(Originally published at Greater Democracy.)

Today, I received an email from Mike Lidell, the director of Online Communications for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee asking me to join in a blogger’s conference call with Senator Chuck Schumer, DSCC Chair.

In contrast, I received a bulk email from Howard Dean entitled “Investments pay off”. It asked for a $25 contribution. Rahm Emanuel, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent a bulk email entitled, “Democratic Vision Wins Out” asking for a contribution. Emily’s list sent a bulk email “Insider News - Setting the stage for 2006” asking for a contribution. The bulk email from Eli Pariser of MoveOn was entitled “Good election news! Now let's win big in 2006” and asked me to donate now. Jim Dean, of Democracy for America entitled his bulk email, “...And We're Only Getting Started”. It also asked for a contribution. John Kerry’s bulk email was entitled, “Reality 2, Bush 0” and asked me to click on an online petition calling to withdraw 20,000 troops over the holidays and asking for a contribution.

I didn’t send in a check to anyone or click on any petition. However, I did spend an hour of my time listening to Senator Schumer. I’m glad I did. He spoke frankly and openly about what is going on with the DSCC. He frequently spoke about Senators being out of touch with their constituents and how he wanted to change that.

In particular, he is encouraging Democratic Senators to head home each weekend to be in their local media markets. Being on CNN or Cspan is not enough. “You can’t just issue press releases from Washington”, he said. I pressed him on the subject saying that replacing CNN and Cspan with local TV stations is still very broadcast oriented and doesn’t do a lot to get Senators to hear their constituents any better.

In response, he spoke about the importance of blogs and how the folks at DSCC are teaching Senators about blogs. He went on to say, “Here is my major message, you can’t sit in Washington and think people will listen to you.”

I hope the Senators hear that message. I hope we can move towards a more participatory democracy. It looks like Senator Schumer is trying to move us in that direction. At least I hope that is what he is trying to do.

Will blogs help open up the political process and get people a little more involved? I hope so, because the old style doesn’t work and the flood of email donation requests isn’t really doing it. Hopefully, these sort of blogger conference calls will become common place.