June 15, 2006

6/15: Do The Netroots Really Want A Dem Majority?

The bigger lefty bloggers active in Dem campaigns (read DailyKos, Swing State Project, and MyDD) claim that they are pragmatic activists bent on ridding the country of evil GOP rule. With DSCC chair Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) statement that the DSCC will support Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), even if he doesn't win the Dem CT primary, these lefty bloggers face perhaps the biggest test of their brief existence. Do they continue to pour effort and resources into cable co. exec. Ned Lamont (D) campaign in their quest for ideological purity? Or do they move those resources to other states like with possible DEM pickups like VA and MT, knowing that both Lamont and Lieberman will vote for a Maj. Leader named Harry Reid? In his book Crashing the GateMarkos Moulitsas claims that a Senate in Dem hands is much better for progressives than ideological purity from any one candidate. The situation in CT SEN will let us find out if he actually means it.

Hotline's On Call (go team!) rocked the lefty blogosphere with news that DSCC Chair Chuck Schumer (NY) refused to rule out continuing support for Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) if Lieberman were to run as an independent against cable co. exec. Ned Lamont (D).

DailyKos wasted little time before declaring war on the DSCC: "The DSCC's mission is to support Democrats in elections. Supporting Lieberman over Lamont would be a violation of this mission. Schumer is a Democrat. He runs the DSCC. He needs to respect the will of the Democratic voters in Connecticut." Reax on DailyKos' comment boards were no less dire:

• redstar: "How are we supposed to stay committed to the Democratic party when the leadership isn't?"
• altscott: "I'm convinced a new party is needed. Taking over leadership AND party apparatus is expensive and time consuming. The grass and net roots need to cut a new path."
• inclusiveheart: "Chuck Schumer has failed to make one very important calculation ... He has no clue how easy it would be for the constituents of his party to get rid of him in a Democratic state like New York."
• Deano963: " Hey - we should all send emails an make calls to Chairman Dean about this. I'm really really pissed off by this. He needs to put Schumer in his f*****g place and let him know that it is not Schumer's decision on who the party backs - it is the CT primary voters' decision who the party backs."
• decon: "Unity '08...Stewart/Colbert.

Lefty blogger ire for beltway Dems was not relegated to DailyKos:

• the unofficial LamontBlog: "Schumer To CT Dems: "DROP DEAD"...The DSCC is now officially just an incumbent protection racket. It has nothing to do with any party."
• Atrios: "I know Chuck Schumer isn't likely to take advice from little old me, but if he decides to support the increasingly-likely independent run from Joe Lieberman he's really going to regret it. He'll regret it doubly when Joe bolts the party AND loses. It's going to be fun."
• firedoglake: "This is all about incumbency protection. The preservation of entrenched power and maintaining the status quo. ...It's All About Them.
• AMERICAblog: "I'd really hate to see Lieberman put in a position where he's holding all the cards - i.e., Lieberman runs as an independent, wins, the Senate is divided 49-50, and then the Dems have to BEG Lieberman to support Harry Reid as the party leader rather than the Republicans. ... That's not good for the Democratic party or America."
• Hullabaloo: "If they do this, it will cause a full on backlash against the Democratic Party by the rank and file and the party elders like Schumer have no one to blame but themselves."
• The Left Coaster: "So although in my perfect world I would prefer that we all work together towards the same goal, and that the media and the Beltway Democrats would respect accountability and the truth as well as the blogs, this is admittedly Pollyanna on my part. The blogs should keep on the warpath and pick their battles, and collect some scalps along the way.
• Blogging of the President: "Let me give fair warning - if Schumer does this, I suspect the DSCC, Schumer himself, and anyone they support, can kiss goodbye the vast majority of any netroots support. And Schumer may want to start preparing for the nasty primary challenge that I can assure him will come if his way if anyone even remotely credible steps up to the plate. Disloyalty is the cardinal political sin, and Schumer is only two steps away from committing treason."

Over at lefty-but-Lieberman-sympathetic The Plank, Jason Zengrle's "heart goes out to the poor soul who has to monitor Schumer's e-mail account." Zengrle also plays sloganeer for Team Lieberman: "Remember those Bush '88 campaign shirts, "Annoy the Media, Vote Bush"? Maybe Lieberman should print up some ones that say, "Annoy the Blogosphere, Vote Joe." (although as the Blogometer's know-it-all editor John Mercurio points out, it ought to read '92 and not '88)

16-year-old Kenton Ngo puts UVA prof. Larry Sabato (and the rest of us) to shame with his exemplary turnout analysis from 6/13's VA primary on his blog 750 Volts:

Normally when analyzing turnout in a VA primary observers just take the raw turnout: That is, votes divided by registered voters. The fallacy, however, is that you do not determine Democratic turnout. 2% turnout in a 40% Democratic county is not the same as 2% turnout in a 60% Democratic county. The former is bad, the latter is abysmal, but that fact would be hidden. To find where the most Democrats came out to vote, let's take the number of votes cast in this primary and divide them not by registered voters, but by the number of people who voted for Tim Kaine.

We find that not only does the huge 2-ton canary in Virginia politics, Fairfax County, have a huge population, the county's Democrats turned out twice as much as some areas of the state. Fairfax and Arlington where Jim Webb won this primary. This huge spike in turnout in Arlington and Fairfax carried the day.
The lowest turnout - perhaps the highest number of disaffected Democrats - appears to be around Richmond and in Southwest. The most committed, primary - voting Democrats in the state appear again to be in Fairfax and Arlington.

Speaking of Sabato, The Corner's Rich Lowry checked in with him to report this Webb-will-help-Allen angle on the race: "It's unwise for Allen to try to run a two-track campaign-nationally. ... It actually works to his advantage the higher profile the Senate race is. "He benefits from elevating the race to national status. Then he will be seen by Republican activists as doing the same thing as John McCain, defending the president and defending the war." This is why it ultimately might benefit Allen that the weaker candidate, Miller, lost and Webb won. People would have tuned out an Allen v. Miller race. Allen v. Webb could get a lot of attention and allow Allen to increase his national profile in a helpful way, so long, of course, as he wins and performs strongly."

Lefty bloggers are itching for a strong Dem pushback to House Maj. Leader John Boehners (R-OH) Iraq resolution this week. The Left Coaster: " if the GOP wants to reopen that door this week, Democrats should push back hard on the findings of the various inquiries that Saddam had few if any connections to Al Qaeda and had no role in 9/11. And if Boehner wants to raise flout the "9/11 Equals Iraq" bloody shirt tomorrow, then Harry Reid should renew his demand that Pat Roberts stop stalling and get on with the Phase Two inquiry into how the Administration, and how specifically Dick Cheney used pre-war intelligence and responded to dissent. Trust me, the GOP does not want to go there."

AMERICAblog also thinks the country is ready for a Dem victory in an Iraq debate: "What moron came up with the brilliant idea of debating Iraq as a way of helping Republicans in the fall elections? Yeah, Republicans get to stand up before the country and profess their undying admiration for Bush as commander in chief and for how 'great' they think the war is going."

On the right Blue Crab Boulevard recognizes the debate is a political ploy, but wishes the MSM would cover more Dem dissent on the issue. Other righty bloggers are less cynical. Hugh Hewitt: "Open, long and serious debate over the central issue of our time, and conducting the elections as a referendum on the necessity of continuing the war on terror are exactly what the serious party should be doing. PrairiePundit: "I think the Republicans should have let the Dems bring alternative resolutions to the floor so they would have no excuse for their vote. Let them structure an alternative that the GOP can defeat. Let the Democrats embrace their inner defeatism."

Discussion of DailyKos' support for ex-VA Gov. Mark Warner continues to percolate around the blogosphere. TPM Cafe'sMatthew Yglesias has no problem with what he's seen so far. But also wants to know, "Where's the beef?" Yglesias goes on to describe an encounter with an acquaintance on Team Warner: "I told him Warner seemed to have a lot going for him, but I'd be interested in knowing where he stood on, well, any policy issue. He assured me they were working on that."

Kausfiles picked up on lefty blogger discussion of the issue and threw his two cents in: "Indeed, isn't Warner a Democratic Leadership Council type of the sort the Kossacks ordinarily loathe? (The one time I've seen Warner in person was at a DLC event during the 2004 Democratic Convention, where he was proudly presented by DLC chief Al From). You don't think that Warner's popularity with Markos Moulitsas ("Governor Mark Warner in Virginia has delivered") could have anything to do with Warner's hiring of Moulitsas' buddy, Jerome Armstrong, do you? ... I mean, if a candidate or corporation hired, say, Tom DeLay's buddy and then gotten strangely good play at a DeLay-run convention, nobody on the left would raise a peep, right?"

Righty Ryan Sager at RCP Blog doesn't think Armstrong's hiring is the entire story: "Kaus attributes this treatment to "Warner's hiring of Moulitsas' buddy, Jerome Armstrong." That's part of it. Another part of it is that, as Markos said in his introduction, Warner was the second big shot - after Harry Reid, in whose backyard (Las Vegas) the whole event was being held - to accept the Kos invitation. Pandering, apparently, can get you to second base with these folks. ... Not that there's anything wrong with that. ... But Kaus is right that it's more than a little hypocritical for a group of bloggers that constantly rails against the political establishment, and particularly centrist Democrats, to extend political-establishment-like treatment to a centrist Democrat just because he returns their phone calls."

The Huffington Post's Art Levine reports that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) "put forward a positive program for Democrats," that won applause at 6/14's final day of the Take Back America conference. Obama "offered ... a searing critique of Bush administration policies, borrowing from Newt Gingrich's recommended attack phrase, "Had enough?" Yet at the same time providing reassurance and hope for progressives." Obama urged attendees: "The time for our identity crisis as progressives is over. Don't let anybody tell you that we don't know what we stand for."

Min. Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) 6/14 "New Direction for America" platform received tepid reaction from lefty bloggers and predictable derision from the right. Left on the Lake did like the change in focus: "Protecting American Security, lowering health care costs, providing a living wage, eliminating tax breaks for big oil, and lowering the cost of higher education all sound pretty good to me... It's the exact opposite of what's been happening in this country for the past five years as real wages have fallen, national security funding has been wasted, big tax breaks have gone to the oil companies and richest 1%, and higher education and health care costs have skyrocketed."

Art Levine at The Huffington Post thought effort came out too narrow: "The Democratic leadership offered a litany of ideas, billed as a "New Direction" for America, such as lowering the cost of prescription drugs, raising the minimum wage, etc. ...What was missing from this Democratic list was the broader big idea , "The Common Good," best articulated by Michael Tomasky in a recent, highly influential American Prospect article about Democrats moving beyond single-issue ideas and interest groups into a broader civic republicanism." The Democratic Daily also preferred other Dem plans: "I like the Dem's new plan, their "New Direction," but John Kerry's principles for progressives have a better ring to them in my book. Let's get started with the first two points ASAP: "Tell the truth to the American people" and '"Fire the incompetents" and hold government accountable."

Over at righty blogger HQ NRO, Greg Pollowitz claims the new Dem platform avoids all of the country's real concerns: "Nothing on Iraq. Nothing on Homeland Security. Nothing on Afghanistan. Nothing on immigration. Nothing on lobbying reform. Nothing on public school reform. For the left: Nothing on global warming. Nothing on stem cell research. Nothing on gay marriage. Nothing on affirmative action. Nothing on abortion. Nothing on NAFTA. Nothing on labor unions. And if by "Require Fiscal Responsibility" Democrats mean, "raise taxes", please say so in the addendum to this agenda that is sure to follow.

IMMIGRATION: Finally, A Union Righty Bloggers Love

The right was not impressed at all with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recent round up of illegal immigrants. DailyPundit: "We have been told over and over again by those supporting Bush's amnesty for illegal aliens policies that we can't "solve" the problem of illegal immigrants by deporting them. So what are we to make of this sudden supposed effort to deport "thousands" of illegals?" FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog: "Flap wish he could beleive the new found enforcement by ICE is serious. But, Flap remains cynical and knows this is show for an amnesty-laden comprehensive immigration bill."

Over at The Corner, conservative Jack Fowler looks at new polling numbers and questions Sen. min. leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) recent name-calling: "A new Rasmussen Reports Survey shows 85% of Americans want English to be the official language of the U.S. The political breakdown: 92% of Republicans, 86% of unaffiliated voters, and 79% of Democrats back the stand. Did Harry Reid know there were so many “racists” in his party?"

Meanwhile righty PoliPundit has discovered his new favorite immigration expert: "Who can best comment on securing the border? College Professors? Politicians in Washington? How about the members of the largest Union Local representing actual Border Patrol Agents? Here are the opinions of these brave agents, in their own words:

"Local 2544 has not been consulted in any way, shape, or form regarding the deployment of National Guard troops in this Sector. ...Senator McCain has never been a friend to rank-and-file Border Patrol agents. He routinely ignores correspondence from Border Patrol agents and often gives the impression that he is just too big and too important to deal with us. ...Every day that President Bush and the Senate hold real border security hostage to their misguided amnesty program, thousands upon thousands of illegal aliens continue to flood into the country."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A Brief History In Blogosphere Feuding

MaxKelly at DailyKos offers the netroots version of the DLC-DailyKos feud:

Now, let's look back at 5/03. dKos was just 1 year old, and the "blogosphere" was in relative infancy. Howard Dean was THE story, because he wasn't afraid to state his opinions, while most of the Washington Dems were scared of looking unpatriotic if they disagreed with Bush. Dean, a DC outsider, went from being an unknown to media sensation in a short amount of time, with the help of the new "netroots" and other Democrats looking to excite the party. He wasn't taking cues from Washington consultants, instead he went to the "regular" people, even Kos, to help with his campaign... and it was effective. It was so effective, the insider Dems came face-to-face with their irrelevance, and possible extinction. Instead of adapting to the emerging change, and trying to bring EVERYONE into the party, the DLC made the decision to divide.

It's a long post ... for the full flavor read the whole thing.

The St.Louis.com Blog reported 6/14 on the growing feud between MO Gov. Matt Blunt's office and late Gov. Mel Carnahan CoS-turned-blogger Roy Temple. Temple was temporarily detained by state Capitol police after Blunt comm dir Spence Jackson told police that Temple was "a physical threat to the governor" during a public bill signing ceremony. Later justifying the detention, Jackson accused Temple of having "Timothy McVeigh-like fantasies."

Temple's account of the incident can be found at his blog, fired up! Missouri and St.Louis.com reports he's weighing whether to seek legal action in response to Jackson's statements.

Posted by Conn Carroll at June 15, 2006 12:15 PM