Bold's Website Turns One

One year ago, Bold Nebraska's website went "live" with blog posts, events and a clear mission to change the political landscape and restore political balance in our state.

Our first blog was about Nebraskans and a President our capital city is named after that embody Bold's mission and desire for bold leadership--those that were elected to office as well as citizen advocates.

When we say political balance, we are not talking about more Democrats. Watching the budget talks and living through the health reform debate, we all know it's less about the D and R and more about elected officials' values, their back bone and their work ethic.  

Political balance means there is a place to hear the other side of the coin, a more progressive and independent perspective on big and small issues.  

Changing the political landscape means as our state's demographics begin to shift--more latino families, urban population centers, rural hubs of innovative economic activity--the elected officials who represent Nebraska at the local, state and federal level should mirror our diverse, resilient and remarkable population.

And, let's be honest, right now the majority of our elected officials do not reflect our diversity.  There is often one voice that dominates all issues and conversations, and that must change.

When you have one the biggest issues that Bold, allies and many Nebraskans have focused on, the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, and the representative who is responsible for the part of our state it would go through is essentially silent on the issue (that would be Adrian Smith, also Gov. Heineman and many more), you quickly realize the political balance in our state is simply out of whack and that something must be done.

We have made mistakes. For example, in some of our posts we got too snarky. We also fell into the trap of calling people "wimps" which we decided to end after the tragedy of Rep. Giffords. We made the conscious choice not to call elected officials wimps anymore or get into gossip that gets passed around our state like a game of high school telephone. We have not lost our sense of humor though, just look to our Rep. Lee TransCanada as a perfect example.

All of our ideas and values should be represented in our elected officials. Nebraskans should have a place online they can go and get information. We should all have collective actions offline where we can show that we are not alone. This is why we started Bold Nebraska.

Later in the week, our bold, strong and sassy News Director, Malinda Frevert, will post some of the accomplishments we are most proud of this past year.

To help Malinda out with her post, we are asking you to tell us in the comments section below one thing you like about Bold (a +) and one thing you want us to change (a Δ). 

Thank you to our Bold Team. Thank you to designer extraordinaire Justin Kemerling and site developer Emir Plicanic. Thank you to the many contributors who wrote blogs this past year. Thank you to our Bold donors including founding donor Dick Holland and each of you that invests $5 to $2,500 to keep us going strong.

Thank you for believing in a Bold Nebraska.