The netroots' increasing influence on the national political scene has just taken another step forward. On Monday, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee hired Arjun Jaikumar to serve as the blog and netroots outreach manager.

Jaikumar is better known in the netroots community as Brownsox, a frontpage blogger for Daily Kos.

"We are thrilled to have Arjun join our team," DSCC spokesman Eric Schultz wrote in an e-mail to RCP. "He's talented, smart, and will help strengthen our relationships with the ever-expanding netroots community."

RCP spotted Jaikumar in Arlington, Va., on Monday at a fundraiser for gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. He said he was there unofficially and noted that he had just been hired by the DSCC.

Earlier in the day, Jaikumar wrote in his final blog post on Daily Kos that this was "a great moment for the netroots - three and a half years ago, I was an anonymous, underemployed college graduate who stumbled across Daily Kos while looking for news on Senate races. Now, I'm going to be employed by one of the party committees."

The DSCC is not alone in its strategy for netroots outreach. Hotline's Blogometer noted yesterday that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's (D-N.Y.) campaign has also hired a netroots blogger -- MyDD's Todd Beeton.