In Paying the New Politics, Stirling Newberry writes about how "the well oiled parts of the establishment are busy not funding the progressive space known as the blogosphere."
He's writing about how bloggers can survive to continue doing the work they do. But he is also talking about "Progressive Infrastructure" -- building up a power base outside of any political parties. The infrastructure would consist of organizations that support the activities of progressives, that reach the pubic to inform them about issues and ideas, that provide the foot soldiers for campaigns and initiatives.
And he writes,
Many people will take this as a threat, in a sense, it is history's threat: when a new body of people emerge, either the established means fund them, and thus bring them in - or those new people establish new institutions, ones which are not beholden to the old world. Being a student of history, I could rattle off a dozen examples beyond the conservative movement. But realize that the liberal blogosphere is a couple of ticked off billionaires away from not needing the inside.And there are a growing number of progressive billionaires or hectamillionaires, who are less than impressed with how the liberal establishment and Democratic Party have run things. One of them could be the Scaife of the progressive movement, and one of them will be.