While RedStormPAC is currently focusing on Virginia’s races this November, we can’t forget the national picture. The folks over at RedState are enlisting the Republican netroots to help Eric Egland knock off John Doolittle in California’s 4th Congressional District:

Meet Eric Egland. You might know him already. He started TroopsNeedYou.com to deliver resources to our troops in harm’s way. He’s been on CNN talking about his book, The Blog of War. He’s been interviewed by Michelle Malkin. And most importantly, Eric Egland has fought in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

He’s a pro-life conservative in a very Republican, conservative district. In fact, he’s running against a Republican and we want you to help us help Eric Egland.

Eric is running against the corrupt, embattled John Doolittle, the national face of Republican scandal. Doolittle had to step down from the House Appropriations Committee because of the pending investigation against him. The FBI has already raided his home. But Doolittle won’t retire because if he gets re-elected one more time he can get his full congressional pension.

This is a seat that will stay Republican. But, should Doolittle stay in it, it’s a seat that could drag down other Republicans because of Doolittle’s scandal. In 2004, Bush won it with over 60% of the vote.

Eric Egland is a stellar candidate, a small government conservative, and our choice for CA-04.

We need to take our party back. And Eric Egland’s race would be a great start.

You can find other reasons to help Egland here and here.

RedState is looking to raise $10,000 by Sunday and is halfway to their goal. Anything folks can do to help the national cause is appreciated.

New York whooped Tampa Bay 12-4 to secure a place in the postseason for the 13th year in a row:

The victory, New York’s 15th in 20 games, eliminated defending AL champion Detroit from postseason contention and set up a probable first-round matchup with Cleveland, the Central champion. The Yankees are three games behind Boston with four games left, so New York’s streak of nine consecutive AL East titles is likely to end.

New York, just 21-29 before play on May 30, has gone 70-38 since then. Players, from Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, to Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera, hugged each other on the field and in the dugout following the final out.

“This is what it was about. It was a lot of unselfishness,” Torre said. “There were a lot of guys who played through some injuries, played through some fatigue. And, of course, Alex — we sort of rallied around him.”

The Yankees have made the playoffs every year since 1995, and their streak of 13 consecutive trips is one shy of the record set by the Atlanta Braves from 1991-2005. They’ve made the postseason in all 12 seasons under Torre.

New York was 9 1/2 games back in the wild-card race after play on July 7.

The AL East might be out of reach, but everyone starts 0-0 in the postseason. Bring on Cleveland!

RedStormPAC Widgets On Facebook
We are happy to announce that you can now add widgets to your Facebook to let your visitors contribute to RedStormPAC or the targeted Virginia Senate races.

CBS: Gauging The Internet’s Political Power
In 1972, computers and campaigns were just getting acquainted. Fundraising appeals using direct mail lists were considered revolutionary - and helpful to a young Karl Rove working on the Nixon re-election campaign.”Young people have got to reach other young people,” Rove told CBS News at the time, “and that is what we are seeking to do.”The merger of politics and technology was so new the Nixon campaign felt its use of computers should be shielded from the public.

Time: Why Facebook Is The Future
Many view the web as a current generation thing, a way to engage teens and twenty-somethings, while aiming for anything beyond that has proven all but impossible. Facebook is slowly but surely pulling it off, broadening its market into demographics that matter most to politicos and campaigns focused on using new means to target traditional voters.

RedStormPAC Beyond Virginia
Virginia is only the beginning.

Thanks For Using RedStormPAC
We here at RedStormPAC would like to take a moment to thank the early adopters of the candidate widgets.

Pose him!

via Your Daily Awesome

IPDI: Top Ten Lessons For Mobile Campaigning
Julie at the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet blog shares Kevin Betram’s Top Ten Lessons for running a mobile campaign for political candidates.

Harnessing The “Long Tail”
Traditionally fundraising has aimed at pulling as much money as possible from donors, appealing more to the “big head”, the few people who can give more (shown in the graph as the green area). Yet missed by such efforts is the long tail (shown in yellow), which often holds a majority of the market. The cost of appealing to such a broad end of the market has been cost prohibitive in the past, usually not worth the small yield of returns.

New Voters Project: Text The Vote
New Voters Project, in cooperation with Working Assets and researchers at the University of Michigan and Princeton University, has released a study that shows text messages increased an individual young voter’s likelihood to turnout by 4.2 percent in the November 2006 elections.

After the Yankees sweep Baltimore and the Red Sox are swept by Toronto we have ourselves a race in the AL East:

At this rate, the Boston Red Sox will gladly take a day off. That’s about the only way they can prevent the New York Yankees from creeping any closer.

Good-luck charm Clay Buchholz and relief ace Jonathan Papelbon let another game slip away and the Toronto Blue Jays finished off sweeping Boston with a 6-1 win Wednesday night.

Coupled with the Yankees’ 2-1 victory over Baltimore, the Red Sox saw their AL East lead cut to 1 1/2 games — Boston’s slimmest edge since April 25.

Considering the Yanks were 14.5 back on May 30th, this is remarkable. And the rest of the schedule favors the Yankees who host Toronto this weekend and then go to Tampa Bay and Baltimore to finish up the season. Boston, on the other hand, travels to Tampa Bay this weekend and then closes by hosting Oakland and Minnesota. While Boston’s last three opponents are sub-500 teams, Oakland and Minnesota are better teams than their records show. If the Yankees can handle Toronto they’d have a fairly easy last week ahead of them and could feasibly take the lead in the AL East.

Should be a good last week of the season.

RedStormPAC has gone live, offering Virginia’s Republican candidates free means to solicit online donations and bloggers easy ways to promote the candidates they care about. By visiting RedStormPAC you can cut and paste code that will allow you to put donation boxes on your site. RedStormPAC has started with an initial slate of 12 Senate races and a few House of Delegates. We will expand to all races in the upcoming weeks. Use and share the widgets and spread the word.

Via FDHub and the Times Dispatch:

As part of its response to the Virginia Tech shootings, Virginia Commonwealth University is preparing to test its new campus-security measures. That includes a pair of 130-decibel sirens — one each at the Monroe Park campus and at VCU Medical Center.

The university spent about $90,000 to purchase and install the sirens, which arrived this summer. One is mounted atop Cabell Library near the center of the Monroe Park campus; the other is on the roof of the School of Dentistry at 11th and Leigh streets.

The sirens will be tested simultaneously Wednesday, Sept. 19, at noon.

The sirens are part of VCU’s attempt to institute measures to inform the community in response to an emergency and was brought up during a security forum held by the school back in April in the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedies.

The problem is, who knows of these sirens? More importantly, who knows what to do when they hear them?

In an emergency, the sirens will signal people in a campus building to stay where they are and seek details about what is happening. People on campus but outside should go to the nearest university building and seek more information, and people off-campus should not come to campus but should seek more information.

Seek more information where? The school has already stated that TV and radio are not outlets they’re aiming to utilize. The Virginia Tech servers failed during the tragedy in April, so VCU e-mail and websites aren’t a guarantee either. I know there’s a bit of a learning curve but starting with sirens without actually working out the information end seems to lend itself more to panic than a solution. Here’s hoping I’m wrong or, more importantly, that it never has to be used to prove one way or another.

Yesterday the Shad Plank noted that in a clear attempt at taking partisan shots:

House Democratic Leader Ward Armstong and House Caucus Chairman Brian Moran are holding a conference call today to talk about House Speaker Bill Howell’s remarks on illegal immigration.

According to the Dems, Howell needs to be scolded for suggesting that the state’s newest residents may not embrace “the shared values we have in Virginia.” Democrats appear to be using that statement to make a larger point about the expected flood of legislation aimed at curbing and punishing illegal immigration.

Armstrong and Moran say the GOP has an “immigrant-bashing agenda for the legislative session that will begin in January.”

Armstrong and Moran, in a scramble to defend illegal immigrants, threw together this 2pm press conference in lieu of doing the job they were elected to do. You see, yesterday the House of Delegates Courts Of Justice Subcommittee was meeting from 2-6:30pm on mental health voluntary and involuntary committment procedures, an especially pressing issue in light of the Virginia Tech tragedy. Both Armstrong and Moran are members of this committee.

So, Del. Armstrom and Del. Moran, what’s more important to Virginia? Taking political pot shots in defense of non-citizens or actually addressing an issue very critical to many Virginians?

More On This:
- Shad Plank: The Dems want an apology from Speaker Howell
- BVBL: Dem Leadership Embraces The Illegal Alien Lobby
- Virginia Virtucon: VA Dem Pols Commit Mass Political Suicide

This morning one of my younger bros Art and his wife Jess had a little one (though Jess did do most of the work). Welcome to the world, Liam.

Orgeon Hill now has a neighborhood blog. Any bets on how long before VCU tries to take it over?

Last week I got a Wii. My arm is just now getting used to the whole moving-while-playing-a-video-game thing. Good times.