One of the best, if not the best, state progressive blog is hanging it up at the end of the year. Lowell Feld founded Raising Kaine to promote Tim Kaine's successful 2005 campaign, and his blog was a pivotal in the progressive wave of this decade in Virginia where Democrats:
- Kept the governorship in Democratic hands.
- Defeated George Allen and elected Jim Webb, flipping a U.S. Senate seat.
- Flipped Virginia's Senate majority to the Democrats.
- Narrowed the GOP's majority in the House of Delegates to low single digits.
- Elected Mark Warner to the U.S. Senate, flipping the other U.S. Senate seat.
- Defeated incumbents Thelma Drake and Virgil Goode and won Tom Davis's open seat to provide Democrats with a majority of House seats.
- Turned Virginia blue once and for all as an Obama state.
In addition to helping fuel these successes, Lowell Feld's blog created a progressive media response to the GOP-dominated media in Virginia, gave progressives a place to discuss policy and ideas, and acted as a central hub for volunteer and fundraising efforts. Following the "diary" format of Daily Kos and other blog, Raising Kaine used the bottom-up style that typified the netroots resurgence of this decade.
Lowell and his fellow bloggers are closing up shop for personal reasons, as you'll read at the link. Perhaps another blog will fill the void soon (or immediately) thereafter. Regardless, their reasons are to be respected, and hopefully the Virginia progressive blogosphere will find a way to continue RK's momentum.
Until then, many thanks to Lowell, Eric, and the other bloggers, and let's work hard to make them proud next year by keeping Virginia's governorship in Democratic hands.