Jerome Armstrong (born February 26, 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. Armstrong coined the term netroots,[1] is sometimes called The Blogfather[2] for having mentored many other famous bloggers such as Markos Moulitsas in their early years.[3] He is credited as one of the architects of Howard Dean's '04 grassroots Presidential campaign,[4] and one of the leading web strategists in the world.[5]
Background
Jerome Armstrong was an environmental activist in the late 1980s, working with Greenpeace and Earth First!. He later served with the Peace Corps, spent a year and a half at a Buddhist monastery, served in Americorps, with the I Have A Dream program, and did field organizing in Portland, OR in the early 1990s. [6][2] Armstrong has graduate degrees in Conflict Resolution and Applied Linguistics.[7]
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, politics to financial markets, and astrology. In May 2001, Armstrong relaunched MyDD with a focus on American politics.[8]
In Campaigns and Elections, an early netroots profile in Oct-Nov 2005 as part of the article "Blogging Down the Money Trail", MyDD is credited by the magazine with being "the first major liberal blog." [9] 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."
Political Consultancy
Jerome Armstrong does internet and campaign strategy consulting for various advocacy organizations and campaigns.
In January 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. Armstrong introduced the campaign to Meetup.com and directing on online advertising and blogger outreach.[10]
In 2005, Armstrong worked for New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Jon Corzine and U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown's 2006 Senate campaign in Ohio.[11] He also signed on with Mark Warner's Forward Together PAC to develop their internet strategy, before Warner decided to not run for President in 2008.[12]
Various other writers have claimed that campaigns have paid Armstrong for positive blog mentions on MyDD,[13] or through favorable mentions made by his former business partner Markos Moulitsas on Daily Kos.[14] Armstrong responded by pointing out that MyDD was shut down for the duration of his employment with Dean's campaign,[15] and denied the other claims as "complete fabrications".[16] 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."[17]
In 2007, Armstrong was awarded the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Award for Political Organizing by 21st Century Democrats, [18] "for his visionary leadership in working to create the online netroots community". In 2008, London Mayoral Candidate Brian Paddick, a UK Liberal Democrat, brought aboard Armstrong [19] "to help boost his campaign's online presence".
Stock Trading
Before his political career, Armstrong worked as an online day trader of stocks. [20] 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. 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 that neither admitted or denied the allegations of the complaint, and later paid a nearly $30,000 fine.[21][22] The New York Times in a post-settlement interview wrote, "Mr. Armstrong was very candid about his day-trading days, calling himself an "uneducated investor" and a "small fish" who got caught up in a much bigger trading scam about BluePoint, a penny stock."[23]
Books
Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos co-authored the book Crashing the Gate: Grassroots, Netroots, and the Rise of People Powered Politics (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.[24]
References
External links
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