Success and victory doesn’t happen overnight or without substantial planning and preparation. Join the DFA Campaign Academy as we present tips and advice for planning your next event, fundraiser or field campaign.

What’s your campaign’s story? This DFA Campaign Academy session will focus on how to turn a candidate’s personal history and positions into a compelling and memorable message. We’ll also spend some time looking at how candidates can draw effective contrasts with their opponents on a campaign using campaign ads developed by the award winning media consulting firm FRCR.

Precinct Organizing on a neighbor-to-neighbor basis is how we will build the Democratic party between elections and in the long term. This DFA Campaign Academy session focuses on the importance of organizing at the precinct level as well as the strategies and tactics to effectively organize your neighbors.

Connect with like-minded folks and talk with others from your community in our identity, issue and regional caucuses.

One of the great debates of blogging is the general rudeness and shrillness acceptable within the discourse. Does profanity exempt you from being taken seriously? Are you necessarily "calmer" because you don't drop a few four-letter words? We'll discuss the tone and attitude of various pockets of bloggers, and also why, no matter what, Michelle Malkin is still worse.

We know that populism wins elections, but once a politician wins how do we make sure that pro-middle class policies are actually implemented? Blue Dogs and the media conflate being pro-middle class with being “centrist”.

The debt stricken, under-insured public's realization that their personal economic struggles are really political struggles presents an opportunity for lasting progressive change. Barack Obama's agenda includes healthcare and transportation among other investments in our country that the middle class needs-- but these aren't free. How can the netroots mobilize to make it politically possible to pass Obama's domestic agenda in a Grover Norquist-shaped world?

You can’t have a real discussion about biofuels without talking about indigenous people affected by deforestation, or people who survive on corn and are stuck with higher prices. You can’t discuss a carbon-free economy without talking about green jobs and alternative infrastructure. But instead of integrating environmentalism into the broader progressive agenda, mainstream media and even some non-profits keep green in a silo. We gain nothing by such segregation. Hear progressive activists, bloggers and environmentalists discuss environmentalism as it is understood by the rest of the world—as an issue that permeates most others.

Molly Ivins once called Texas “the national laboratory for bad government”—and for good reason—Texas politics is like a legal contact sport. From mid-decade redistricting debacles, runaway corruption at juvenile prisons and a House Speaker who assumes monarchal authority to legislative antics and bizarre campaign debacles, nobody knows Texas politics better than the bloggers and citizen journalists who regularly cover it. In this panel, four of Texas’ premier bloggers will address a variety of issues and topics to give the attendee an insider’s view of politics and the legislative process in Texas.

Many people helped lead the U.S. into war in Iraq, but few were as wrong, uninformed and unaccountable as the television pundits. How do war pundits influence and distort our foreign policy debates? Why are they the most influential voice in the public discourse of foreign policy? This panel will convene journalists and actual foreign policy experts to dissect the broken punditocracy, Pentagon propaganda and the marginalization of voices critical of war or the government. From Iraq to Iran, panelists will discuss what activists can do to improve the accuracy and accountability of America's foreign policy punditry.

One of the challenges facing the Netroots in creating a progressive movement is the transformation of Netroots activism into grassroots action. This panel will discuss the benefits and challenges in working within the Democratic Party on the state and local level. This discussion will include a primer on how to get involved, as well as a discussion on the resistance one may face “crashing the party.” The goal of this discussion is to encourage more Netroots community members to actively engage in politics on the state and local level.

Massive telecom companies control virtually all of our voice and internet communications these days—and new evidence shows a near-total lack of commitment to our democracy. AT&T has proposed filtering all content traveling on its network. Verizon tried initially to block NARAL's pro-choice text messages. Most telecom companies are fighting net neutrality. Can democracy survive an assault by those who control the tubes?

Engaging young voters requires meeting them where they gather and hang out. Today, that means online—on social networks like Facebook and through open sharing platforms like YouTube. But online engagement isn't enough. A campaign that can't move its supporters offline looks like the failed Ron Paul Revolution. Those who can—like Senator Obama—will reap the rewards. This panel will explore best practices to mobilize youth by moving online engagement offline.