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PartyBuilder is a set of online tools designed to empower Democrats to take control of the future of their party. Through technology, we're moving people from email and websites to canvasses and rallies.

PartyBuilder isn't the typical online tool set. Individual users control most of the activity – from blogging, to setting up and managing groups or activists, to organizing and managing real-world events, to fundraising, Democrats are entrusted to build the space and the Party.

Take a minute to explore the different features, then invite your friends and connect with each other to help build the Party for 2006 and beyond. PartyBuilder gives you everything you need to take online action for real-world results.

To come together. We are the Party, the American People. We are strong, not thin skinned. We stick and stay, not jump ship over every little thing that doesn't go in our favor. We can see through the minutia of the media to what's really going on. We have the power to make America greater than ever before.

The Democratic Party

In a nutshell, we take the word lobbyist and make it a sweeping term fraught with negative connotations. The candidates, pundits and media are notoriously inept at defining the different types of lobbying that occurs in Washington and local governments. All lobbying isn't negative and all lobbyists aren't scum sucking pigs.
And guess what? WE NEED THEM. all the coveted organized endorsements from the AFLCIO to the Teamsters and myriad groups have lobbyists working on their behalf. Each wanting their endorsement and support to influence the candidate and the party in favor of their constituents - the American People. However there are lobbyists that have no interest in the citizen, but in their own profit margins, in the inflated salaries of their corporate tier and in influencing the powerbrokers on the Hill. Hillary Clinton is swimming in lobbyists. Bill Clinton lobbied at different times. Axelrod was not a part of Washington type lobbying so disdained by the casual onlooker. And lobbying does not mean one is a lobbyist.

Barack Obama received his B.A. in Political Science from Columbia University. He spent five years working as a community organizer, first in Harlem, then in Chicago.

In 1988, Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School. There he served as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review and was a member of the Executive Board of the Black Law Students Association. He graduated Magna Cum Laude.

In 1992, Obama served as Illinois Executive Director of Project Vote!, an effort that added over 100,000 newly registered voters.

In 1993, Obama was named by Crain's Chicago Business as one of "40 under 40" outstanding young leaders in the city of Chicago. He is the recipient of the 1995 Legal Eagle Award from IVI-IPO for his work in bringing Illinois into compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (Motor Vote). His commentaries have been heard on National Public Radio and his memoir, Dreams of My Father, was published by Random House in August, 1995.

In 2004, Obama was elected to the United States Senate from Illinois. He is the third African-American U.S. Senator since Reconstruction. In 2004, he gave a rousing and inspiring keynote speech at the Democratic Convention in Boston.

Obama worked as a civil rights attorney with the firm Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Galland. He specialized in employment discrimination, fair housing and voting rights litigation. He also lectured at the University of Chicago Law School, where he taught civil rights law and related subjects.

In addition, Obama serves on the boards of several organizations: including the Chicago Annenberg Center Challenge (Chairman), the Joyce Foundation, the Woods Fund of Chicago, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, the Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law and Public Allies. He is a member of the Cook County Bar Association.

The Annenberg Challenge to Chicago
Annenberg Challenge Recognizes Chicago School Reform With $49.2 Million Grant
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CHICAGO -- The Annenberg Foundation today announced a five-year grant totaling $49.2 million to support Chicago school reform, calling Chicago reform "a major breakthrough from which the nation can learn." The grant, part of the half-billion-dollar Annenberg Challenge to the Nation to improve the nation's public schools, will be matched two-to-one by $100 million in local private and public dollars.

The Hon. Walter H. Annenberg, editor, publisher and former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, designed the Annenberg Challenge to energize and support promising efforts at school reform across the country.

President Bill Clinton announced this extraordinary half-billion-dollar gift at a White House ceremony Dec. 17, 1993.

Announcing one of the largest private gifts ever made in support of an urban public school reform initiative and the largest in Chicago's history, Ms. Wallis Annenberg, Vice President of the Annenberg Foundation, said, "This support will assist teachers, parents, neighbors, and first and foremost, children, in their long-term struggle for excellence. We are in total agreement with the direction of Chicago school reform. Our nation's schools will only be reinvigorated one at a time, through the commitment of each school's staff and the residents of each school's community."

"We believe in democracy," said Annenberg. "We are working together with you because Chicago is reinvigorating the grassroots democracy that is the key to our nation's survival."

The Annenberg Challenge will support networks of schools working in collaboration with external partners such as universities, nonprofit organizations or the Chicago Teacher's Union Quest Center to improve the quality of teaching and the quality of students' work and achievement. Schools that receive Annenberg funds may redirect some of their discretionary funds toward supporting the project's reform strategies.

Mayor Richard M. Daley and Gov. Jim Edgar joined a citywide gathering of children, parents, teachers, principals and school reform and civic leaders at Washington Irving Elementary School for the grant announcement. Irving is a neighborhood school on Chicago's West Side where most students come from low-income families. Irving has developed a nationally recognized schoolwide initiative to improve student writing, through which its students have made major progress toward meeting statewide writing standards. High-quality student writing covers the walls of the Irving School. "School-to-school self-help will be the focus of the networks our grant to you will support," said Ms. Annenberg. "Who is better qualified to help other teachers develop an excellent writing program than the teachers at Washington Irving?"

The initial phase of the Chicago Annenberg project will support about 10 networks, consisting of five to 10 schools working in collaboration with external partners, such as universities or nonprofit organizations, to improve the quality of teaching and the quality of students' work and achievement. Most of the money will support school-level strategies designed by individual schools. Two requirements for participating schools will be (1) to make more time available for teacher planning and professional development and (2) to create small learning communities where the students are well-known to their teachers.

A pro bono advisor to Ambassador Annenberg and the Annenberg Challenge, Brown University President Vartan Gregorian, cited a number of features of Chicago school reform that motivated the Annenberg Challenge grant to Chicago:

Empowering Schools and Their Neighborhoods - The Annenberg Foundation believes that urban school systems must be radically decentralized and that decisions about improvement must be made by local educators, parents, and community members. Chicago has already gone further than any other urban school system in the nation in shifting the control of education to each school community. Hiring decisions and decisions about curriculum are made at the school level, and the school decides how to spend an average of $500,000 per year in public discretionary dollars.


High Standards for Student Learning - The Annenberg Foundation believes that all children must meet uncompromising rigorous expectations for what they can learn. Chicago school reform focuses on improving every school in every neighborhood in the city, rather than concentrating attention on a few magnet schools.


Safe Schools - The Annenberg Foundation is particularly concerned about ending school violence as a condition for high-quality learning. In the last five years, Chicago's schools have reduced incidents of serious violence, a dramatic change credited to the presence of more parents in the schools and the flexibility that exists in Chicago to devise local solutions to safety and discipline problems.


Private-Public Partnerships for Improvement - The Annenberg Foundation believes that new educational ideas take root not because of top-down mandates, but because of cooperation and sharing among teachers and other school leaders. Under Chicago reform, more than 30 networks bringing together more than 200 schools have already grown up to share ideas for improvement. The Annenberg grant will strengthen this important resource for improvement that already exists.

Examples of Dramatically Improving Schools Already Exist in Chicago - The Annenberg Foundation believes that exemplary schools can become highly effective learning sites for other schools. Dramatically improving Chicago neighborhood schools, such as Washington Irving Elementary School, Woodson South Elementary School, Healy Elementary School, and Flower Vocational High School, show that the Chicago reform process is working and show great promise as examples for others.
Gregorian cautioned that the Annenberg grant is not a solution to Chicago's deficit problem or a substitute for the discretionary funds that already flow to Chicago's schools. "We call this initiative a `challenge' because we are challenging Chicago's private and public sector to match our commitment and to increase their financial, personal, and moral support for Chicago's public schools. The Annenberg Foundation's money will go primarily to schools for the improvement of instruction."

The Chicago Annenberg proposal was developed through discussions among a broad-based coalition of local school council members, teachers, principals, school reform groups, union representatives and central office staff, convened by Anne Hallett of the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform, William Ayers of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Warren Chapman of the Joyce Foundation. A nominating committee has been formed by the proposal's drafters to create a permanent 20-person Reform Collaborative to oversee the project. The initial networks of schools that are funded will be selected through a competitive proposal process, with specifics of the process developed by the Collaborative.

The public match can include new public dollars, as well as existing dollars and in-kind contributions that are specifically redirected to achieve the purposes of the Chicago Annenberg Project. "Despite the looming financial crisis," said Argie Johnson, general superintendent of schools, "we have some new dollars available next year for staff development, improving science, math and technology teaching, and other priorities that are the focus of the Chicago Annenberg Project. Since my approach to better teaching is totally in tune with the Chicago Annenberg Project and we have fully participated in the planning, we have no hesitation in directing these new funds to support the project's strategies."

"We hope that the state's leadership will take note of the major endorsement of Chicago's progress by the Annenberg Foundation when they consider our financial needs this spring," she said.

James Stukel, chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago, announced that the university would be among the first to contribute toward the public match by donating space in a university building to house the citywide resource center for the Annenberg Challenge.

Adele Simmons, president of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, expressed confidence that the city's philanthropic community would meet the challenge of providing $50 million in matching funds over the next five years. "Foundations in Chicago, indeed throughout the nation, have recognized the importance of the school reform process in Chicago and have been firm in their support since the beginning. Foundation support for Chicago reform has increased dramatically since 1985 and currently exceeds $10 million per year. I am confident that this support will continue and more than meet the Annenberg Challenge in Chicago. The Donors Forum of Chicago will be the fiscal agent for the grant.

Chicago is one of three cities - including New York and Los Angeles - to have received a major Annenberg Challenge Grant since the Challenge was announced.

This study examines the activities and influence of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, founded in 1995 as part of a nationwide initiative to improve public schools. Although the Chicago Challenge began as a collaborative of community organizations, it has since evolved into an activist foundation with a distinct theory of action. While its shift in identity has helped to ensure its organizational survival, it has also posed challenges to its capacity to directly influence the process of reform in the Chicago Public Schools. In this report, the Chicago Challenge's theory of action is explored.


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The Honorable Walter H. Annenberg

"I believe in social responsibility. A man's service to others must be at least in ratio to the character of his own success in life. When one is fortunate enough to gain a measure of material well being, however small, service to others should be uppermost in his mind." - Walter H. Annenberg (1951)

Walter H. Annenberg was born in 1908 and enjoyed a distinguished career as a publisher, broadcaster, diplomat, and philanthropist.

He graduated from The Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey and attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He entered the family publishing business in Philadelphia where he became the President of Triangle Publications in 1940 and, subsequently, Chairman of the Board.

While serving as Editor and Publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mr. Annenberg saw the need for a publication for teenage girls and, in 1944, established Seventeen Magazine. In 1953, as a result of his belief that television's growth would create a demand for more information on the part of viewers, he established TV Guide as a national publication.

Under Mr. Annenberg's leadership, Triangle Publications bought a radio station in the early 1940's in Philadelphia and built a VHF television station which was one of the first TV stations owned by a publishing house. The radio-TV division of Triangle grew to include six AM and six FM radio stations, and six TV stations. The Philadelphia station pioneered a number of broadcasting concepts among which was Mr. Annenberg's decision to use television to present a series of educational programs that ran for more than a decade. In 1951, Mr. Annenberg became an early awardee of the prestigious Alfred I. DuPont Award for pioneering education via television. He was also given the Marshall Field Award in 1958. In 1983, he received the Ralph Lowell Medal for his "outstanding contribution to public television."

A man with a deep interest in education, Mr. Annenberg founded The Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 1958 and The Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California in 1971. In 1983, he established the Washington Program in Communications Policy Studies in response to growing awareness that difficult government and industry problems were emerging in the rapidly changing telecommunications field.

He served as Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Great Britain, from 1969 to 1974. By the late 1980's, having sold all of his publishing and broadcast enterprises, Ambassador Annenberg devoted his attention to philanthropy and public service.

As you can see the pundits, reporters and campaign aides are all a tither about a simple mistatement that any sane person may have squinted at a bit, but would have nevertheless understood in context of the entire speech. This is a microcosm of the entire campaign for both Obama and Clinton. people get sidetracked by what everyone else is saying but the candidate and all is lost in translation.
A mountain out of a molehill I think is an apt description. Go Hillary, keep your head up. Regualr folks know what you meant and you're right.

(CNN) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton said Sunday some people are using her controversial reference to Robert F. Kennedy's assassination to suggest that she meant something "completely unthinkable."


Sen. Hillary Clinton says her supporters urge her to stay in the race until it is over.

1 of 2 Her campaign also accused the rival Obama campaign of "inflaming" the situation and purposely taking her words out of context. But the Obama campaign said it was not trying to "stir the issue up."

In an editorial in the New York Daily News, the Democratic presidential hopeful also acknowledged her dwindling chances of winning the nomination, saying she is aware of "the odds" against her.

Headlined "Hillary: Why I continue to run," the editorial began with an explanation of her reference to the assassination when she was speaking to the Argus Leader newspaper in South Dakota. She said she was pointing out that presidential primary campaigns have continued into June.

"Almost immediately, some took my comments entirely out of context and interpreted them to mean something completely different -- and completely unthinkable," she wrote. Watch Hillary's camp insist the remark had nothing to do with Obama »

Clinton said the newspaper's editor and Bobby Kennedy Jr. issued statements arguing that was the meaning of her remark. No other member of the Kennedy family has issued a public statement on the matter.

"I realize that any reference to that traumatic moment for our nation can be deeply painful -- particularly for members of the Kennedy family, who have been in my heart and prayers over this past week," she said, in a reference to Sen. Edward Kennedy's diagnosis with brain cancer. "And I expressed regret right away for any pain I caused.

"But I was deeply dismayed and disturbed that my comment would be construed in a way that flies in the face of everything I stand for -- and everything I am fighting for in this election." Some people -- particularly a number of bloggers -- have suggested she was imagining the possibility that Sen. Barack Obama, the likely nominee, could be assassinated.

After Clinton's initial remarks to the newspaper were reported, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying the comment "was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign."

But Obama himself later said, "I don't think that Senator Clinton intended anything by it," and that "we should put it behind us."

Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe, in an interview Sunday, criticized the Obama campaign's first move. "It's unfortunate -- a hyped-up press over Memorial Day weekend, the Obama campaign inflaming it, tried to take these words out of context," he told "Fox News Sunday."

Asked about the remark by Obama himself, McAuliffe responded, "That's great, but Friday they were all part of this process. The press secretary came out and attacked Senator Clinton and got it going so the story would be around for three days."

Howard Wolfson, a Clinton adviser, told CBS' "Face the Nation" that the Obama campaign's first statement critical of Clinton was "unfortunate."

But Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod told ABC's "This Week" that "we take her at her word," and he added, "We're beyond that issue now, so certainly we're not trying to stir the issue up."

The program's host, George Stephanopoulos, noted that a member of Obama's staff sent to the media Saturday a "searing commentary" by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann slamming Clinton for her remark.

"Mr. Olbermann did his commentary and he had his opinion," Axelrod responded, adding, "As far as we're concerned, this issue is done."

On another front, Axelrod slammed Clinton for suggesting she leads Obama in the popular vote.

Clinton has been making that argument, based on figures that include Florida and Michigan, even though Obama took his name off the ballot in Michigan and neither candidate campaigned in Florida. The Democratic Party discounted both states' primaries before they took place.

"It would take some very tortured math and tortured logic to say that she's ahead in the popular vote," Axelrod told ABC.

He added, "This isn't 'American Idol,' OK? This is a nominating process. We have rules. We elect delegates state by state."

In her column, Clinton said she believes she can still "win on the merits."

"I am not unaware of the challenges or the odds of my securing the nomination -- but this race remains extraordinarily close, and hundreds of thousands of people in upcoming primaries are still waiting to vote," she wrote.

She added that her parents "did not raise me to be a quitter -- and too many people still come up to me at my events, grip my arm and urge me not to walk away before this contest is over."

She also said she is running "because I believe staying in this race will help unite the Democratic Party. I believe that if Senator Obama and I both make our case -- and all Democrats have the chance to make their voices heard -- in the end, everyone will be more likely to rally around the nominee."

She repeated her vow to campaign for Obama if he gets the nomination, and wrote, "No matter what happens in this primary, I am committed to unifying this party."

Obama was in Middleton, Connecticut, where he was standing in for the ailing Edward Kennedy who was scheduled to deliver the commencement at Wesleyan University.

The theme of Obama's speech was service, and the senator asked graduates to volunteer their time at home and abroad to fight poverty, preserve peace and protect the environment

"But I hope you'll remember, during those times of doubt and frustration, that there is nothing naive about your impulse to change this world," he said. "Because all it takes is one act of service -- one blow against injustice -- to send forth that tiny ripple of hope that Robert Kennedy spoke of."