October 25, 2006

10/25: Faceless No More

Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) hopes of gaining any netroots support for an '08 run took a hit 10/24 when spokesman David Wade defended Kerry's giving to Dem challengers by saying: "Cowards can hide behind anonymous Web sites but Democrats out in the country, party leaders and real net-roots activists know how hard John Kerry has fought to win these elections." Wade was referring to the anonymous HeyJohn.org website. But that site has been, at best, a fringe player in a campaign headed by the extremely visible Chris Bowers of MyDD. Like it or not, blogger influence is growing inside and outside the beltway, and '08 hopefuls must familiarize themselves, and their staffs, with who these bloggers are and what they're up to. Otherwise, they might accidentally denigrate hard-working activists, the way Wade did.

BLOGGER VS. BELTWAY: Better Late Than Never

TPM Cafe's Stirling Newberry notes MyDD's Chris Bowers' Use It Or Lose It campaign is "officially all over the traditional media" appearing in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum comments on the LA Times piece: "I thought it was interesting that Brownstein is now taking the time to follow blogs closely and report on what they're up to, The times, they are a changin. But not changing too much. Brownstein's conclusion so far? Democrats are being "cordial but resistant." In other words, they're holding onto their cash."

Not all Dems have been resistant so far. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) writes at MyDD: "I deeply appreciate the "Use It or Lose It" project spotlighting the fact that there is over $50 million available for competitive House Democrats sitting unused in congressional campaign accounts. One of my assignments for the Democratic caucus has been to encourage Democratic House members to not just sit on money, but step up and use it. ... I've been in the top 15% of members of Congress in support of other campaigns, more than many people much more senior than I and with more powerful committee positions."

Bowers also thanks Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) for giving a total of $1.1M "raised or contributed" this cycle. Bowers comments: "Well done, Congressman Frank! Barney Frank is doing what it takes to capitalize on our extraordinary political environment, help fully-fund all of our 50-60 competitive challenges to Republican held seats." Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) is also thanked for his $160K although bowers writes: "It isn't the entire amount we were looking for, but it is still good."

On the right, Erick Erickson at RedState calls out unchallenged GOPers to spread their wealth around including: Reps. Henry Bonilla (R-TX), Don Young (R-AK), and Joe Barton (R-TX).

BLOGGERS VS. BELTWAY II: The Idea Man

Claiming no one called right-wing bloggers "unscrupulous" when "when they did this to John Kerry in 2004" MyDD's Chris Bowers moved forward with his "Google Bomb" plan 10/24. Bowers posts his list of 70 targeted GOP candidates and links to a "Google Bomb The Elections: Source Code" page that fellow netrooters can "copy and paste the code from the diary" to their own blogs. Bowers then asks: "When you discuss any of these races in the future, please, use the same embedded hyperlink when reprinting the Republican's name." Bowers argues "[e]very campaign should be engaged in search engine optimization on their own" and he directs them to the New Politics Institute "new tools" campaign which includes an article on using search engines.

Looking at Bowers' Google Bomb and Use It Or Lose It campaigns, TPM Cafe's Stirling Newberry call Bowers an "idea guy" that ought to be "a candidate for working in, or advising, the next Democratic Majority."

KERRY: How Not to Make Friends And Influence People In The Blogosphere

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) is under lefty blogger fire for spokesman David Wade's comment that: "Cowards can hide behind anonymous Web sites but Democrats out in the country, party leaders and real net-roots activists know how hard John Kerry has fought to win these elections." DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas acknowledges that Wade was referring to the anonymous HeyJohn.org website, and not the founder of the campaign, MyDD's Chris Bowers but still takes Wade's words as an "insult" to the netroots community.

Also noticing the flair up TAPPED's Ezra Klein comments: "Raise your hand if you think it's good 2008 strategy for Kerry's spokesperson to call members of the netroots "cowards" for demanding that Kerry donate some of the $15 million they gave him to win in 2004 towards winning in 2006. Fail them once, shame on you. Fail them twice..." Firedoglakes's TRex adds: "John Kerry doesn't care about Democrats. John Kerry just cares about John Kerry. And that's just wrong!"

LANDSCAPE: GOP vs. The Computer

MyDD's Chris Bowers has "acquired" internal GOP numbers from the NRCC and NRSC and reports: "It looks like right now, they expect to lose about four Senate seats and about 21 House seats." Meanwhile, Ezra Klein links to a paper by based on "statistical analysis of historical" from past generic vote poll data that concludes: "Based on current generic ballot polls, we forecast an expected Democratic gain of 32 seats with Democratic control (a gain of 18 seats or more) a near certainty." Klein adds: "Meanwhile, the InTrade betting odds are putting a retention of GOP House control at 33%."

Also at MyDD, Jonathan Singer reports on the latest NRCC targeting od ID-01 and IN-03. He also notes DCCC investment in CA-11, PA-04, and MN-01. Signer concludes: "But given the fact that the NRCC is shifting funds to districts President Bush carried by more than a 2 to 1 margin just two years ago, it still puzzles me why the DCCC is not following suit by going into quirky races, perhaps ones in which the Republicans are on their heels."

LANDSCAPE II: Unlike DST, GOTV Comes Early This Year

National Review Online's Kate O'Beirne reports GOP "GOTV operation has kicked in with nightly tracking of early voting and an overall effort that insiders claim is bigger than two years ago. And the White House has aggressively hit the airwaves. Today they hosted 41 talk radio hosts and all hands were on deck. Tony Snow did 25 interviews and Dan Bartlett did 15. Josh Bolten and Karl Rove each did more than a half dozen. The impression is that conservative voters resent the MSM line that the election is in the bag for the Democrats."

Still on the right, RCP Blog's John McIntyre confides that Mason-Dixon "continues to do the best state polling" and that their data show "a 50-50 tie with Republicans retaining control" in the Senate. RedState's Leon Wolf argues the MSM is deliberately suppressing positive GOP polling news.

Trying to rally the troops, Captain's Quarters has a series of posts titled "Meet The Proposed House Leadership" with posts on Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) chairing the Judiciary Cmte. and Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) possibly chairing the Int. Cmte. Kausfiles wonders why the GOP hasn't made more of Hastings impeachment as a federal judge for bribery.

AZ SEN: No Cut-And-Run From This Race

DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas like AZ State's 10/22 poll showing Sen. John Kyl (R) up only 47%-41% over ex-AZ Dem chair Jim Pederson (D), but doesn't like Pederson's new ad: "Instead of saying "I won't 'cut and run'", reinforcing the right-wing frame, I wish he'd talk about not being "stay the course", but whatever."

CT SEN: World's Worst Blog

Lefty bloggers are still hammering away at Sen. Joe Lieberman (I) over the $397K in "petty cash" not detailed in his latest FEC report. Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher takes on MSM coverage of the story calling the New York Times Empire Blog "the World's Worst Blog" for not investigating the matter more closely.

The unofficial Lamont Blog offers a thorough history of Team Lieberman positions on the matter, concluding: "Now, despite promising reporters [Tammy Sun] would produce records of how almost $400,000 in cash was spent and then suddenly telling reporters they couldn't look at them, and despite still being "unable to say" why the slush fund even existed in the first place, she's calling the whole thing a "kooky conspiracy theory."

MyDD's Matt Stoller is also following the story and sees double standards at work: "If a Senator put $387,000 in cash out on the streets in the final two weeks before the election ... wouldn't you think that good government groups who care about campaign finance laws and disclosure would be slightly interested? ... Yet since Lieberman revealed this on his FEC forms late last week, only the Lamont campaign has been willing to file an FEC complaint. ... Can you imagine if Bob Menendez did this in New Jersey? The good government groups would be all over it."

Stoller also offers up "spooky" video juxtaposing Nixon/Vietnam and Lieberman/Iraq clips. Stoller comments: "This race is a proxy for the 2008 campaign where we will face one or more Lieberman-McCain-like-candidates who want to whitewash the Iraq War and use extensive dirty and probably illegal tactics, all the while floating above the fray as a sincere man of integrity."

Finally Hamsher at firedoglake announces that "the Maxwell/Mosher band and Ricki Lee Jones will be going to Connecticut from November 2-4 to appear with Ned Lamont on his bus tour and perform the campaign song they did on behalf of our Blue America candidates, Have You Had Enough."

MO SEN: Suppan Is Scheduled To Pitch Tonight, By The Way

AMERICAblog uploads of video from CNN juxtaposing Michael J. Fox exhibiting symptoms/side effects of Parkinson's disease and audio of Rush Limbaugh "calling him a fake. It's disgusting." John Aravosis goes on to ask if Sen. James Talent (R) and other GOPers agree with "Limbaugh's disability-bashing."

On the right Power Line's John Hinderaker posts a video "response" to the Fox ad featuring actor John Caviezel Kansas City Royal Mike Sweeney, St. Louis Cardinal Jeff Suppan, and ex-St. Louis Ram Kurt Warner.

National Review Online's Kathryn Jean Lopez passes along a reader translation of Caviezel Aramaic line in the video: "Happened to be reading the Corner this evening in between sporadic bouts of translating Aramaic (actually Syriac, but same difference) for my grad studies. What Caviezel said was "l'bar nash b'nashak", or "the son of man with a kiss". Which isn't even a complete sentence, but whatever."

MT SEN: Kos' Has A New Favorite Magazine

DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas highly recommends the current edition of the Weekly Standard featuring an article on State Sen. Jon Tester (D) but does have on complaint: "The big omission in this piece is the work done by the Montana bloggers, which drove just about every bit of my coverage on this race. All successful Netroots efforts -- be they Montana, Connecticut, Virginia, or anywhere else start at home, with activists on the ground."

PA SEN: Don't Forget To Turn Out The Lights

DailyKos' founder Markos Moulitsas notes that despite spending $9 mil this cycle, Sen. Rick Santorum still "trails in the polls badly" and posts a DSCC email including: "Since national Republicans aren't airing independent ads in Pennsylvania, that means nobody will be on the air on Santorum's behalf until Santorum himself pays to go back on. So far, Santorum has yet to reserve ad time for the final two weeks of the campaign."

TN SEN: For The Record, The Blogometer Also Likes Football And Girls

Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall is leading the coverage of the RNC's "Ford's an Uppity Negro" tv ad. Marshall writes:

If you watch the ad closely it is clear that the racist appeal -- about Harold Ford having sex with white women -- is the centerpiece, the entire point of the ad. ... What becomes clear is that the funny man on the street interview clips are padding, filler meant to make the 'Harold does white chicks' blurb appear to fit into a larger whole, just one of a number of 'man on the street' clips.

Crooks and Liars has video of RNC chair Ken Mehlman both refusing to condemn the ad despite calls for the ads removal from Ex-Chattanooga mayor Bob Corker (R) and ex-Sen. William Cohen (R), and also claiming not to hve the authority to pull the ad if he wanted to. On the later point TPM Cafe's Greg Sargent finds "Mehlman is right in the narrowest legal sense: There is supposed to be a group within committees like the RNC which decides on ad content and placement independently." But Sargent also quotes "election law expert" David Donnelly questioning Mehlman's excuse: ""If it's a disgraceful ad, and I think it is, Mehlman should take responsibility for it. He can't hide behind legalities on something as offensive as this ad. It's a very weak position for him to be hiding behind these legal distinctions. It doesn't matter if he has control over it or not. He can call it offensive."

Ford has produced a response ad that can be seen at Talking Points Memo. On the right, RCP Blog's Tom Bevan has video of Ford's response to questions about his attendance at the Playboy party in question: "I like football and I like girls and I don't have any apologies for that." Bevan also looks at how the week went for the Ford campaign under a header "When It Rains, It Pours."

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan and Instapundit are in day two of fighting over Instapundit vote for Corker over Ford.

VA SEN: They Must Have Left Out Felix To Save Space

Lefty bloggers are outraged over news that electronic ballots in Alexandria, Falls Church, and Charlottesville will display only "James H. 'Jim'" on ballots. Trapper John at Daily Kos writes: "I'd be calling my Board of Elections and demanding that they get off their asses and fix this problem -- either by getting their machine vendor to display Jim Webb's entire f---ing name on their worthless machine or by printing paper ballots."

Taylor Marsh also want more action: "Your candidate's full name is not on part of the ballot and your response is unhappiness? This is such an outrage it leaves me speechless. Why not just hand the election to George Allen? Another question is why the Webb campaign is going to accept it. Read the comment from Kristian Denny Todd. "We're not happy about it" doesn't cut it. Get out there and FIGHT this outrage. The election hangs in the balance. Get off your ass and DO SOMETHING.

The official AllenHQ says Dems have only themselves to blame: "Moreover, every electoral board in Virginia currently has 2 Democratic members and 1 Republican member. To be perfectly clear, that means that the Alexandria, Falls Church and Charlottesville Election Boards are all majority-Democrat."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Where's The Beef?

The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum summarizes Frederick Kagan's Washington Post op-ed: "Losing in Iraq would be the worst catastrophe imaginable, and we can't allow it to happen. However, like everyone else who feels this way, I decline to suggest any plausible plan for winning." Drum then offers a new rule for Iraq punditry:

you're not allowed to pontificate about the importance of winning in Iraq unless you're also willing to make concrete suggestions about how to make that happen. More troops? Tell us how many and where they're going to come from. Help from Syria and Iran? Tell us what you think they can offer us and what you'd be willing to put on the table to get their help. Partition? Convince us that the Iraqis would be willing to peacefully accept this. Etc. If you're not willing to do any of this, then write about something else.

LEST WE FORGET: Number Four Prostitute In All Of Kazakhstan

Atrios links to Editor and Publisher video of the first four minutes of "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." E and P writes: "In the leaked clip, Borat walks through his fictitious hometown in Kazakhstan, pointing to a man in a wooden cart as "the town rapist," and to another who he describes as "our town mechanic ... and abortionist."

Posted by Conn Carroll at October 25, 2006 12:37 PM