Blog P.I.

Between binge drinking, sleeping, waiting for my Wii to get here (seriously, I was ready to fight my little cousins for playing time on Christmas Day — this thing is awesome) and catching up with our TiVo’d shows, we campaign people finally have some time on hand to think about what we just went through. Campaign life doesn’t give you a lot of time for a good diet, exercise, nor reading fiction, and certainly not reflection.

The Daily Kos diary “Begala: Dean ‘an a**hole from Vermont’,” which appeared yesterday, is a great example of one thing I’ve reflected on several times while reading the litany of blogosphere postmortems (especially the ones about races I was involved in): the deep divide between bloggers and mainstream professionals — let’s call them, us, the MSP.

To suggest the 50-state strategy is a big reason that the field expanded, as dKos contributor ScottforAmerica does in this post, is utter delusion. However, to suggest it had nothing to do with wins across the country, as he says Paul Begala did, is also dead wrong.

But as an MSP myself I am always going to be more sympathetic to the man whose name I have borrowed than, say, ScottforAmerica. Why?

Because Paul had to make his living doing this, as do I. For all I know, Scott is seeing his 3rd election cycle — maybe. Scott likely has never worked as a professional consultant, likely never had the benefit of seeing 10-20 races a cycle and learning the lessons that come with them. He’s probably never worked on a presidential campaign and maybe never even walked door-to-door as a regular volunteer or a ground level employee.

Maybe he has. I don’t know him. And not to single out Scott per se — this lack of serious political experience is true of most bloggers.

That said, Scott is bringing some nerve/backbone, new blood and determination to these contests. That fresh outsider-looking-in perspective is something I have absolutely loved in the past 4 years, something people like my quasi-namesake cautioned against.

I understand why Dems said “me too” with Bush and the GOP in 2002 and I think it was solid advice based on the strategies and polls we had at the time. But being wrong because the game changed on you doesn’t preclude you from being wrong. We got whooped in 2002. Scott also has his ideas about what works (e.g. 50-state strategy) that I don’t think are correct, but I don’t have data yet to absolutely dissuade him.

So, what does this mean? From my MSP perspective, I get pissed at the smug, know-it-all, cavalier attitude of bloggers like Scott because I feel like this post attacks me just as much as Paul Begala. The ending is really what gets me:

A new Democratic Party took a giant step forward today, a Democratic Party proud of it’s values and it’s principles, and one that won’t be afraid to stand up for our beliefs…anywhere. Unfortunately for Begala and Carville, they aren’t part of it.

You think Paul Begala and James Carville are not proud of the Democratic Party’s values and principles? That they are afraid to stand up for themselves? You think they argue against “50 state” because they just hate Dean and that they are scared of devolving power outside of the professional structures? Do you really think they never wanted to win, have completely sold out to corporations and are just fine with leaving a party in charge that is sending kids to die in the sand?

And right here is where I get offended. You, Scott the Blogger, perceive this struggle as a battle between the elite and the masses. This obviously puts me on the elite side, so I consider your swipe directed at me too. I’m pretty sure you hate me for no other reason than my being one of these elites. You blame me for losing to Bush in 2000 and 2004 and you will find every excuse to not look at historic things, like say, 9/11, to explain how R’s won in ‘02 and ‘04. You don’t think Iraq played as much of a role in ‘06 as the 50 state strategy. Heck, I’ll bet that if you ran for congress and I gave you my resume, you’d throw it away because it doesn’t have a list of the diaries I’d written or “netroots”-backed candidates I’ve worked for in the past.

And that is what bugs me: you hate me for being a professional, for making money doing this and, most of all, for not sharing your “damn them all to hell” and “if DC said it, it must be wrong” attitude. You claim to speak for the masses when you say these things but I’m pretty sure that you don’t know who the masses really are (here’s a hint: they don’t blog regularly).

So, in the upcoming power struggle for the leadership of this party (and it’s coming) we will have to see who’s really better at this game, Bloggers or the MSP. It’s the pros vs. the amateurs, the top-down vs. the bottom-up, the big guy vs. the little guys.

It’ll be interesting to watch and even more fun to play. Better bring your A-game, Scott. I’m pretty good at this.