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Jerome Armstrong (born 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. He coined the term netroots•, is sometimes called The Blogfather for having mentored many other famous bloggers such as Markos Moulitsas in their early years (other bloggers are known by the same appellation), •• and is credited as one of the architects of Howard Dean's grassroots Presidential campaign. •
Background Jerome Armstrong was an environmental activist in the late 1980's, working with Greenpeace and Earth First! in Portland Oregon, and Phoenix, Arizona; during that time. He later served with the Peace Corps in Costa Rica and Sierra Leone. He also spent a year and a half at a Buddhist monastery, and served in Americorps, with the I Have A Dream program. Armstrong attended graduate school at Portland State University, and graduated in 2004 with degrees in Conflict Resolution and Applied Linguistics. MyDD & Dean 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 the site MyDD around April 2001, as a predictive site that covered issues ranging from, politcs, financial markets, astrology and philosophy. In June 2001, Armstrong relaunched MyDD with a focus purely on American politics. The first Dean grassroots web site was created at MyDD in April, 2002. In early 2003, Joe Trippi learned of Meetup through Armstrong and MyDD. Armstrong shut down MyDD in 2003 to work on Howard Dean's presidential campaign. After lying dormant for a year, MyDD was re-launched with the Scoop blogging platform in March of 2004. MyDD was instrumental in online campaigning and organizing of grassroots action to elect Howard Dean as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee in January, 2005. Several early contributors to MyDD became prominent in politics on the Internet. Markos Moulitsas was an early fan, eventually starting his own blog, Daily Kos. Mat Gross, creator of the blog on Howard Dean’s web-site, was another contributor to MyDD. Joe Trippi, former campaign manager for Howard Dean, met and hired Mat Gross based on Gross' involvement with MyDD. Political Consultancy In January of 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. Jerome Armstrong now does internet strategy consulting for various advocacy organizations through the firm "Political Technologies LLC". In 2005, Armstrong worked for New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Jon Corzine and Ohio senate candidate Sherrod Brown's Senate campaign. He also signed on with Mark Warner's Forward Together PAC to develop their internet strategy.• Controversy Armstrong was a prolific poster on various stock trading websites in the late 1990's and 2000. Based on postings made in 1999-2000, in April 2003, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil action suit against Armstrong alleging that he promoted BluePoint Linux Software Corporation without disclosing the compensation he received.•• In September 2003, Armstrong submitted a response to the Court in which he denied the stock touting allegations made against him in the SEC's filing. In December 2003, Armstrong agreed to a settlement with the SEC.• that neither admitted or denied the allegations of the complaint. In January 2005, Zephyr Teachout claimed in a blog posting (cited by the Wall Street Journal•) that the Dean campaign paid Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas for positive mentions in their respective blogs, MyDD and Daily Kos. Armstrong responded by pointing out that MyDD was shut down for the duration of his employment with Dean's campaign.• Teachout later retracted the claim. In June 2006, conservative bloggers (primarily Dan Riehl• and James Joyner•) raised allegations that Jerome Armstrong and Moulitsas had a quid pro quo scheme whereby politicians hiring Armstrong as a consultant returned favorable mentions by Moulitsas on Daily Kos.• Armstrong denied these allegations, stating them "complete fabrications".• 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."• Subsequently, Joyner retracted the allegation.• Books His book , co-authored by Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, was released in 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.• Notes | ||||||||
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