Contact information for the states is linked from each state's page -- for instance:

http://democrats.org/a/states/california/

Don't know if you remember the state pages on the old site, but it was pretty much just a state flag with no news or comments or anything. The new site lets the content team tag content so that it appears in various places across the site, encouraging not only multiple audiences but interaction among them (folks who get to the article you see at the top of that page, about Rep. Mike Honda, from the California page will be able to see and participate in the discussion of the article with people who saw it on the AAPI page or the policy page that relates to it).

As we move forward, the content framework will let content be at once tagged and filtered for particular interests and at the same time foster discussion as a broader Democratic community across the traditional lines of constituency/region/issue.

As far as things coming, well, what can I say? If we had not updated the look or changed the way we handle content, and left everything as it was until all of the tools are in place, then folks would be saying, "Why didn't Dean at least change the way it looks or get some more content on there? That's easy ..." The truth, of course, is that not even that is easy.

The ambition is to provide tools so that every person can organize in their precinct and make a meaningful political impact. Most organizations still don't even try to embrace the idea of empowerment; they're still completely closed off to people. Many that do tend to do empowerment for empowerment's sake (asking for feedback that goes nowhere, asking people to take actions that don't accomplish anything real, asking for money without explaining the content or the plan in a real way, never taking actions offline into the street or into the room where decisions are made).

Governor Dean's idea is to integrate the web (both content and tools) into the actual political and electoral strategy of the Democratic Party, and to use the web to provide transparency for the organization from the Chairman's office on down to the organizers in a given region of a given state. It's a huge, huge task that requires a lot of planning and hard work.

We chose to get the ball rolling by rolling out a new look and a new CMS that lays the groundwork for not just two people sitting in the Internet Department creating content, but the staff more broadly communicating about their work and interacting with people online.

We also rolled out 'Democracy Bonds' -- a campaign which had better be more than just a "marketing concept" if it's going to do what it needs to do. That is, completely change the way our party is funded -- remaking the balance of power between the two parties and making the party absolutely beholden to the people. If you heard Governor Dean talk about the program on Hardball last night, you'll see he's pretty serious.

People are already using the 'Democracy Bonds' tools to get their friends involved and broaden the base of the party. When you sign up, you're given the ability to send invitations to your friends and track who participates (and send reminders to those who don't). This is a pretty basic thing and only the beginning -- but grassroots Democrats used it to grow the number of people contributing monthly by more than 50% in 24 hours.

Of course, if you (or any of the other PDF folk) have any comments/questions/whatever about the site, or want to talk about where things are going, my contact info is below (but I think you may already have it).

Joe Rospars
Internet Director
Democratic National Committee
rosparsj@dnc.org

My mistake for saying that there's no way to find the contact info for state parties. One only has to look on the top tabs bar, hover the mouse over "Our Party" and click on the last item down, "In Your State," whereupon you are brought to the country divided into four regions, from which you can get to your state. The feature is there, after all.

—"The ambition is to provide tools so that every person can organize in their precinct and make a meaningful political impact."

That sounds like the right direction. Since the tools haven't been completed yet, why not open up the design process to the potential users?

One idea I've seen bandied about (wait, I confess, it's just me) is the idea that all the state, county, and municipal sites out there for the Democratic Party are all subdivisions of one site, (i.e. http://democrats.org/nevada/elko) with a lot of the interface administrated by registered users in the way that the Wikipedia is administrated mostly without users, or perhaps with some oversight in the way that sourcewatch.org has an "editor" (in the Dem-Party's case someone in the county or the state who can prioritize and deal with issues, yet if there’s some local curmudgeon or luddite, they could be side-stepped by the users). And if it's all going on one site, then there can be "direct corridors" for sharing info, sort of like you insinuated in the bit about Mike Honda, AAPI, and the policy pages.

So for example, registered users could tag their entries -- or postings on a events list calendar or whatever -- as relevant to their county, their closest five counties, etc., and it would automatically appear on the other sites. This same process would work for blog postings, links to news of local interest, and on the back end a means of local, state, and national parties sharing information about registered users all through the same system. What if the Elko County Democrats want their own official site? Fine, let them have it. But the web-savvy users in Elko County will end up making the democrats.org site the one to go to because they'd be allowed to administrate it.

There's also the efficiency of spending lots of money to develop organizational tools that, once completed, can be copied and applied to hundreds of site subdivisions at little extra cost.

I would also, if I had my way, offer up the democrats.org site to offer free tools and hosting to the primary & general for all Democratic campaigns -- for the past L.A. Mayoral primaries something along the lines of democrats.org/campaigns/la/angelides and democrats.org/campaigns/la/hertzberg. Sure Angelides and Hertzberg could still have had their own sites, or one with a simpler name that redirected users to that page. Kind of like a blogger.com account+what Civic Space has going for non-profits. It would be a great means of keeping a lot of the useful residue (contact info, distributed networks of activist voters) that disappears each time a campaign dies. This would be especially useful and popular for the smaller, more local races.

Finally:

—"That is, completely change the way our party is funded -- remaking the balance of power between the two parties and making the party absolutely beholden to the people."

It would be great if you shared on PDF what the expected consequences of a 'Democracy Bond'-funded Democratic Party might be (also, is it fair to assume that the DNC staff expects that the majority of the 'Democracy Bond' subscriptions will come over the internet?).

I assume that your implication of why it’s desirable goes something like this: that the members and the elected chair of of the Party would no longer have to toe an interest-corrupted Washington line on the biggest and most important issues of the day, and follow the will of the people who fund it. Like bankruptcy & personal debt, trade agreements (including the current CAFTA), the looming decision on the estate tax and the rates of other taxes, and what we should do regarding Iraq.

I would argue that the best way to get the 'Democracy Bonds' up and running is for the Party's politicians & chair to adopt the positions on those issues that the overwhelming majority of its voters and die-hard activists, and extant consistent low-dollar supporters deeply believe in.