I received a piece from Blue Tiger Democrats the other day, a lovely historical reflection on the idea behind the group. It actually resuscitates Tammany Hall, acknowledging how corrupt it became but pointing to its original virtue: Civic engagement. The Democratic party worked for its local constituency, making life better in tangible ways. The Blue Tigers want the party to get back to these roots.

It’s a terrific idea. The Dean campaign had a similar idea when, in its final months, it was encouraging supporters to do good works in the community, preferably while wearing a Dean t-shirt. But I think Blue Tiger has something more systematic in mind since it talks about building real world and virtual spaces. (It’d be nice if the Blue Tiger site provided a way for people to talk to it or to one another.)

It might be nice to hook up the Blue Tigers with Mitch Kapor’s notion of a space for fair arguments.

By the way, the big pamphlet — a broadside — the Blue Tigers sent presents provocative evidence that Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat was modeled on cartoons representing the noble Democratic tiger (the pre-donkey party symbol) as a corrupt Tammany Hall alley cat. [Tags: politics democrats blue_tiger_dems mitch_kapor]

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