The Blogfather for having mentored many other famous bloggers such as Markos Moulitsas in their early years (other bloggers are known by the same appellation), [2][3] and is credited as one of the architects of Howard Dean's grassroots Presidential campaign. [4]

Contents

[edit] Background

Jerome Armstrong was an environmental activist in the late 1980's, working with Greenpeace and Earth First!. He later served with the Peace Corps, spent a year and a half at a Buddhist monastery, and served in Americorps, with the I Have A Dream program.[2] Armstrong has graduate degrees in Conflict Resolution and Applied Linguistics[5] .


[edit] MyDD

Armstrong has said his interest in working through politics began only after the Florida election controversy following the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election.He began MyDD around as a predictive site that covered issues ranging from, politcs to financial markets, and astrology. In May 2001, Armstrong relaunched MyDD with a focus on American politics. [6]

MyDD was profiled in late 2005 as part of the article "Blogging Down the Money Trail" in Campaigns and Elections, the magazine credits MyDD with being "the first major liberal blog." In January 2006, the name was changed to "My Direct Democracy" as part of a site redesign, with a new tagline, "Direct Democracy for People-Powered Politics."

Main article: MyDD

[edit] Political Consultancy

In January of 2003, Markos Moulitsas joined Jerome Armstrong in a political consulting partnership called Armstrong Zuniga, before being formally dissolved in December 2004. Howard Dean hired them for a time as technical consultants in 2003. Jerome Armstrong now does internet and campaign strategy consulting for various advocacy organizations and campaigns through the firm "Political Technologies LLC".

In 2005, Armstrong worked for New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Jon Corzine and Ohio senate candidate Sherrod Brown's 2006 Senate campaign[7]. He also signed on with Mark Warner's Forward Together PAC to develop their internet strategy.[8]

Various other bloggers[9] [10] [11] have claimed that campaigns have paid Armstrong for positive blog mentions on MyDD, or through favorable mentions made by his former business partner Markos Moulitsas on Daily Kos. Armstrong responded by pointing out that MyDD was shut down for the duration of his employment with Dean's campaign,[12] and denied the other claims as "complete fabrications".[13] The National Journal's Hotline investigated and concluded there was nothing "that proves or even strongly suggests that either Markos Moulitsas Zuniga or Jerome Armstrong have entered into a 'buy one, get one free' relationship."[14]

[edit] Stock Controversy

Based on 1999 postings made on stock trading websites, in April 2003, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil action suit against Armstrong alleging stock promotion without disclosing of compensation.[15][16] In September 2003, Armstrong submitted a response to the Court in which he denied the allegations, then agreed to a settlement with the SEC in December 2003[17] that neither admitted or denied the allegations of the complaint.

[edit] Books

His book Crashing the Gate: Grassroots, Netroots, and the Rise of People Powered Politics, co-authored by Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, was released in March 2006. The book takes a critical look at the state of the Democratic Party, detailing the rise of a new movement that is reforming and taking over the Democratic Party. An Australian edition was released in July, 2006.[18]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Tom Curry. "Blog pioneer maps political strategy for 2008", MSNBC, 2006-03-02.
  2. ^ a b "The Blogfather". Salon.com (2006-05-31). Retrieved on 2006-07-03.
  3. ^ "The Blogfather". AlterNet (2005-06-15). Retrieved on 2006-07-03.
  4. ^ Andrew Orlesky. "Howard Dean's Net architect blasts ‘emergent’ punditocracy", The Register, 2004-01-30.
  5. ^ William Safire. "Netroots", New York Times, 2006-11-19.
  6. ^ Web Archive of MyDD from May 2001. Retrieved on 2006-07-03.
  7. ^ "New on the Web: Politics as Usualpublisher=New York Times", 2006-12-03.
  8. ^ "Warner Won't Seek Allen's Senate Seat", Washington Post, 2005-08-29.
  9. ^ William K. Bulkeley, James Bandler. "Dean Campaign Made Payments To Two Bloggers", Wall Street Journal, 2005-01-13.
  10. ^ Dan Riehl (2006-06-19). "The Kos Corzine Connection". Retrieved on 2006-07-26.
  11. ^ James Joyner (2006-06-20). "Kos - Armstrong Blogola Scandal". Retrieved on 2006-07-26.
  12. ^ Jerome Armstrong (2005-01-13). "Zephyr Teachout: Donkey Splat". Retrieved on 2006-07-26.
  13. ^ Matt Stoller (2006-06-25). "Insiders Have Blog Obsession Syndrome". Retrieved on 2006-07-04.
  14. ^ Nothing To See Here. National Journal's Hotline (2006-06-22). Retrieved on 2006-07-03.
  15. ^ SEC v. Sierra Brokerage Services Inc. et al. Retrieved on 2006-07-03.
  16. ^ SEC v. Sierra Brokerage Services Inc. et al Litigation Release. Retrieved on 2006-07-03.
  17. ^ Jerome Armstrong's Alleged Stock Touting and What it Means. Retrieved on 2006-07-03.
  18. ^ Crashing the Gate going to Australia. PlutoAustralia.com (2006-07-01). Retrieved on 2006-07-11.

[edit] External links

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