Welcome Back Darcy Burner!

Far more than most of the candidates the netroots has gotten behind, Darcy Burner, who ran in 2006 and 2008 against Dave Reichert in WA-08 west of Seattle, became integrated into the online community. A few days ago I covered the entry on the 2010 candidate into that race, Suzan DelBene, an old colleague of Darcy's from Microsoft.

Darcy isn't thinking about elective office now and when I called her a few weeks ago I got her in her car as she was driving across the country from Washington to Washington, DC, to start work at a new job heading up the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation. And it's that job, heading up a non-profit foundation under the auspices of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is why we asked her to come back and talk with us at Firedoglake today (11am, PT). A little background before we meet in the comments section for a chat. First off, the mission of the new foundation is to connect progressives inside and outside of Congress. Specifically, she'll be focusing on building connections in both directions between the progressive movement and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

She was looking for a way to make a difference on the things she cares about and has been fighting for, and this seemed like a great opportunity to do so. "I'm passionate," she told me yesterday, "about small-d democracy, and decided I couldn't pass up this opportunity to work on making it easier for the millions of people in the progressive grassroots to be more connected to the people they send to Congress to work for them." If she succeeds it could revolutionize representative democracy. And if I've met anyone with the brains, maturity, energy, strength and intuition to get something like this off the ground, it's Darcy.

Because it's a start-up, she's going to need all the help she can get-- and she told me there will be a bunch of opportunities for people who want to be involved to help the Foundation while learning a lot more about how Congress works. This online community is probably a better place to start looking than anywhere else. Like many of us, Darcy says she "promised that I would never stop fighting for the values we hold dear. This is a downpayment on keeping that promise."