Credit: Re-Elect Congressman Kucinich Committee

An email from Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich promoting his candidacy in a Firedoglake online contest is getting attention in some quarters for the fact that Kucinich lays out in black and white pixels that he'll vote in Congress against any health care reform measure that doesn't include a public option. The Senate bill, of course, doesn't have a public plan in it, and Kucinich's eventual support for a compromise legislative vehicle had been something of an open question.

But aside from the legislative particulars, we're early enough in the evolution of the political blog universe that it's still eye catching to see a sitting congressperson go after a blog endorsement like this, and it points to the success that Firedoglake has had in establishing itself not only as a political blog, but as a sort of blog/activist-force hybrid that few, if any, other political blogs on the left have duplicated. Whatever advocacy might that might be is something Kucinich could use in his corner; the long-time member of Congress faced his toughest race yet in 2008, though his Ohio district is fairly solidly Democrat territory.

What's FDL promising? The top three winners of its "Fire Dogs" contest gets added to FDL Action PAC's ActBlue fundraising drive; in the last quarter of 2008, ActBlue listed Firedoglake as its fourth largest aggregator of donations, pulling in $150,000 in that sleepy quarter. Beyond fundraising promises, FDL says that they will buy voter lists for the districts of their winning candidates, and then supply the army that it will take to turn those lists into phone calls, emails, and general promotion of the successful Fire Dog. "Members of the FDL community," reads the contest's rules, "will call voters in these districts to identify and persuade constituent support, encourage voter registration and recruit volunteers."

In addition to a taking a stand against health care reform that lacks a public option, FDL is encouraging participants in the contest to judge the congress-testants on whether they've pledged to cut off funding for the Iraq war, as well as their vote on one particular June supplemental bill. (The correct vote was a "no.")

Kucinich hit his email list yesterday with a note that read this: "Popular progressive blog, Firedoglake (FDL), has launched a new poll to identify three 'Fire Dogs' in Congress." He went on: "We are currently 2nd in the poll out of all the Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives. I need your help in getting us into 1st place." First, at the moment, is Orlando Rep. Alan Grayson. Kucinich followed up with a gentle nudge via email earlier today, writing to supporters that "You can make a difference, where being successful is a must."

Success might be a must, but will Kucinich be a success? We'll see. Voting ends tonight at midnight, east coast time, and the winners will be announced tomorrow.