Redstate

I think we need a true rule of the blogosphere:  having a blog on a particular topic does not, per se, make you an expert on that particular topic.

Lots of folks write about politics, but not all are experts.  Given the track record of the wishful zealots on the left, it's pretty clear who are and are not the experts.  Usually the experts actually grasp reality.

They are part of the reality-based community.

(Chortle)

....Moulitsas responds with a post involving copious uses of the F-word.

"These goggles, they do nothing!"

"I only wish he hadn't written this piece, leaving our friends to blindly cut off their own legs. Then again, I've not seen anything to give the indication that they will be influenced by this article, anymore than they follow political history."

True enough, but this could encourage mainstream Democrats to become less panicky at the prospect of facing the disapproval of their activist base.  Which would be a good thing for the country in general, but not so good for the GOP.  :)

They are as much a part of the reality based community as the members of Heaven's Gate were.  Their comet just hasn't shown up yet.

Experience counts. Whoodathunkit?

Jerome Armstrong and Chris Bowers have posted responses.  Frankly, I don't think Rothenberg reads either MyDD or DailyKos very much.  They point out that growing the Democratic Party means competing everywhere and providing an alternative.  Kos in particular made clear that these were tough fights and that they faced long odds.  Kos had multiple goals including increasing activism in swing states and forcing entrenched incumbents to spend multiples of what the Democrats spent in their own defense.  Certainly the latter was quite successful, as DeLay, Musgrave, and others spent many times what the Democrats spent to defend their seats.

who gave Delay the tightest race of his career - Delay carried the district by only 55% if I recall correctly. Morrisson lost, but in doing do kept Delay in the district rather than stumping out - by any measure, that's success.

Its of course well within the rights of partisan schadenfreude to sneer at the strategy that Chris and Jerome have been outlining, but if they are successful in influencing their party's long term strategy (as is extremely likely shoudl either Rosenberg or Dean win the DNC chair nod), there will be a true sea change.

the GOP would do well to take note,s but then again I dont think that they are structurally able to allow for blogger input and netroots control the way that teh Democrats presently are. The best advoicacy blog on the right is Red State, bar none, and even there I don't see any comparable successes in influencing the dialog.

Note that Barbara Boxer just posted - herself - at Daily Kos. That says something about how seriously the Left is taking the netroots - the netroots are not content to be the ATM the way they were for Kerry. The evolution is astonishing. Its something amazing to watch, and a process that I am hoping will also develop on the right, once they see the success that it has on the left in the next few cycles.

I am optimistic that 2006 will see Democratic gains due to netrots strategy, and this will spur the Republicans to adopt similar models as Bowers and Armstrong have been advocating, so that by the time we get to 2008, there will be parity, and a true grassroots-driven political infrastructure for ideas. Red State shoudl be cheering Chris Bowers and Jerome Armstrong - and copying them.

Liberals do have more to gain from netroots just as conservatives had more to gain from talk radio, mainly because they are out of power.  However, the internet seems to have given new power to the extremes on both sides (Free Republic, Daily Kos, and Democratic Underground are the largest political blogs).  As conservatives make up 35+% of the country and liberals come in at 15+%, elevating extremists is not going to be a winning strategy for Democrats unless they convince voters to change their views.

The vast money and time that liberal bloggers have invested is impressive and admirable.  However, a large part of that energy is spewing hatred at the President and reflexively opposing anything Republicans do: a true commitment to obstructionism.  The rhetorically emphasis on "reform" seems to be a disguise for liberalism since, sadly, the word "liberal" has become a negative.

Democrats could make gains in 2006, but if they follow the strategies of Kos and Jerome it is unlikely to happen.  Spending time attacking Lieberman (a middle of the road Dem who supports the Iraq War) would be like Republicans spending time attacking John McCain.  It wouldn't have any effect on McCain's electability and it would hurt the effort to build a "big tent" by looking intolerant.  The Specter attack did that somewhat but Specter is a stereotypically sleezy, egotistical Senator who doesn't have much of a following.  Lieberman is a well respected representative with high marks from most people (over 70% in Connecticut last I saw).

Furthermore, wishfully hoping that there will be 80 competitive seat in the House at all is silly, much less 80 incumbent Republican seats.

If Kos and Jerome spent more time fighting for election reform, an end to gerrymandering, and other "reforms," they might push the party into a realm it has abandoned of late: the realm of new ideas.  If they merely become the ex-Nader left forcing every Democratic candidate to pass the Liberal Test, then they will help take the Democrats further from the mainstream and 2006 will follow '02 and '04.  It could be enough to lose their only effective tool, the filibuster.

I would also like to say that I hope we do not follow DKos.  Part of their huge popularity is due to the ability to curse and vent rage.  I appreciate having a political site that does not allow outright hatred and intolerance.  It may keep us small (see Free Republic for antithesis), but it keeps us civil as well.

"Spending time attacking Lieberman (a middle of the road Dem who supports the Iraq War) would be like Republicans spending time attacking John McCain."

When you're the minority party - which apparently still hasn't sunk in with some of the Democratic base - and when you're trying to stop being the minority party, it's a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad idea to start purging your side of safe seats.  Nobody expects Lieberman to lose in CT.  He'll be re-elected.  He'll caucus with his fellow Democrats, which I believe will benefit them when it comes to relative proportions on committees.

If there's something that the Democrats will gain from toppling Lieberman that will make up for risking losing these badly-needed and critically important benefits, I'd love to hear about it.

they'd all feel a lot better after the tantrum is over.

gets shellacked routinely down here on talk radio by the conservative, TX-GOP-platform-thumpin' hosts, especially the weekends. RINO this, RINO that, blah blah blah...

while in the majority. Not so smart in the minority.

and there are some on RS as well.  I don't know for sure but I would guess the proportion is not too different.  There are some 40,000 registered user names on dKos so you can expect more extremists in absolute numbers.

The cursing is lamentable, and a significant number of dKos participants have repeatedly objected to it, especially since it violates dKos' published rules against "offensive" language, though profanity is not specifically cited in those rules.

We have all seen RS participants who manage to be quite disrepectful while avoiding profanity.  I do not think the lack of profanity excuses the disrespect. Partisanship serves no one, and neither does knee-jerk dismissal of different points of view as "wingnut" or "lefty."

What is this "over" you speak of?  I mean, that would imply that members of the Angry Left ever stop having tantrums, which is something I've yet to see happen.  

'Course, I've only been hanging around the blogosphere for three or four years.

my three year old always feels better after a good tantrum... and a nap.

This is a partisan website. From the RedState mission--

Welcome to RedState.org, a Republican community weblog[...]

RedState.org is focused on politics, and seeks the construction of a Republican majority in the United States. We hope to unite serious, innovative, and accomplished voices from government, politics, activism, civil society, and journalism to participate in this work.

oops, I guess I was disrespectful without profanity

look, anything on the Internet is going to suffer from tone. On MLK day right here at Red State there was a poisonous diary attacking the Reverend for being a Communist tool, and you and I both have shared discomfort at the recent anti-muslim sentiment expressed in another thread (if I get a vote, I think you should have Ban power, FWIW)

I am talking about shaping the political party strategy, focusing resources where they can do strategic maximum good, forcing the opponent to play selective defense, decentralizing decision making, reaping a crop of good ideas from an ideas pool, etc. This has nothing to do with whether there are jerks posting at DKos or any other site. The thrust here is more about Chris, Jerome, and Markos (to a lesser extent) and the way they are talking about electoral strategy - oit's fresh, its innovative, and it also (not coincidentally) is tailored so that every voter in every district is given a real and clear choice rather than conceding the field of ideas. Only through challenge does innovation in our discourse happen, and the strategy that Jerome and Chris (and Trippi! and Dean!) have been articulating is a marvel, irrespective of its partisan affiliation, of true democratic grassroots activism. THAT is what I suggest that Red State might do well to imitate, nothing else.

As you know, I am not a Democrat. It is my intent and wish that both major parties follow this path so that there is true reclamation of the political process from the DC insiders such as Rothenberg and his ilk. My critique of teh GOP is that as a centrally managed organization, the state organizations defer in all judgement to the central office, and thus it is much more top-down. This has many advantages, not leaqst of which being message discipline. But the model that Chris and Jerome have put forth is a statement of faith in ordinary Americans, Left Right or Other, to be the custodians of poltical decisions.

What Rothenberg doesnt get, and what I think you would if you'd read myDD and what Chris and Jerome have to say, is that "contest as many districts as you can" is not about wasting money, its about maximizing opportunities for the dialog to take place, and give people in those districts a real choice. I think that if you are able to read mydd.com with an open mind you will find that you are witnessing the birth of a truly new phase of partiipatory democracy, and its a phase that won't be limited to one side of the aisle.

Politics as usual is not going to cut it. This  isnt about blogs sitting up in a skybox allowed to comment from afar on official goings-on. Its about real change in the direction the party goes, led by visionaries but fueled by the ordinary citizen, who probably has never heard of mydd dkos or blogs. Thats the true objective here, and the blogsphere is just a rallying mechanism for the logistics of the new politics.

its breathtaking. I have had a first-row seat. the next two years will be marvels, I tell you now.

One of the most valid criticisms of the Democratic Party I read on this site is our failure to cast wider appeal across non-urban areas of this country.  As I've said before, you've got us bottled up like Chinese Nationalists at the end of the Communist takeover, and Hawaii is much further away than Formosa.  The DCCC and the national party in general are playing into the teeth of your strength, winnowing the Congressional seats down to a handful of competitive, usually suburban districts where we stage campaign fundraising armageddons while leaving the rest to rot.  You want us to stay on our current trajectory, I understand, but don't cloak it in the sneering cynicism I just read from normally very level-headed posters, or founders.

I live in a district which provided token opposition.  The 2nd District of Kentucky Democratic Candidate, the poorly named Adam Smith, had hand stenciled campaign signs.  He still received 30% or so of the vote.  Had the solons in DC helped the state party find a real candidate, maybe we would have had a better banner carrier than this goof.  Same thing in the 1st and 5th districts.  If no one cares, the party atrophies to the point nothing can be done anyway.

Without respectable, down-to-earth candidates in these districts, there is no one to articulate the Democratic party position as it applies to the locality, leaving Hillary Clinton and Jesse Jackson to front for us.

The amount of money (and interest) necessary to do this would not seem to be prohibitive against the vast sums spent on the the competitive battles.  I would look at it as an investment that pays off over a longer timeframe than the DC mindset likes to consider, but ultimately terribly necessary to restore the balance.

As for the 80 competitive races, ok, that's pie-in-the-sky, but create more legitimate candidates is not.  Downticket support is crucial for a variety of reasons.

Perhaps if the DSCC had paid just a touch more attention to the Mongiardo-Bunning race early on they'd have a Southern feather in their cap to offset the disasters elsewhere.  We're playing like an old-school football team with a power running game that insists on running it up the middle against a stacked defense as opposed to letting lose with some shots downfield.  We aren't making you guys play honest on defense, and we're taking it on the chin.  We can't keep sacrificing vast swaths of territory and be surprised when the results don't go our way.  The national party has written me and many other red state Dems off, and I'm f^&$%&%*&^% tired of it, and some of the ideas these guys have are a vehicle to bring the non-Coast, non midwestern battleground back into focus.

My two cents, of course.

if its safe at 51%, then I think its safe to do at 49% - and equally unsafe at both percentages. Myself, I have a vested interest in both sides competing for the bigger tent distinction. As far as I can tell, with Specter on one side and Lieberman on the other, there is no end in sight to the whining online by the purists. But the moderate mainstream on both sides seems far more reasonable.

I've posted a diary at Dkos recently arguing that Lieberman should be respectedd for taking stands where it matters. I got quite a few asseting voices in response. I dont judge RS or DK nby the extremists, however loud they get.

Change parties.

When I lived in DC, for 12 years ending only a year and a half ago, I changed party regisration before each election so I could vote for the least objectionable Democrat who was going to run uncontested in the general election.

Or move. I moved to a strong Republican county (my precinct was the most pro-Kerry precinct in the county and it gave 55% to Bush)and I'm much happier.

Venting is one thing (and not very productive itself), but calling for and probably funding an expensive challenge was never high on conservative to do lists.  They did it with Specter, but that would be closer to Dems going after Zell Miller if he hadn't stepped down.  Specter even had Specter/Kerry signs up outside Philly.

I like McCain a lot as do many Republicans.  Some don't.  I understand Lieberman has this same problem/blessing.  But the strategy of attacking your own who are loyal (even if they disagree) strikes me as someone with a lack of experience pontificating.

I have to reject your equivalency.  Both sites have some offensive posters.  We have no, continuously offensive posters.  We ban those people.  That is why we are a smaller blog.

As you may notice, we engage those who are on the left and post here.  Most Republicans have been banned on dKos.  I bend over backwards to not get booted.

We do not allow profanity.  We do not regularly call people racists, Hitler, or Nazis.

I'm not saying we're perfect.  We're not.  But getting a "B" in decency is not equivalent to the "D" over at Kos or the "F" that DU and Free Republic have earned.

Debates about Lieberman tend to be long and fiery at DailyKos.  The practical upshot is that, as a minority party, you need to work together as a team to support each other.  Lieberman's conciliatory (or even praising) rhetoric toward Republicans and George W. Bush in particular undermines Democratic attacks and Democratic attempts at securing the Party's own identity.  Lieberman's Senate seat is faily reliably blue, especially since he's unlikely to draw a strong Republican challenger, so a primary challenge does little to threaten the seat, but it would at least make Lieberman start supporting the Party better.

I'm excited about the impact of blogging and the rebirth of individual activism.  The increase in voting numbers is also a refreshing trend.

I think challenging every seat is a fine idea.  I think finding 80 incumbent Republicans to topple is "pie-in-the-sky idealism."  I think compring modern Dems to Gingrich Republicans is a mistake.  Republicans won in a lot of conservative districts where conservative Democrats either retired or were defeated.  Show me the 50+ liberal districts with Republicans.

I'm not saying the DCCC is always right, but I am saying that Kos and Jerome are certainly not always right.  And the echo chambers they have created continue some of their delusions about the political makeup of the country.

I just think it's a poor use of resources.  But we're both guilty of that from time to time (for example, Bush in CA in 2000).

is much easier and more satisfying than stuffing envelopes of manning a phone bank. Haranguing with a large audience and not responsibility for failure even more so.

That really worked with Specter.

What happens when he trounces the challenger you put up against him without receiving one red cent from the DSCC or DNC... with Lieberman a very real possibility verging on certainty?

And you know these efforts are going to be repudiated by every single Democrat senator because you guys are at, or maybe beyond, the cusp on not being able to sustain a filibuster.

What have you taught him? That he can do whatever he wants and you can't stop him. Again, look to the huge lesson we taught Specter in the primary. He was so scared of us that he ran using Kerry-Specter yard signs.

1988. Dukakis 47% vs Bush 51%
      
      
1992. Clinton 46.0% vs Bush 32.6% (Perot 20%)
      
      
1996. Clinton 51.1% vs Dole 38.3%
      
      
2000. Gore 53.45% vs Bush 41.65%
      
      
2004. Kerry 52.4% vs Bush 46.22%

Maybe not '08, maybe not '12... but we are patient, oh, yes.

there wont be a primary challenge to Lieberman, I am confident in predicting. On any explicitly (ie, enshrined in Mission Statement) partisan site, there will be the ievitable purists demanding litmus tests. Even on the front page. I see the rhetoric re: Specter and Lieberman as identical.

If the Republicans happen to achieve 60 seats in the Senate, maybe the Lefties will realize that yelling at and protesting every Republican idea is not the way to win elections. The key to victory is a contemplative, appealing candidate with better ideas.

(I'm not saying the Republicans will reach 60 seats anytime soon, but that might serve as a wake-up call to the anti-Republicans.)

Of course, 65 or 70 could be the magic number, too. I don't know where the floor is for these angry leftists.

Kerry 6,745,485 (54.31%)

Bush 5,509,826 (44.36%)

Considering Bush won nationally by 2.5%, California looks out of reach for a while.

There are Republican centrists. He's not one.

McCain is part of the McCain Party. That a Venn diagram of that and the Republican Party shows some overlap is not dispositive of his Party membership.

I got the 52/46 from the Green Papers, and the CA Sec of State gave different final numbers, although I'll grant your 54/44 breakdown is the better number; I assumed that the former would have been definitive.  My bad.  The GOP's still gaining on the Democrats in CA, though - which is pretty much my point.

"All three races were unwinnable from day one for the Democrats, so raising cash for those challengers was about as useful as flushing money down the toilet."  

And the Pat Robertson couldn't win the Presidency either... that does not mean supporting him was money down the toilet.  The current crop of democratic consultants will focus only on losing winnable elections until none of them are winnable.

Some expertise!

"DCCC operatives and party leaders tried to recruit good candidates last cycles in every obvious district of opportunity. But even when they thought they had a blue chipper, many of them turned out to be busts"

so sometimes they think they have a blue chipper, and it's a bust.

but this doesn't make anyone wonder about when they think they have a bust?  

the experts can convince their base in either party by one thing only... win.  Otherwise you have experience... at losing.

really, this all applies to all blogs on all topics... it amounts to experts that already have their in-the-know community set up and cozy first wondering what blog commentary has to offer, then forced to insist it has nothing to offer, then crying about it offering things they cannot.

The next stage is where he starts a blog himself.

Final stage... can't handle comments, disappears.

and not because they were Republicans,