July 18, 2008

7/18 – Special Netroots Nation Edition

Austin -- Today's Blogometer comes to you from the third annual Netroots Nation convention (formerly known as YearlyKos). In addition to our regular (albeit shortened) blog coverage, we've included coverage of Day 1 of Netroots Nation. If you'd like to read more of our coverage of Netroots Nation, please visit The Hotline's On Call blog this weekend, where we will be posting our dispatches. And wherever you are this weekend, we hope it's not as hot as it is in here in Austin!

NETROOTS NATION: Wes Clark Praises The Netroots

Last night we attended the Opening Keynote at Netroots Nation, which was delivered by DNC Chair (and netroots hero) Howard Dean. Before Dean spoke, Gen. Wesley Clark took the stage and effusively praised the netroots. Here are a few quotes from his speech:

• "You've been a major force in my life...You are the reason I ran for office."
• "You are the keel on the ship of state...You keep America going in the right direction."
• "We've needed you for so long in politics, and we need you desperately right now."
• "You are the guiding compass for America. You are committed to ideas. And you spew them forth in great volume."

Clark also alluded to the recent controversy over his 6/29 remarks on Meet The Press, when he said, "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president." Clark said that his words were "taken out of context" during the ensuing media firestorm. He told the audience, "You fought back. And I'm grateful to you from the bottom of my heart."

Gina Cooper, the founder and executive director of Netroots Nation, spoke after Clark. She said that the netroots had "grown from a tiny, insurgent movement into a force to be reckoned with." She described Dean's election as Chairman of the DNC as "the first victory of the netroots" and declared that Dean's "50-state strategy for building a national Democratic Party" is now "conventional wisdom."

NETROOTS NATION II: Howard Dean's Keynote Address

Dean took the stage to thunderous applause and scattered chants of "four more years." Here are a few quotes from his speech:

• "The difference between John McCain and Barack Obama on Iraq policy alone is 98 years in Iraq, and we don't want 98 years in Iraq."
• "When Barack Obama becomes the next President of the United States, he will have become President of all 50 states, not just those who agree with him."
• "I want to thank Barack Obama because has embraced the 50 state strategy...Barack Obama has done everything that my campaign pioneered and multiplied it by 10."
• On Obama's decision to leave the public financing system: "When your average donation is $68, you are owned by nobody but the American people."
• "If you want moral authority, you can't stoop to the same level as the people who attacked us. If you want moral authority, you can't have torture and you can't have Guantanamo Bay...Barack Obama will restore moral authority to the United States of America."

Dean also emphasized the importance of reaching out to Americans who haven't traditionally voted Democratic. He said that the top three priorities of "evangelicals Christians under age 35" are poverty, climate change, and Darfur, which "sounds like the Democratic Party platform." Echoing Obama, Dean declared: "There is common ground among all Americans...We must focus on that which we have in common and not that which divides us."

MyDD's Todd Beeton, who live-blogged Dean's speech, offers his reaction: "He is the man."

The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias also offers some thoughts about Dean: "A friend described Netroots Nation as like a giant family reunion with Howard Dean as the crazy uncle. [...] On another reasonable view, however, Dean is more like a patriarchal figure, the foundational character from which all else flows. Ultimately, though, I think that's wrong -- Dean is not a blogger himself and is, at the end of the day, a bit besides the point when it comes to the larger movement. He and his 2004 candidacy happened to be the point around which a lot of the early netroots energy coalesced. Over time, however, it's become clear that the real leaders of the movement were include a large number of folks who were early Dean supporters or followers, but that Dean himself plays an essentially peripheral, symbolic role in the whole thing. And it's to his credit, I think, that he's basically accepted that role and done it well while also focusing diligently on his job as DNC chief."

In other Dean news, OpenLeft's Chris Bowers conducted a 20-minute interview with Dean earlier yesterday. Here is Bowers' summary of the interview:

• At the rally beforehand, there were chants of "four more years." When asked if [Dean] would run for another term, he said that he wasn't thinking about it. In fact, he said that since Barack Obama would be the next President, and since the President traditionally chooses the next DNC chair, he did not anticipate being around for four more years. In short, he was happy with his term, and wasn't running again.
• When asked about the ads criticizing him and Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi for [Hillary] Clinton supposedly not being on the ballot at the convention, he scoffed. Clinton will be on the ballot at the convention, and will be speaking there. Dean indicated that the rules were so clear on this matter, that the groups running these ads and spreading these rumors must be associated with the other internet rumors going around, such as Obama being a Muslim. He also speculated that McCain supporters might be behind these rumors.
• Dean said that his main goal as chair has been to build a permanent political operation for Democrats in all fifty states, and that this goal is on the brink of being accomplished. He also said that he thinks there is no going back from the fifty-state strategy, and that this sort of broadly based political operation is here to stay for Democrats even after he is no longer chair. He was clearly very proud of this accomplishment. I was clearly in love with him.

NETROOTS NATION III: A Peek Inside The OpenLeft Caucus

Yesterday afternoon we attended the OpenLeft Caucus at Netroots Nation, where Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers led an interesting discussion with OpenLeft readers about Dem messaging on energy. Stoller declared the Dems are currently losing the debate on energy, since the GOP is aggressively promoting offshore drilling and "they're converting liberals." Stoller also said that a majority of Americans believe that offshore drilling won't lower gas prices anytime soon, but that they support it anyway because "they want people to do something...they're voting for leadership." The bloggers and activists in the room proceeded to discuss how to frame the energy issue in a way that is favorable to Dems.

Now that President George W. Bush has rescinded his father's offshore drilling ban, it seems clear that the energy issue will be an important one in this year's election. It is already a major topic in the political blogosphere, and MyDD's Jerome Armstrong has written some provocative posts on the subject.

OBAMA: Slow Fundraising Month, My A**!

Liberal bloggers were pleased to learn that Obama raised $52M in June, which exceeded many analysts' expectations:

• Daily Kos' georgia10: "The stunning tidbit from June's totals is that the average donation has decreased, from around $100 in February to $68 in June. In other words, while the average amount donated has decreased, the number of donations has increased. A lot. [...] What was true at the beginning of this race is still true, and will likely be true up until election day: Democratic voters are more engaged in the process, more enthusiastic about their candidate, and more likely to reach into their pockets -- even at $5, $10, or $20 at a time -- to put an end to Republican governance."
• Open Left's Matt Stoller: "Good news for Democrats; it seems the small dollar donor crowd is intensely focused on winning back the Presidency. Even with the organizing around FISA, Obama took in a remarkable money haul from small dollar and large dollar donors. [...] The whining from DC pundits about how the left was undermining Obama's chances at winning was absolutely wrong. His small dollar donor army wants him in that White House, and they are going to pay to put him there. While it's often impossible for consultants in DC to keep multiple thoughts in their head, it is possible for most of us normal bluggers and blug readers to get that we don't like his vote on FISA but we want him to win the White House desperately anyway."
• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "It's interesting to see the press, who had previously been fixated on (as it turns out) erroneous reports that the Obama campaign had brought in about $30 million for the month -- a number they saw as underwhelming -- try to make the argument that Obama's $52 million somehow fails to meet expectations, too. Just a few minutes ago on MSNBC, Chuck Todd, whose work I usually find to be quite insightful, appeared unimpressed by this report. No mention, of course, that Obama's haul was more than two and a third times larger than that of McCain, or that the DNC more than quadrupled its take from the previous month, or that the pace set by Obama this month would provide him more than enough resources to justify his wise decision not to opt into the public financing program. [...] This actually evokes something that Matthew Yglesias wrote about yesterday: The notion that everything must be good news for John McCain. Consistently trailing Obama in the polls? Good news! Taking in less than half the money as the Obama campaign in a month? Good news! Not connecting with voters? Good news! ...? Good news!"

Other liberal bloggers put Obama's $52M number in the larger context:

• MyDD's Armstrong: "I believe that Obama could have raised $100M in June if that's what they wanted to do. In fact, there may have been plans to do just that too, but they changed. Notice that just $2M was raised for the GE by Obama, they certainly could have raised a ton more money there if they had wanted, for the GE, at least $20-30M, and combined with the $74M that was raised between Obama and DNC, over $100M. So, either the Obama camp isn't as committed to self-funding for the GE, and might still go the route of taking the $84M in public financing (unlikely); or they are holding off their donors to give for the GE later (there are accounts of projecting a $100M month in Sept); or the Obama camp will use July and August to raise big numbers for the GE, as the decision to opt-out was made on June 19th, late in the month for fundraising plans. It could be either of these last two it seems."
• Yglesias: "It's worth pointing out that despite Obama's edge over McCain, the RNC's enormous edge over the DNC means that it's by no means clear that Obama will really have a financial advantage in an overall sense. The McCain campaign and the RNC, recall, are working in a sufficiently hand-in-glove manner that the RNC ran an ad lauding McCain's willingness to break with the Republicans over climate change."

OBAMA II: Sorry, Barack, But Your Wife's Fair Game

Conservative bloggers are mocking Obama after he called criticism of his wife "infuriating" and accused "the conservative press" of going after Michelle Obama "in a pretty systematic way":

• Michelle Malkin: "BO: Damn you conservatives for taking my wife seriously! [...] Yep, he's whining to Glamour magazine -- the print equivalent of, oh, Access Hollywood, about us meanies who listen to his bitter half on the campaign trail and hold her accountable for her public statements."
• NRO's Byron York: "I don't see how anyone could argue that Michelle Obama isn't news. Was Hillary Clinton not news in 1992? Some candidates' wives are higher-profile than others, and Michelle Obama is pretty far up there; she speaks in public a lot, and she says newsworthy things. My guess is she would be a pretty involved First Lady. So it seems to me she should get more coverage, not less."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "I don't see how Barack Obama can send out Michelle Obama as a surrogate, have her declare that the country is 'downright mean' or that Americans are spending their stimulus checks on earrings or lament her need to spend '$10,000 a year on piano and dance and sports supplements' for their children or Americans' inability to afford fruit or that 'everything that's in a bottle or a package is like poison in a way that most people don't even know' or that what she 'notice[s] about men, all men, is that their order is me, my family, God is in there somewhere, but me is first'...and then expect the rest of the country to stifle its objections."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "Is anyone else beginning to sniff a sour whiff of victimhood? Of course the campaign was legitimately upset about the New Yorker cover. But from time to time, what with the relentless focus on 'fighting' the 'smears' (to a point where comics are afraid to joke about him) to the widely publicized self-flagellation about allowing his daughters to be interviewed, it does seem as though there's an element of self-serving sympathy mongering going on. It's unbecoming. Presidential politics is not a pursuit for the sensitive-minded or thin-skinned. [...] As long as Michelle Obama campaigns and acts as a surrogate on the trail -- not to mention providing interviews to kissy-kissy outlets like Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood -- she is fodder for commentary and, yes, even criticism. Properly so."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "How is Michelle O any more or less of a 'civilian' than Jeremiah Wright, whom Obama concedes is fair game and a 'legitimate issue' per their relationship? Wright's not delivering campaign speeches on Obama's behalf and surely his views, while arguably a proxy for some of Obama's own, aren't as reliable a proxy as Michelle's. The point in criticizing her isn't to go after the opponent's wife for the sport of doing it, it's to highlight what may or may not be an insight into the opponent himself. It's really an attack on him, in other words -- a dumb attack, since it lets him appeal to women voters by playing the angry husband, but an attack on him all the same."

OBAMA III: What's He Talking About?

Several conservative bloggers are criticizing the press for not reporting on the following statement (or misstatement?) that Obama made during a recent speech in Colorado Springs:

"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "It's not quite clear what Obama meant by this. If he meant that the military had taken over too many functions that normally should be handled by the State Department, then that echoes what Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this week. It seems to reference the costs associated with reopening consulates and doubling the Peace Corps, but that wouldn't come close to matching what we spend at the Pentagon. The phrasing of it -- a 'civilian national security force' -- sounds much more like a quasi-military organization operating within the US under the control of the federal government."
• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "When the Democratic nominee calls for a huge, new national 'security force' working domestically, shouldn't someone in the MSM ask him what he means? [...] Obama represents the most inexperienced, risky major party nominee in American political history, and he is demonstrating that with at best inscrutable off-the-cuff rhetoric on a daily basis, but the MSM bigs are covering for him. Astonishing."
• Liebau: "Candidates who can be trusted with the leadership of the free world don't engage in weird little riffs that leave normal people puzzling over what they meant...and with no alternative that doesn't seem either disturbingly creepy or frighteningly naive. Just another sign that Barack isn't quite ready for prime time?"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Obama Vs. Not Obama

TPM's Josh Marshall echoes a point that Patrick Ruffini made last week:

"[The] McCain camp unveils [its] new strategy of aggressive whining about coverage of Obama's foreign trip. [...] First McCain wanted Obama to go to Iraq; now he's complaining that people care more about Obama's trip than his dog-and-pony show last spring. I think the American people have to admit that they're biased against John McCain.

Let's be honest. Hardly anyone cares about McCain or his campaign. No one's excited about it in any way. I don't think that's an overstatement. Caring or being excited about isn't the same as supporting. Lots of people support McCain -- but as the anti-Obama, the alternative. This isn't to say he can't win; he definitely can. But very little of this campaign is about him. Virtually all of it is about Barack Obama."

LEST WE FORGET: A Day In The Life On The F Train

From Overheard in New York:

Kid #1: (sharing iPod with Kid #2) Hey, it's the CSI song!
Kid #2: (laughs) Yeah.
Kid #1: It's like we're secret agents!
Kid #2: (laughs) No.
Kid #1: Yeah! It is.
Kid #2: No...It's like, we're stoners on the subway listening to The Who.

Posted by Ian Faerstein at July 18, 2008 12:50 PM