Don't tell the folks in Iowa and New Hampshire, but the first primary in the 2008 presidential nomination race might occur on July 19, 2007.

Call it the Netroots Primary.

July 19 has become "Blogosphere Day" for progressive online activists. In 2004, these partisans turned their attention to unknown Democratic congressional candidate Virginia "Ginny" Schrader, who was running in an impossibly Republican district. Two days later her campaign was $30,000 richer. (She lost.)

This year, Paul Hackett, the underdog Democrat in an Ohio special election, benefited to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. (He lost.)

If the netroots can flex like that in an off-off-year losing House race, what'll they do for the big race?

"It'll be interesting to see Blogosphere Day in 2007," said Chris Bowers, a co-founder of MyDD.com. "It'll be interesting to see who gets the most."

He added: "The candidate that will raise the most is the one that doesn't look at the blogosphere and the netroots as just another ATM machine."

The experiences of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and now Hackett add up to dollar signs in politicos' eyes. But netroot activists have a grander view of their role.

"Real political power and influence is now being wielded through online communities comprising millions of people," Bowers and Matthew Stoller wrote last week in a New Politics Institute report. "And trends suggest that this is only the beginning. Indeed, what we have seen to date are the outlines of a new politics."

Online activists say that fundraising comes last, after organizing and message. "If you look at the Hackett stuff, some of the best work came in the form of the message machine," said Markos Moulitsas of dailykos.com, citing blogs that either drove stories or fact-checked GOP attacks.

Many old-time operatives, perhaps wondering if the political dot-com bubble is as real as the financial one, remain less interested in new politics than in new dollars.

"It seems that campaigns have learned the wrong lesson about the Hackett surprise, with a bunch of campaigns asking to (1) meet with me, and (2) help them raise money," Moulitsas posted last week. "That's a double insult. First of all, I'm not a gatekeeper. I don't decide who is 'in' and who is 'out.' All these campaigns profess love for the netroots, yet none of them seem to be doing anything more to 'reach out' to the netroots than sending me an e-mail."

Bowers and Stoller made a number of outreach recommendations that range from commonsensical (hire a "Netroots Coordinator" whose job involves more than online fundraising) to the have-it-both-ways fudging that leaves old-school politicos and media either befuddled or bemused. ("It is important to remember at all times that bloggers are both campaign activists and a sort of journalist ... Treat bloggers like friends and allies, but also realize you are on the record.")

And most importantly, stand up.

"Our demands are fairly innocuous," Moulitsas told a New Politics Institute conference recently. "We don't care about ideology, we care that you stand together as a Democrat and don't run from the party and don't run scared."

Does stout Democratic partisanship automatically mean hard-core liberalism? While conventional wisdom holds that netroot heat requires left-wing passion, Moulitsas pointed to candidates like Stephanie Herseth ("She was running a Republican-lite campaign") as evidence that they'll support any Democrat. "We're diluting the effect of a lot of the single-issue voters and single-issue groups," he said. "It doesn't matter what you believe in, what cause you think is important because if we don't have power your cause suffers."

That's fine for House and Senate contests, but the presidency is a different animal - that's not about regaining a majority, it's about the whole leadership enchilada. Time will tell whether pragmatism or ideology triumphs on that level.

Whatever the outcome, the campaign has already begun online, where Moulitsas takes monthly, 10,000-respondent straw polls to gauge the netroots. The 2008 election is "going to be ground zero for the activist base to find, choose and promote their favorite candidate," he said.

Which brings us back to Blogosphere Day. We used to talk about the "money primary" as the first test of political credibility. But that was when fundraising was a slog to amass enough cash to endure the primaries. Now ephemeral momentum can quickly produce cash (and vice versa). Whichever Democrat gets the biggest funding bump on July 19, 2007, will have passed the new first test and be the frontrunner.