ePatriots is a collaboration between the daily Kos weblog and the Democratic National Committee “to help narrow the GOP’s massive cash advantage.”

“Our nominee will emerge from the primaries bloodied and broke, only to run smack head into $200 million in GOP attack ads. The DNC recognizes the increasing power of the blogosphere, and was receptive when I approached them with a request — give us the tools to help the party and our nominee defeat Bush. The end result? ePatriots. So donate now and help us retake our nation from Bush and his cabal. Your donations will be crucial to this effort.”

Kos’ Markos Moulitsas adds at his site,

“I worked with the DNC in setting up ePatriots. As such, I am essentially test driving it to ensure everything works as advertised. Once we are certain the system is solid the DNC will make this system available to all bloggers and webmasters.”

I must admit that it sticks in my craw to donate to any party machine, especially without knowing where the Democrats are going in the 2004 campaign, and with whom. And I am not so sure that the weblogging community has the numbers and the reach to be influential in grassroots politics, especially of the progressive variety, in the sense that it may be a phenomenon in its own mind more than anywhere else. But I could be wrong, which might ultimately mean that the contributions of netizens could help shape the Dems into a responsive, grassroots, 21st-century organization that might function as the effective opposition party it has never been and which we need so desperately. It is a sort of Pascal’s Wager — there seems to be no harm in beginning to link to this effort from the get-go. If for no reason other than as a social experiment, spread the word. And even moreso if you believe there is enough of a difference between even the most vapid ‘Dixiecrat’ least-common-denominator of a potential Democratic candidate and our unelected Resident Bush to make it worthwhile to begin to build the warchest now. I am thinking of joining the ABBA Party…