How the Pickens Plan Recruited 15 Million Volunteers in Nine Months

At a time when so much of the world is in crisis, how can you effectively use online networking tools to rally support and action around your issue?

Since its launch in July 2008, the Pickens Plan, a blueprint to reduce America's foreign oil dependence, has recruited 1.5 million online supporters, built a 200,000 person strong social network (push.pickensplan.com) and produced over 1.1 million emails to Congress and the administration. The campaign won Campaign & Elections' Reed Award for "Best Use of Social Networking Technology" and the AAPC's Pollie Award for "Public Affairs Campaign of the Year."

Democrats Take Web Queries in Virginia Governor's Race

Beginning Friday, Virginia voters will have an opportunity to participate in a unique, multi-platform event by submitting questions online to the three Democrats running for governor.

As part of a program sponsored by ABC 7/WJLA-TV, POLITICO, Google and YouTube, the three candidates — R. Creigh Deeds, Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe — will field questions from the web as well as from ABC 7 anchor Leon Harris and POLITICO Editor-in-Chief John F. Harris.

Website Review: ChuckSchumer.com

A friend passed along an e-mail from ChuckSchumer.com touting their new website. Since I always like to peruse new sites and see what they've done, I quickly clicked through. Since I used to do reviews for TP and PDF regularly, I may as well share my thoughts.

Prop 8 Adventures in Instant Mobile Organizing

Simply text the word "rally" and your zip code to 27336 -- CREDO on letter-indicated touchpads -- and in seconds out spits the details on local anti-Prop 8 events in your neighborhood. In practice, it's seamless. I texted in my New York City zip code, and in an instant got back the SMS message: "Prop 8 Rally in NYC Tues@6p. Meet @ Christopher Street & 7th Avenue" -- directly in front of the historic Stonewall bar.

Today I had the opportunity to call into a bipartisan bloggers conference call hosted by David All and Joe Trippi featuring a question and answer session with T. Boone Pickens regarding the Pickens Plan. You can listen to the audio of the call here.

Right now the United States is importing 70% of its oil from foreign countries costing us $700 billion annually (that number won’t just go away).

The Pickens Plan presents a clear solution to the cut down the dependence on foreign oil, which Pickens is spending $58 million dollars of his own money to advertise. His plan would not only reduce the amount of oil we import but would create jobs and stimulate economic growth.

The United States currently uses natural gas to produce 22% of our electricity. Pickens proposes we replace that with wind energy. He wants to build over 100,000 wind turbines throughout the “wind belt” (from Texas all the way north to Canada) over a ten-year period.

Pickens was asked: why now? Which is a reasonable question to ask an 80-year-old oil tycoon who could just go retire on a tropical island. Pickens said he noticed from Nixon forward that every president has promised an energy plan, but has done nothing. He understands this is his problem as much as ours.

Pickens made it clear his number one priority is to make sure America is not relying on other countries for oil for generations to come when he told the bloggers “Anything that reduces the dependence on foreign oil I’m for, as long it’s American.”

Pickens also touched on his meeting last week with Sarah Palin. He said their dialogue was mostly energy related and he thought she was qualified to handle energy policy on the national stage, more so than Obama or McCain.

Pickens will be hosting an e-rally before and after tomorrow night’s second presidential debate to talk about energy independence and the Pickens Plan. There are already 400,000 people signed up for it.  To participate you can RSVP here.