website statistics

Archive for the 'Internecine Battles' Category

Will Elizabeth Edwards Resign, Too?

Published by William Beutler on February 17, 2007 in Asymmetrical Media, Blog Consultants, Blog Fights, Blogging Officials, Brick-and-mortar consultants, Daily Kos, Democrats, Elizabeth Edwards, Hotline, Internecine Battles, John Edwards, Online Campaigns and White House '08. 42 Comments

Earlier this week, Blog P.I. posed a question: Who was responsible for hiring bloggers in Edwardsville? The logical answer was Matt Gross, Edwards’ chief Internet strategist, and considering the resignations of said controversial bloggers, we idly wondered if Gross would be tendering his resignation as well.

But as the headline above has already given away, we may have blogged too soon — after all, there is someone else at the campaign who is a longtime member of the blogosphere, and it is someone who wields much more power than Gross.

It’s Elizabeth Edwards.

We certainly don’t know for a fact that EE (as we’ll refer to her from here on) recommended Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan for the jobs of blogmaster and blog wrangler (respectively) but we can demonstrate that she would have been in a position to know about them and to make such recommendations. And if it ever did come out that EE was responsible for this mess, it would renew questions about how much control she has over John Edwards’ campaign — and whether it hurts more than it helps.

So let’s get demonstrating:

Going back to at least the 2004 campaign, EE has not just been a mere reader of the blogs but also a commenter at some of the biggest sites on the left.

In April 2005 she took to task several members of the Democratic Underground community for making fun of right-wing radio talker Laura Ingraham’s breast cancer — EE is a breast cancer survivor herself — earning thumbs up from Michelle Malkin and others in the rightosphere.

She may have only commented at Daily Kos eight times from 2004 to 2005, but she was nevertheless one of the earliest to sign up: going by the sequential user ID numbers, EE was the 3,454th person to register; the site now has well over 100,000 registered accounts (not the same as active users).

Now, how much involvement does she actually have with blogs? Last year she told Campus Progress:

I spend a lot of time on the internet. I get a lot of information from blogs, I have a whole list including Talking Points [Memo], Daily Kos, Democratic Underground and more. Sometimes I check out the right wing sites to see what they are talking about. I have a whole folder of sites and I open them all up every day and see what catches my eye. … Sometimes I would post on blogs not under my real name. … But I had to stop doing that after John started running. Now I sometimes participate under my own name. I participate in blogs and newsgroups – not just political ones but other issues too.

Make no mistake, EE knows a lot more about the blogosphere than the average consultant.

And we also know that while she holds no official position with the campaign, she has something of a reputation for usurping the paid consultants’ authority (or so goes the chatter). In December of last year, she appeared in the comments of Illinois-focused ArchPundit to defend herself against claims that she led the ouster of star consultant David Axelrod, who handled Edwards’ media in 2004 (but this time is advising Barack Obama). As ArchPundit’s Larry Handlin put it, during the previous campaign

her handling of consultants and staff was problematic because she tends to micromanage and many would say she cuts people out of the loop. That’s a management problem. It’s also what probably endears her to those who love her and so it’s a double edged sword.

If that’s the case here, then we owe an apology to Matt Gross. Obviously there is no smoking gun evidence that EE was the instigator of the blog hires, but she most certainly would have been in a position to advise (and even make decisions) on the matter. It’s also not unreasonable to think EE would be a more avid reader of pointedly feminist blogs than Gross (not to impugn his feminist credentials). At the very least, she didn’t step in and warn that Marcotte’s rhetoric might be a little too hot for her to serve in a communications role.

Without more information, we’ll file this one under “more than plausible.” But Blog P.I. is not the first to suggest that EE had more involvement here than has been reported. Take this bit from National Journal’s most recent Dem rankings — where Edwards is ranked number three, where he has been since Obama’s emergence:

The 24 hours that elapsed between the MSM’s Blogger-gate stories and Edwards’ nuanced response has become this cycle’s unexplained, awkward Jeanine Pirro gap. We’d blame this on consultants, except Edwards routinely brags he doesn’t listen to them. This one’s on him (or her?).

Commenters at Pandagon seem to think Elizabeth Edwards was behind the decision, too. And in a Feb. 8 diary at Daily Kos, New Hampshire-based MissLaura posted a recent (but pre-controversy) interview with EE on blogs, dKos and the campaign. As MissLaura suggested in that post:

Edwards returned several times to the question of how much control campaign staff would have over what she says publicly, focusing on her efforts to resist such control. However the behind-the-scenes debate over whether to fire or stand behind Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan played out days later, we have to assume that it was at least in part shaped by the presence of a powerful figure who understands blogs and who habitually works against excessive homogenizing.

Others, such as early Dean blogger Dan Conley, have predicted that her blog involvement could be a problem — although not quite like this:

There are two ways to view Mrs. Edwards’ posting on blogs. Some will wonder how wise it is for Edwards to enter this swamp. Every blogger has a sane/insane ratio for political posts … we come to accept it from our peers. But when an aspiring First Lady says something pointed, it’s not just typical Internet chatter, it’s potentially big news. Elizabeth Edwards is extremely smart and a terrific writer … but it’s an incredible high-wire act for someone so prominent to attempt.

Sure, it’s pretty neat that there’s a potential First Lady reading and writing on blogs (on her own, in her own words). It’s proof that whereas all the talk about the downfall of the MSM a couple years back proved false, the blogs certainly have delivered on some degree of democraticization of political media.

But let us observe, as if it even needs pointing out, this development has not always proved beneficial for politicians and political campaigns. No matter what, that’s been the case here. As my former colleague Marc Ambinder points out at Hotline On Call, the controversy

stepped on his health care rollout and has been the dominant theme of his campaign for a week.

Make that two weeks. The Edwards campaign did itself enough damage by waiting too long to decide what to do with their problematic bloggers, and the drawn-out hiring, firing, rehiring and resigning just made it worse. Not to mention, Marcotte’s blog-and-tell for Salon can only delay the Edwards camp from getting back on message. Alas, Edwards will not be on the Sunday shows this week.

Elizabeth Edwards may be the most powerful blog expert advising her husband’s campaign, but assuming this reasoning is on target, she also may not be expert enough.

Note: Additional links and analysis provided by Not Paul Begala.

Update: NPB adds a worthwhile clarification in the comments:

[Marcotte an McEwan] were not vetted and the communications staff was not prepared for the broadside against them. As a former communications guy myself, I can’t tell you how much incomplete information pisses us off. … It’s a legit question that Democrats should be asking of one of their own potential nominees: Why weren’t you ready for a hit job from the right?

Update, Wednesday: Thank you, everyone who commented. Thank you especially, everyone who commented on something other than “good people” and “hit job.” I have approved several comments that are redundant at best, and I will certainly approve others (even on this very post). However, please read through the comments before adding your own, and please only do so if it’s a unique thought. Bonus points if it’s actually about this post, and not the aforementioned comment.

It’s a Two Way Street, Chris

Published by Not Paul Begala on January 17, 2007 in Democrats, Guest Bloggers, Internecine Battles, MSM vs. Blogs, Netroots and Rhetoric. 1 Comment

Chris Bowers, today:

If someone thinks you are stupid, they will never think of you as an equal. If someone doesn’t think of you as equal, they will always believe they should hold more power than you. Thus, if there are people in the progressive ecosystem who think the netroots are stupid, those people will always want to marginalize the netroots within our broad coalition.

I will simply comment that there are just as many netrooters who do the same thing right back to the broad progressive/liberal/Democratic community. Consultants, interest groups and elected officials alike.

I’m not rationalizing what’s done to you and the netroots or what’s done to us (though I hardly speak for those institutions). Just pointing it out.

Bloggers vs. the MSP

Published by Not Paul Begala on January 5, 2007 in 50 State Strategy, Campaigns, DCCC, DNC, Daily Kos, Democrats, Howard Dean and Internecine Battles. 3 Comments

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.

Obama: Stealth Muslim!

Published by Olly Ruff on December 30, 2006 in Barack Obama, Internecine Battles, Middle East, Religion, Rhetoric and White House '08. 19 Comments

So, Barack Obama’s middle name happens to be Hussein, and this fact has been slowly working its way into general media consciousness for a few months now — most notably when Republican strategist Ed Rogers began pointedly mentioning it on “Hardball.” On December 18, plucky sub-Coulter Debbie Schlussel took this insinuation to its logical conclusion:

…is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father’s heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam?
Absolutely the most charitable interpretation of this is that Schlussel believes Obama should, instead of pursuing a career in politics, be parachuted in behind enemy lines to work as some sort of “undercover Muslim.” However, she continues:
Where will his loyalties be?
By this logic, one would presume that Schlussel isn’t too happy about Obama being a Senator, never mind holding any higher office. After all, the man’s father was a Muslim at one point in his life, for crying out loud!

Although the comment thread at Schlussel’s original post has continued to thrive, response over the last couple of weeks has not been disproportionate; at any rate, it has not been as disproportionate as I would have liked. Media Matters had a field day, as they tend to do when people say such transcendentally stupid things, and responses on the right ranged from pained to exasperated to really exasperated to really, really exasperated. The angelically beaming Brendan Nyhan points out the comparison with anti-Catholic suspicions of JFK (although really this makes even less sense, as JFK was at least Catholic), following up an interesting earlier post covering some more whimsical sniping about the size of Obama’s ears.

The measure of a presidential campaign is, in large part, how it deals with this sort of thing. (If we ever hear an official statement from the Obama camp regarding the candidate’s ears, then he’s toast.) Schlussel’s slur, at once serious and deeply non-serious, is a gift to a talented politican.

If I were working for Obama, I’d be looking for an excuse to make the “Hussein” non-issue into a signature moment, preferably sometime after the New Year (and after the execution of Saddam is no longer a story). A judiciously crafted public response could turn out to be an enduring image of a candidate calling for tolerance in the face of hysteria; unfortunately, it could also turn out to be an enduring spectacle of an otherwise dignified and serious man shouting at people on the internet. So, to avoid the latter possibility, I’d be looking around for someone other than Ed Rogers to raise the story’s profile in the old media, and I’d be wondering: how long has it been since Tom Tancredo did any bad ethnic humor in public?

Can someone in public life make sure he sees a copy of this Schlussel thing? Hopefully he won’t notice that “Schlussel” is a suspiciously foreign-sounding name.

Oppo Knocks?

Published by William Beutler on December 14, 2006 in Asymmetrical Media, Blog Consultants, Blog Fights, Campaigns, Democrats, George Allen, Internecine Battles, James Webb, Lamont v. Lieberman, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Midterms '06, Oppo Research and Virginia Politics. 9 Comments

Anybody who watched the Virginia Senate race this year knows that Senator-elect Jim Webb ran a savvy Internet campaign. He hired bloggers, leveraged YouTube, played bloggers and the press off each other and off soon-to-be former Sen. George Allen.

But we may just now be learning how savvy his campaign really was: Last evening, conservative Virginia blogger Shaun Kenney posted this unsourced but possibly legitimate report:

If you are a Virginia blogger, chances are that the Webb campaign has an opposition research book on you. Bloggers that made the cut include Chad Dotson, Jim Hoeft, Ben Tribbett, Waldo Jaquith, Josh Chernila, Lowell Feld, Jim Riley, J.C. Wilmore, Jon Henke, and a host of others. These are not your typical background checks either… a significant amount of money was spent crafting the kind of opposition research one would typically find on a candidate running for public office. It seems as if the Webb campaign made a strategic decision to unleash this opposition research if something damaging came out against their candidate, simply to personally slander the blogger making the claim.

Slander might not be the right word here; assuming the dirt was true, “smear” would probably cover it just fine. Many of Kenney’s commenters wanted proof. None has surfaced as yet, but they did get the next best thing in an apparent confirmation from liberal Virginia blogger Ben Tribbett, who is Not Larry Sabato:

What I have been told by some reliable sources is that Shaun’s report is very close to reality. However, I am hearing that the list of bloggers researched is “smaller” than Shaun’s list, while the amount of information compiled on those bloggers chosen is “very large” … The staff involved can not keep their story straight. One person pointed out they had a report done on them, and we should feel complimented, and another denied any such thing existed. I’m hearing “yes” on J.C. Wilmore, Jon Henke, myself and Lowell Feld, and working on confirmation on others. If this list stays slanted to the Democrats, we can assume these reports were generated for potential retribution instead of proactive research.

That bloggers in opposing political camps are giving credence to the story is what makes it credible, and the Webb campaign targeting bloggers in opposing political camps is what makes it interesting. (There is another reason why this story is notable, and we’ll get to it shortly.) Of course, let me add that right now this story remains purely a rumor. Repeat: There is no actual evidence to support these claims, only the integrity of the bloggers involved. End disclaimer.

It might come as a minor revelation that political campaigns would look into the backgrounds of bloggers who oppose them, but as long as the oppo research stays on safe legal ground, there’s nothing particularly controversial here. But what of the supposed research into Webb’s allies — and employees? Feld heads up Virginia’s biggest liberal blog, Raising Kaine, and was employed by Webb as netroots coordinator. Why on Earth would he want to risk alienating his chief ally in the blogosphere?

Easy: To protect himself. Everybody who follows politics at least casually knows about oppo research, but the flip-side of that seamy-but-crucial campaign activity is what’s called self-research.

It shouldn’t be too surprising that the Webb campaign would do this, if they did this. Recent history gives us good reason to assume that politicians are wary of bloggers, certainly more so than traditional volunteers (who do not make a point of expressing their opinions in public).

Recall not just the blackface controversy in this year’s CT SEN race — after which Ned Lamont unconvincingly blurted to reporters: “I don’t know anything about the blogs” — but also the infamous “screw them” moment in 2004, where then-rising blog star Markos Moulitsas callously dismissed the deaths of American contractors in Iraq.

Some Virginia bloggers assume this research might have been used for character assassination, but what’s more likely is the Dem-side research was done to decide whether to hire Feld in the first place, and whether to associate with other bloggers. Do we really expect that a Senate campaign wouldn’t do this kind of due diligence?

There is certainly some political risk in doing so; bloggers often don’t like being part of “poltics as usual,” and that’s certainly what this is. If Webb really was cagey enough to research not just his opponent’s allied bloggers but his own as well, many think that would put him over the line from “shrewd” to “paranoid.” Indeed, it would be highly cynical of Webb to imagine that Feld might turn around and start attacking him before the race concluded. But it’s less cynical to think that someone not on his payroll — Tribbett, Jaquith, Wilmore — might do so. In politics, cynicism pays. And where it comes to the blogosphere, right now every campaign is making it up as they go along.

Wilmore, who writes The Richmond Democrat, does not think that this is necessarily Webb’s doing:

I don’t think this story is about Jim Webb. I think it’s about Jessica Vanden Berg, and it seems to me that this is really two stories. The first story is that the Webb campaign did oppo research on Republican opposition bloggers. To me this only makes sense. Members of Allen’s “A-Team” and “B-Team” had certainly injected themselves into the political process and were fair game. For my part, I know for a fact that I was oppo’d by the Allen campaign. I have no complaints on that score … The second story is where the controversial part of this incident lies. Did Jessica Vanden Berg authorize opposition research on prominent Democratic bloggers who were allied to (and in some cases employed by) the Webb campaign? Were research dossiers or “books” compiled on some of Webb’s key supporters? It’s an important question. It implies that we were considered threats to the Webb campaign, which is odd, because most of us were involved, to some degree or another, in getting the Webb campaign off the ground. … No, it seems unlikely to me that we were perceived as a threat to Jim Webb. But were we a threat to Jessica Vanden Berg? Were we were oppo’d for that reason? Did Vanden Berg — feeling threatened by the dialogue occurring on our blogs — authorize oppo research on us to shore up her own position within the campaign?

He followed up, e-mailing Vanden Berg for confirmation or denial. And a denial he got:

We don’t have an opposition research on you. We don’t have any opposition research books on any people who blog.

And that’s what also makes this story interesting. This denial rules out more than just oppo on Jaquith, Wilmore, Feld, Tribbett and other Webb supporters, but Allen’s A-Team members including Dotson, Riley and others. The Webb camp didn’t do any research on anyone who blogged the campaign? Not even on Henke — a paid adviser to the Allen campaign?

This answer is either untenable or too revealing. Maybe they weren’t so savvy after all — perhaps we’re only finding out that they were lucky.

In any case, this one started in the blogosphere, but if these questions are to be resolved, the MSM just might have to step in.

P.S. Henke has published his own oppo file, to the best that he can recall:

When I was about 5 years old, I stole a quarter from a girl named Jennifer Weidler. It was a Bicentennial quarter, which I thought it was very cool-looking. I’ve always regretted that.

P.P.S. It’s also worth noting that Tribbett is no fan of Vanden Berg’s, though it may be immaterial to the facts in this case.

P.P.P.S. Also worth noting, a contributor to Raising Kaine, not Feld, added today:

My sources at the campaign are saying this simply isn’t true.

He probably means transition team, as the campaign has concluded. That said, it would be nice to know how many sources each blogger is citing, and which of them actually worked with Vanden Berg.

The Libertarian Wallflower

Published by William Beutler on December 13, 2006 in Academic Blogging, Blog Fights, Daily Kos, Democrats, Internecine Battles, Libertarians, Rhetoric and The New Republic. 2 Comments

A week has now passed since Brink Lindsey’s so-called “Liberaltarian” essay for The New Republic (also available from Cato, where Lindsey is VP for research) hit the web and became an instant conversation piece around ideo-journalistic Washington.

One can trace the excitement surrounding Lindsey’s essay, and perhaps even the piece itself, to an early June post at Daily Kos, by site founder/show runner Markos Moulitsas. That entry, which he later described as “a throwaway blog post,” drew plenty of snickers from Beltway conservative types, but it certainly wasn’t ignored.

In October, the Cato Institute — typically identified with Republicans far more than Democrats — made Moulitsas’ arguments the centerpiece of the October edition of Cato Unbound. Just before the election, Moulitsas made his pitch for libertarians to pull a lever for the Dems in Reason magazine.

These articles drew plenty more attention, of which Lindsey’s article could be considered the latest entry. One need not buy into the notion of an uneasy left/libertarian fusionism being at all likely to replace the uneasy right/libertarian one to find it interesting — and indeed, for all the kind things said about Lindsey himself this past week, almost everybody’s wallets are staying firmly in pocket.

That’s a lot of pockets, too. Among the libertarians, liberals and conservatives who have weighed in on Lindsey’s essay:

Of course, not everyone who might be expected to comment has done so. Among those who have not weighed in since Lindsey’s article went up:

It’s not that he’s been away from the site. In fact, he’s posted 55 times (at the time of this writing) and on a wide array of topics, from the inevitability of Obama to general site maintenance. I realize that the pat response to these questions is “don’t complain about the free ice cream.” But I’m curious as to why Moulitsas has abruptly disengaged from the debate.

The cynical view would be that with the election now in the past and Democrats victorious, there is no longer any need to reach out to potential new voters. The slightly less cynical view, and the one I endorse, is that Moulitsas was using the term “libertarian” too loosely in the first place. Go back to his seminal post, and notice that he literally begins by seeking to describe why he likes rugged, outdoorsy, sometimes Mountain West politicians such as Senator-elect Jon Tester — and it goes on to deliberately ignore the profound differences between liberal and libertarian philosophies of government. Altogether, it sounds less like argument born of principles, and more like searching for a coherent way to describe his favored candidates.

Moulitsas’ influence currently runs strongly to matters campaign-related, but the interest surrounding his “Libertarian Democrat” post suggests that people are willing to give him a shot as an actual thinker as well. Alas, now that the liberaltarian concept has “crashed the gates” (if you will) it would seem he doesn’t have much more to add. (He announced in the June post that his “next book” will be about the libertarian Democrat. Is that still a go?) Unless he has the conviction to defend his arguments in the public ’sphere — or a whole lot more “throwaway” ideas — he may again find himself relegated to being just what he says he doesn’t want to be: An ATM for Democratic campaigns.

P.S. Does anybody else remember that at one time, Brink Lindsey was a blogger? His former site remains where it always was, the blogroll still a who’s who of the early right-libertarian blogosphere. His his final post in mid-2003 should be considered a classic of the genre. Excerpted:

I’ve lost the will to blog. Actually, I lost it some time ago, but I’ve been trudging along in hopes that I would find new inspiration. I haven’t. So enough. I’m hanging it up for a while. I plan to take the summer off — at least. Maybe I’ll come back in the fall, maybe I won’t.

I’ve argued before that one need not actually be a blogger to be a part of the blogosphere, and three years later, Lindsey’s currency reinforces that.

A (NZ) Bearish Take on the New Republican Leadership

Published by William Beutler on November 16, 2006 in Campaigns, Internecine Battles, PorkBusters, RNC and Republicans. 1 Comment

The Senate Republicans chose their leadership today, and while no one was much surprised or upset by Mitch McConnell’s ascension to Minority Leader, the return of Trent Lott to the whip position — which he held a decade ago, before becoming leader and then becoming the first major public figure to be brought low by the blogosphere — is not pleasing anyone. The leftosphere excepted, of course.

On Friday the House GOP votes on its leadership, and if conventional wisdom holds, the rightosphere may find the results even more disappointing.

Perhaps hoping to forestall the expected defeat of conservative favorites Mike Pence (for leader) and John Shadegg (for whip), pseudonymous GOP blog organizer NZ Bear — first known for his link and traffic ratings (which he compiled as a hobby long before Technorati went into business) and later for leading the Porkbusters effort — put together a successful series of conference calls wherein leadership contenders submitted themselves to the questions of conservative bloggers. (These were covered most diligently by Blog P.I.’s Higgins, Extreme Howard Mortman.)

Some of the questions were drawn from a concurrent project — the collection of nearly 300 reader-submitted questions, which were subsequently voted on by 1,135 bloggers and blog-reading individuals.

The conference calls have now concluded, and the vote is back in the hands of the House GOP caucus (where, come to think, it actually always was). But I thought it would still be worth grabbing the top- and bottom-ranked questions, as they give a pretty good insight to what the rightosphere thinks is important (and unimportant) for the 110th Congress.

First, the three most popular:

    Question: Will the GOP support a “no earmark” policy. If not, why not? Popularity: +564 Question: Will you actually defend yourselves in the mainstream media, and assign some members to a continous media communications task, or instead allow the MSM to paint you however they wish, especially to independent voters? I realize that Lynne Cheney is not an elected official, but her recent CNN interview is quite instructive. Popularity: +506 Question: What is your position on immigration? Specifically: 1. Are you in favor of funding and building the 700 mile fence on the Southern border? 2. Do you support stronger enforcement of criminal laws and civil sanctions against employers who hire illegal immigrants? 3. Are you for or against an expanded guest worker program and how/when would you implement such a program? 4. Do you support amnesty for illegal immigrants currently living in the US and, if so, what specific provisions do you support? Popularity: +413
There are a few irregularities here; that last one asks several distinct questions, whereas the second entry — besides possibly being planted by Dick Cheney — is really more of a complaint than a query. However, the hot-button concerns above are definitely expressed more coherently than the not-so-hot-button issues at the end of the long list:
    Question: Since, after Nov. 7, the GOP is toast this election cycle, what brand of butter do you prefer, and will that preference change after more toast becomes available after the election cycle ending in 2008? Popularity: -37 Question: Please stand up…don’t hide…and grow some ball’s..in other word’s be for the GOP Popularity: -41 Question: Will you make it a goal to make the party more appealing to moderate secular voters or will you continue the policy of reliance on the Evangelical movement? Popularity: -56

Whoever submitted that last question can be legitimately unhappy that it was deemed even less popular than the practice of spelling “balls” with an errant apostrophe.

While we’re on the subject of conservative blogger discontent with the GOP’s post-election moves, here’s what they think of the White House’s endorsement of Florida Sen. Mel Martinez over outgoing Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele to be chairman of the Republican National Committee, according to a poll conducted by Hot Air:

Rightosphere overwhelmingly favors Michael Steele to Mel Martinez for RNC chair

The right-blogosphere could have a couple of long years ahead of it — at least.

It’s The ____ Stupid!

Published by Not Paul Begala on November 2, 2006 in Democrats, Guest Bloggers, Internecine Battles and Midterms '06. 0 Comments

[Note: I said that Not Paul Begala was not the insider cited below, and indeed, this evening NPB has some thoughts on the exchange himself.]

I liked the fight in the previous post between the Beltway insider and the Deaniac (for the record, Not Paul Begala is Gephardt-affiliated and will always rip on the SWarms instinctively) and I see this as a foreshadow of things to come: Wait till we get to a Congress with everybody taking credit for why we won! It was the ____!

For instance:

  • “It was the netroots that pushed the party…”
  • “It was the moderate stance he/she took that proved he/she was independent…”
  • “It was their position on choice that proved the R was too extreme…”
  • “The cash infusion saved our ass while the RNC was carpertbombing us, thank you Rahm/Schumer, and F you Dean.”
  • “The 50-statere program proved invaluable in gathering volunteers, poll watchers, low dollar donors that made the difference.”
  • “They attacked on the war relentlessly and won, pull out!”

I also can’t wait for all the fights that break out at the Hawk and Dove over the ____ when power-drunk, big-headed staffers who don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground prove their progressive/moderate/strategist mettle.

All while NPB sits back with a knowing smile, sippin’ on gin and juice, laid back, with his mind on the real answer: It was the ____!

Fight, Fight, Fight! Bite, Bite, Bite! The Democratic Beltway Insider & Former Dean Staffer Show!

Published by William Beutler on November 2, 2006 in 50 State Strategy, DCCC, DNC, Daily Kos, Democrats, Elections, Howard Dean, Internecine Battles, James Webb and Midterms '06. 2 Comments

How exactly Blog P.I. came to be a sounding board for Democratic consultants and party operatives when I am not myself a Democrat, I’m not entirely sure. But this afternoon I bore witness (e-mail witness, that is) to a scintillating debate between two acquaintances who fairly represent the current split between insiders and outsiders of that party.

As the election approaches next week, I thought it would be interesting enough to share their electronic exchanges here. They’ve promised to let me do so as long as I protect their anonymity, and that strikes me as a fair deal. (Just for the record, neither is Not Paul Begala.)

One is a veteran Democratic operative. The other worked for Howard Dean in Vermont. For the purposes of this post, we’ll call them Democratic Beltway Insider and Former Dean Staffer. Will only one survive? Will one trick the other into eating their own liver? Or tie the other’s tongue to a launching spaceship? Read on:

DBI: I know this sounds dumb, but what exactly is the bloggers’ problem with Rahm. He is one of the ONLY democrats who knows how to WIN. Is it because he knocked candidates who had no shot out in the primaries? Puleeze. I think we should have a 3rd party for all these people. The 50 state strategy is a Dean PR sham anyway. In [state redacted], [name redacted] used her 50 state $$ to hire a driver.

FDS: Yes the 50 state strategy is a sham. That’s why suddenly the Dems are competitive in states that 2 years ago all the insiders were saying the Dems should just forget about forever. Admit it, you’re a beltway insider.

Itchy & Scratchy, Beltway Democratic Insider & Former Dean Staffer
DBI: Those races are not in play because Dean gave each state party some allowance money. Those races are in play because organizations like the DLCC, Emilys List and even Move On have been working with state and local candidates for cycles and recruiting. A lot of these races were set up to be competitive totally independent of anything the DNC has done. I may be an insider, but I’ve been around longer than the new DNC people and I remember stuff. Not to mention that Dems haven’t done shit to be competitive other than let the GOP hang themselves – the biggest and best reason that we have races in play that weren’t in 04. Case in point NC08.

FDS: Ok well if those races are competitive because Democratic groups like DLCC and Emily’s List get involved with them, that basically proves the 50-state strategy correct, that by competing everywhere you expand the playing field and give yourself more chances to win. Thank you for proving my point.

DBI: Not really. The DLCC and Emilys List have regional programs they’ve been running for a number of cycles. The DNC is spinning that handing chump change over to state parties is going to revive them – guess again. The reason EL’s plan works is because its not affiliated with the DNC or state parties at all. Talk about insiders and hacks. State operatives are often just small-time crooks.

FDS: Well clearly there is no way I convince you as long as you are have are massively in love with Emily’s list. I simply point to the results:

Pre-Dean: Democrats are a bunch of pansies who refuse to challenge Bush on anything, especially the war in Iraq

Post-Dean: Democrats revitalize their party by trashing Bush, particularly on the war in Iraq, and make the country realize how awful he is, giving Democrats a chance to win in places like Wyoming and Idaho where no one thought they should ever even compete again.

Last I checked Emily’s List has been around for quite a while, I’m not really sure what they did differently in the last three years that totally reversed the political tide in this country. Thank you Howard Dean.

Continue reading ‘Fight, Fight, Fight! Bite, Bite, Bite! The Democratic Beltway Insider & Former Dean Staffer Show!’

Stabbing Eastward: Lamont, the Netroots and Barack Obama

Published by William Beutler on October 30, 2006 in Barack Obama, Blogs vs. MSM, Comment Sections, DNC, Democrats, Elections, Internecine Battles, Lamont v. Lieberman, National Politics, Netroots and White House '08. 23 Comments

Shortly after Ned Lamont upended Holy Joe Lieberman in the CT SEN primary this summer, I noted a report by TNR’s Ryan Lizza arguing that Washington Democrats would steer clear of the race from there on, letting the blue-on-blue rhetorical violence work itself out. Two and a half months later, that looks eerily prescient. Lamont has fallen behind in the polls, and there’s little question that a victorious Lieberman would retain his committee assignments even if the newspapers called him (I-CT).

Also not looking too bad: My question at the time, about what the Lamont primary victory — then hailed by some as the first breakthrough win for a netroots candidate — about what this would mean:

Could it be that what seemed less than 100 hours ago like the first major gate-crashing will actually end up building more barriers between Beltway Democrats and the party’s online activists?

Keep that in mind as you read excerpts from yesterday’s Matt Stoller classic, “Senate Democrats and Bill Clinton Stab Us In The Front”:

Why did Lamont let Joe get away? Well there are a number of reasons, but among the most prominent is the total abandonment of Lamont by the party establishment. And let’s be very clear - this is not Lamont that they are abandoning, it’s the party primary voters that they are abandoning. …

Make no mistake, these DC Democrats are only our temporary allies. They have total contempt for the rules of the party, and they cheered Joe after he faced us in the primary. It is no longer reasonable for them to call for party unity, because they no longer have any legitimate claim to call themselves leaders of the party. They may be leaders for the next few decades simply due to inertia, but it’s very clear that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are liars who think nothing of insulting Democratic primary voters who play by the rules. …

The American people know this. They know that Democratic Senators aremoral lepers, weaklings, and that is the only reason we aren’t furtherahead when the Republicans screw everything up. The Democratic Senateleaders will sell us out at every opportunity, be it torture, Iraq, Alito, Lieberman, the Bankruptcy Bill, or stopping war with Iran. They aren’t poll-driven, they aren’t fear-driven, and they aren’t driven by strategic differences. They are simply driven to beat us down, their voters, by any means necessary. …

We can win this fight, as the polls are tightening. But it would be a whole lot easier without that knife in our back.

Leaving aside the obvious question of which side the Stollerites are supposed to be bleeding from, there’s enough hyperbole here to last until the first big straw poll.

As I’ve demonstrated previously, Stoller’s over-reliance on self-righteous anger and quick imputations of bad faith to his political opponents (even those ostensibly on his side of the fence) makes him seem less a sharp-tongued political street brawler and more like a circus clown exaggerating his act.

And as usual, the response in the MyDD comments is mixed. A contingent protests that Stoller is being unreasonable, but his sentiments are shared by a larger set. Meanwhile, Stoller’s hyperventilation obscures what is actually a pretty interesting question to pick apart: How did Lamont lose his momentum, and what explains Senate Democrats’ reluctance to join the netroots in the War on Lieberman? I recommend this thread, which includes MyDDer Chris G gamely trying to explain to the wounded ‘roots that it’s not all about them:

Dem leaders are not trashing Lamont, and they’ve expressed their support. but by “cutting loose” Liberman [sic], and trashing Liberman, as you suggest, they run the risk of the following: Liberman winning nonetheless, and organizing with the GOP.

Quite. Senate Democrats are too worried about being stabbed by Joementum in a 50-49 split to carry out any personal vendetta against the netroots. It’s not personal. It’s politics.

Still, as for MyDD, it’s a marked improvement from last week’s poll-frustrated Conn. voter-bashing thread:

A bunch of idiots do live in CT. What a fucking embarassment.

Now that’s what I call people power.

·      ·      ·

Another interesting thing about the philosophical and political differences between the Beltway establishment and Democratic-aligned bloggers is the split opinions about Barack Obama. If you don’t know that Obama ‘08 is in its ascendancy at the moment, then you must be in a persistent vegetative state. With Republican newspaper columnists Charles Krauthammer and David Brooks offering genuine praise of the freshman Democrat, it becomes all the more clear that his surge is a media-driven sensation. Though hyped excessively by celebrity-obsessed reporters, Barack Obama has demonstrated, potentially, a very broad appeal. Yet there is one group seemingly impervious to his charms: the netroots, of course.

First, note Stoller’s derogation of Obama above. It’s not the first time; Stoller has a long history of badmouthing Obama going back to the 2004 convention in Boston, where he was disinvited by Terry McAuliffe’s DNC from continuing on as a coordinator after writing that Obama hadn’t said “anything really interesting or useful.”

But also note the comments from others in the threads below the post. Here’s one, from a former Hillary Clinton supporter (somewhat rare among liberal bloggers in good standing) no less:

I do know one thing: I do not support Obama for any office. He has ZERO spine. He didn’t even want to filibuster Alito when even Hillary was among the first to advocate filibuster for BOTH Alito and the Alito-with-pretty-blue-eyes, Roberts.
And this one:

I wouldn’t go so far as to call Obama a liar, but he HAS been a major disappointment. He’s got one of the safest Senate seats around, having romped to a landslide victory in what was a dreadful year for Democrats nationwide, and he’s done next to nothing to advance Democratic values, choosing instead to scold Democrats for, among other things, not being religious enough.

Well, Barack, let’s talk religion, since it’s one of your favorite subjects. When the torture bill came out, where the hell were you? … Mr. Obama, I still have some hope for you, but your silence on the torture bill means that you have abdicated any credibility in lecturing ANYBODY on “moral values”. You’re not a whole lot better than Republicans in that regard.

Maybe Krauthammer and Brooks know something the MyDD crowd doesn’t? In any case, Obama is not without his defenders:

In fact, I would like to see in print where Obama promised to come to CT and campaign for Lamont. He has publicly supported Lamont, but just because he supports Lamont publicly does not mean he has to bad mouth Lieberman. … But please if you can provide written proof on where Obama has lied about CT, I would love to see. Until then, I have to chalk it up to your irrational dislike of the man.

In the meantime, you have to wonder: if Washington Democrats’ lukewarm support for Ned Lamont is tantamount to treason, what would the netroots say if Barack Obama actually got the nomination in 2008? Or Clinton/Obama?

P.S. It’s worth remembering that only a week ago, Stoller posted a comparatively thoughtful essay titled “Why Barack Obama Should Run for President.” Was he being disingenuous then or is he being exciteable now? It’s hard to tell, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the answer is both.