From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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. [2][6]
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. [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."[23]
Books,
Business
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]
In addition to political pursuits, Armstrong, along with Markos
Moulitsas and SB Nation President Tyler Bleszinski
(of Athletics
Nation), is a cofounder of Washington, D.C.-based SB Nation, a
network of over 150 sports blogs. The network now covers most or
all teams of the MLB, the NBA, NFL, College Sports, Pro Cycling, and other sports. Former AOL
programming chief Jim Bankoff is now chairman and CEO of SBNation,
[25] and
mid-seven-figure funding led by Accel Partners has been secured for
the network of sports blogs. [26]
References
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