2007 Netroots Awards

Below are the winners of the First Annual Netroots Awards, sponsored by the newly-chartered Florida Democratic Party Netroots Coalition. In this event there truly are no losers (except maybe Ray). All of the nominees were deserving and this is not simply a matter of there being only one good candidate in each category, but a matter of having to choose one candidate in each category. You really should be regularly reading (or working with) all the nominees.

Voting was incredibly tight in several categories, with more than 175 votes cast, some categories came down to only 1, 2 or three vote margins. Thats a sign of all the great work you people are doing out there — it was often a difficult decision to determine who was “best” in a particular category.

For those who weren’t at the Netroots Conference (more on that later), we do have beautiful hand-carved statue made out of the flesh of the great California Redwood trees for you… just kidding. We have a pretty certificate, suitable for framing. Without any further ado, the winners…

Award	Winner	Other Finalists	Others Receiving Votes
	A very tough category, but Sinfonian, the host of Blast Off! Radio and the Blast Off! Blog, was the winner. All three nominees are great reads that you should be checking out on a daily basis. (See for yourself)	Bark Bark Woof Woof, Pushing Rope	T. Rex’s Guide to Life, Florida Kossacks, Discourse.net, Pensito Review
	A tight race, but we lost out by a few votes to everyone’s favorite place of their daily news fix, FLA Politics. FLA Politics really is kind of the blogfather of Florida political blogging and big supporter of Florida Progressive Coalition, so the award is very deserving. FLA Politics (See for yourself)	Smashed Frog, Florida Progressive Coalition, Florida Netroots, Change in Tallahassee	Build Florida’s DECs, flablog, Blast Off!, the 13th juror
	This one came down to exactly one vote, but the winner was the McCook wife-husband team at Tampa Bay Blue. (See for yourself)	Eye on Miami, GusWatch, Stuck on the Palmetto, Talk To Me	Broward’s Blog, Local Politics is All, Empirical Polk, Ricksblog.biz, Transit Miami, Interstate4Jamming, Sticks of Fire
	Adam looked a bit embarrassed when he picked up his certificate, but there isn’t any place more political junkies go to get the latest on Sunshine State politics than The Buzz. (See for yourself)	Naked Politics, The Daily Pulp	Central Florida Political Pulse, Reid Blog, Taking Names, Political Whore, Troxblog, Poho, The Feed
	This was the category that received the second-most votes of all the awards and the deserving recipient of much of that love was Larry Thorson of Miami-Dade Dems. (See for yourself)	Samm Simpson’s Blog, Marion County Democratic Party Blog
	Never underestimate the power of humor in getting people interested in something. The award-winner that got the biggest audience reaction was Draft Katherine Harris, created by some of the FDP staff also got the most votes. (See for yourself)	Florida Democratic Party, Florida GLBT Democratic Caucus	Make It count Florida
	Another very close race that came down to the last minute, Chris Chiari’s website was judged the best by the most voters and Chris made sure to thank Brian Franklin for making the site such a good one. (See for yourself)	Lee Nelson, Jack Killingsworth	Don Chinquina, Jonah Wolfson, Michael Calderin, Shawn Byrnes, Rick Kriseman, Kevin Beckner, Alex Sink, Carl Zimmerman
	The tightest race from top to bottom, the Nassau Democratic Party website beat out the East Hillsborough Democratic Club by one vote and the Marion County site by only three votes. (See for yourself)	East Hillsborough Democratic Club, Marion County	Leon County, Seminole County, Miami-Dade, Democratic Power Club, Suncoast Stonewall Democrats, Pinellas, Orange, Duval, Hillsborough, Brevard, Pasco, Broward
	Cammie Donaldson and crew are one of the most active grassroots groups in the state and their website is very well-made and very useful. Space Coast Progressive Alliance (See for yourself)	Progressive Democrats of America, St. Johns Riverkeeper	Grassroots Brevard, Miami for Peace, Florida PIRG, Grassroots Democrats, Civic Concern, Fla. AFL-CIO, Florida Workforce Housing, The Fort Report
	While I’m a little sad I didn’t win this category, I didn’t deserve to, since Litbrit is without a doubt the best writer we have in the Florida blogosphere. I voted for her myself. Now you need to start reading her writing much more frequently. (See for yourself)	Sunny, Kenneth Quinnell	Ray Seaman, Bob Norman, Sheree Shatsky, Vrej Esphanian, Progressive Florida/Progressive America, John Masters, Mariella Smith, Tommy Duncan
	The winner of this one is someone you can find pretty much everywhere the Netroots is, Michael Calderin, and hopefully he’ll soon be joining me in Tallahassee. (See for yourself)	Mary Mulhern, Lee Nelson	Christian Chiari, Liz Campbell
	Another tough category with multiple deserving people. In the end, Susan Smith got the most votes and she is a deserving winner. Whether it be her work with DFA or Florida Progressive Coalition or Florida Progressive Radio or helping out at the convention or Yearly Kos or her big financial support of Netroots activities, there really isn’t anything we do that Susan hasn’t helped out with.	Jennifer Killingsworth, Alison Berke Morano	Ray Seaman, Eddie Schweiterman, Mitch Kates, Phil Perry, Kindra Muntz, Gene Smith, Mariella Smith, Kenneth Quinnell
	Florida Progressive Coalition took this category this time around. Not surprising since, like the AARP, potentially every voter is a member of this organization. If you’d like to join the Coalition and post to this blog, e-mail us at quinnelk@hotmail.com.	Progressive Democrats of America, Florida Netroots	DFA, Florida Democratic Party, Demslink, Florida Sunshine State TESOL Advocacy Mailing List