Counsel To The Free Falling?
Interesting article by Heilemann in the New York Times Magazine. It's about Markos "Kos" Zúniga and the netroots.
Let me say at the outset that, by and large, I regard the ascendancy of the liberal blogosphere—and its opposite number on the right—as a salutary development, both for politics and the media. That the Internet, which has transformed commerce and culture in ways too numerous to list, is in the early stages of transforming politics, too, strikes me as beyond debate. Yet it seems worth noting that, on the left, the rise of the blogosphere has as much to do with the weakness of the Democratic Party as with the intrinsic power of the Web; that Kos isn’t so much seizing power as stepping smartly into a vacuum.
Few liberal bloggers would dispute the notion that the national Democratic Party is a clueless, witless beast, profoundly disconnected from the views of its adherents. As Matt Stoller, an influential blogger at MyDD, wrote about Clinton’s taking on Daou and her decision to support Lamont if he defeats Lieberman, “Senators are completely bewildered by what’s going on ‘out there.’ . . . The move to upgrade their political machinery . . . means two things. One, it means that these politicians are now taking our concerns into account. Two, it means that when they make a political move that cuts against the progressive movement, they expressly know the political consequences.”
The sudden Democratic obeisance to the Netroots fills many in the party’s centrist cadres with despair bordering on panic—for they see the likes of Stoller and Moulitsas as “McGovernites with modems,” in the choice phrase of Marshall Wittman, a Republican apostate now ensconced at the Democratic Leadership Council. More than a few leading GOP lights agree, happily foreseeing the liberal bloggers’ leading the opposition down (okay, further down) the primrose path into lefty irrelevance. As Newt Gingrich put it bluntly in Newsweek, “I think the Republican Party has few allies more effective than the Daily Kos.”
In caricaturing Kos as a knee-jerk case, his enemies have some evidence to work with, provided helpfully by Kos himself. Consider, as Exhibit A, the New Republic dustup, in which Kos reacted with blind fury to the magazine’s touting of allegations that he plugged candidates with whom he or his friend and co-author Jerome Armstrong (now a consultant to former Virginia governor Mark Warner) had financial dealings. “If you still hold a subscription to that magazine, it really is time to call it quits,” he wrote. “The New Republic betrayed, once again, that it seeks to destroy the new people-powered movement for the sake of its Lieberman-worshipping neocon owners.”
By and large, the portrait is not all flattering nor is it all critical. The last paragraph though is very interesting.
And, hey, who knows, in 2006 or 2008, a grand vision might not be necessary to restore the Democrats to power. If so, Kos may find himself blanching in the media spotlight for many years to come. But if the Democrats are thwarted (again) in the coming two national elections—and especially if Kos’s chosen Netroots candidates fare poorly at the polls—he may wind up looking not so different from the class he so scorns: the narrow-bore professional tacticians who have counseled the Democrats during their free fall.
The campaign against Lieberman has always struck me as a terrible move, as any reader of this blog knows by now. If Lieberman wins the primary, the Koz Kidz may well have shot their bolt with the party. If Lamont wins, it may put a safe Democratic Senate seat into play (probably an unlikely scenario, but possible) or may drag the party so far to the left that they become unelectable as a national party. Which is pretty much what the DLC is afraid of, I suspect.
UPDATE: Marc Danziger from Winds of Change has a prtty blunt op-ed up over at the Examiner. Danziger also sees the Kos Kampaign as bad for the Democrats.
And when Lieberman is sitting in his Senate office next year, do you think the Democratic Party will be stronger or weaker for his departure?
I say it will be weaker.
It will be weaker because a losing Lamont candidacy will not have local and regional coattails as large as Lieberman’s — and I somehow don’t see Lieberman doing a lot of campaigning for downballot offices in the next few months.
It will be weaker because a senior sitting senator will owe very little allegiance to the national party.
Weaker because other senior officials will sit and weigh the cost of party allegiance against the benefit, and will have a concrete example of what party loyalty buys.
So when such bloggers as Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, Chris Bowers, Jerome Armstrong and Jane Hamsher preen that they have pushed “Rape Gurney Joe” (Hamsher’s sobriquet) off the island, there’s only one problem: They think they are winning in doing so.
Ouch. Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: See also Brainster who makes an excellent point: "Basically Kos sides with Dean, and doesn't want to target money only to races where the Democrats have a chance of winning. His "strategizing" amounts to wasting the one asset that he has, which is his ability to raise money."
Blogosphere, Left Wing, Media, Politics | Gaius Monday, 10 July , 2006
By Santay, Tuesday, 11 July , 2006 @ 4:38 am
Bird Dog at http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com has another theory on the “progressive” blogosphere.
By Bird Dog, Tuesday, 11 July , 2006 @ 11:54 am
Per above comment, as the Researcher for the above-linked piece, I am certain you will find it highly informative!!!
By the way, we will blogroll BCB today. Sorry we omitted you.
By Gaius, Tuesday, 11 July , 2006 @ 12:02 pm
Thanks, I did read it.