It sounds to me like it should be the name of a third-party candidate in that Kodos and Kang election episode of The Simpsons, but "topprog" is actually a new political Twitter hashtag that is starting to find traction. I've been beating the drum for a short while now on the fact that conservatives are organizing better and faster than the left on Twitter, as evidenced by Top Conservatives on Twitter/#tcot -- which is, of course, the model for this "Top Progressives" project. (For what it's worth, one prominent conservative I spoke with recently pronounced it "tee-cot." Now you know.)

The #topprog hashtag was proposed in an email from Alan Rosenblatt, the associate director of online advocacy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund:

Help Organize Progressives on Twitter!

So the conservative tweeters are organizing on Twitter, using #tcot as their hash tag whenever they post. They have a website as well: http://www.topconservativesontwitter.org/.

In an effort to counter organize, let's start using #topprog as our progressive hash tag on Twitter.

A component of the Top Conservatives on Twitter project is a leader board of, well, the conservatives who have been deemed tops on Twitter. (My understanding is that while the board was once derived by hand, there's now some sort of fancy algorithm that determines the rankings.) Rosenblatt reports that a leader board for the left is in the works. This being progressives, there's been some push back on the the elitism and exclusion that might be implied by that approach. Take this from one @anotherpundit:

top conservatives on twitter is hat tip to elite frame - only elite can govern, have opinion. #topprog reinforces... no?

No matter. The #topprog hashtag has had pretty good pick-up today, as you can see for yourself. It hasn't, though, topped the Twitter Trending Topics list in the way that, say, Snuggies have. But really, it's a bit much to ask discussions of political ideology to compete with blankets with arms.

Jon Pincus has some additional thoughts on #topprog, including on how the hashtag could the gender imbalance you might see on a site like Digg.