As much and as intimately as you think you know someone, you don’t know jack until you see them navigate a crisis. And the same is true with organizations. They reveal themselves during crunch time.

Take Jim Dean’s Democracy for America.

Yes, they’ve been active and successful during the election cycle. They selected 54 “fiscally responsible, socially progressive” candidates last time out, and helped leverage 31 of them into office.

Including Peter Welch and Bernie Sanders.

But with the election over, some organizations would lapse into dormancy — making them essentially useless during a sudden, off-year crisis, like Bush’s brazen escalation of the conflict in Iraq.

Not DFA, though. How did they react? Their people were on the front lines, baby. (As was the unstoppable Ashley Smith, long-time Friend of VDB.)

Sheri Divers, over at Blog For America, has the scoop, as always. [Photo: Burlington Free Press]

Now look, VDB doesn’t often put the touch on you. Scan the sidebar. See any ads? No. Because the idea has always been to keep the reading experience clean, commercial-free, and pressure-free.

But every once in a while, we do ask something of you, if you’re so inclined. And today we’re asking you to take a look at Democracy for America.

It’s a beautiful operation, stripped to the fundamentals: it runs almost entirely on volunteer power. Without it, they’re just a small handful of talented people against the vast Corporate Armies of the Night; with it, they’re the progressive cavalry, digitally-enhanced.

You’re the difference.

Yeah, you. You with the mouse.

So if you’ve been toying with the idea of getting active between cycles, here’s the man to call:

Kyle Duggan, Volunteer Coordinator
x163
email:

Tell them VDB sent you. And tell them thanks for packing the protest last night. Front page coverage of a protest is really two separate protests, after all.

And that’s a beautiful thing.