The Democratic National Committee (DNC) relaunched their E-Patriots program today. Unfortunately, they appear to have axed the grassroots organizing component of E-Patriots, and are relaunching the program as a fundraising-only tool.

E-Patriots was a popular part of the DNC website in the pre-Dean era, but it disappeared when he re-vamped the website. This innovative program to encourage web-savvy folks to engage their online friends in the Democratic Party and kept track of their success online. Each 'E-Patriots' had their own page on the DNC site to encourage friends to get involved in BOTH fundraising and grassroots organizing.

Howard Dean's version of E-Patriots, however, has been renamed "Personal Fundraising Central". No longer will you be able to encourage you friends to become politically active through this program, because now, it's only about the money.

Unfortunately, this seems to be a trend at the DNC. As most of you know, Dean eliminated the Director of GLGBT Outreach position at the DNC, but kept all of the GLBT Fundraising staff of the 'Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council'.

I will greatly miss the old E-Patriots program, which I used to encourage folks to get involved in the Democratic Party. Needless to say, I won't be using the new program.

David Mariner