National Democrats AND the Blogosphere
by RonChusidGlenn Greenwald writes about Crashing the Gate and the blogosphere at Crooks and Liars. I have not read Kos and Armstrong’s book yet, but was not favorably impressed by some of the exerts. The title of Greenwald’s post highlights what I fear may be the major problem with the book: National Democrats v. the Blogosphere.
If bloggers expect to be taken seriously by the political establishment, they are not going to do so by setting up their relationship as an adversarial one. If we look at this as one side against the other, neither side is without fault. There is no doubt that the Democrat leadership was poorly prepared to take on the role of an opposition party. This does not mean that criticism from the blogosphere is universally correct.
One mistake is to lump the entire party establishment on one side and all bloggers on the other. Both groups show considerable diversity in their beliefs and in their attitudes towards the other. Most major candidates are making use of blogs to some degree, and I’m sure all would love to receive the financial and possibly organizational support which candidates like Howard Dean received. Despite generally being on the other side of “the gate,” Kos receives some attention from the national party. Harry Reid is speaking at the yearly Kos convention, and many members of the Democratic establishment have blogged there and on other blogs (including here). John and Teresa Kerry have both been extremely supportive of bloggers. (Beyond the Kerrys my personal experience with the Democratic establishment is limited. I did happen to meet Michigan Governor Granholm while we were both sitting at the pool at Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island over Labor Day before the 2004 election. When I mentioned that a picture I was taking of her would likely wind up on a pro-Kerry blog, she was fine with the idea.)
Greenwald misunderstands the fears of some politicians to be too closely associated with the bloggers when he confuses bloggers with average citizens. The blogosphere often tends towards the extremes in each party, while the majority of voters are in the middle. This leads to many of the frictions and misunderstandings.
The blogosphere is of value when it reminds political leaders of important principles, but is counterproductive when it confuses attempts to attract voters from the middle with selling out. The most notable example of this has been seen with the attacks on John Kerry, whose attempts to demonstrate to the voters that Democrats are not weak on national security was twisted as being pro-war. Despite being one of the first Democrats to stand up to Bush on foreign policy, and despite frequently urging Bush not to go to war in Iraq, some bloggers such as Kos regularly distorted his position. Kos’s tactic of misquoting Kerry in order to attack him makes it impossible to take him seriously as an alternative voice to the Democratic establishment, and most likely he will remain on the fringes, outside of “the gate.”
Blogs often serve an important role in discussing what the mainstream media ignores. At other times, some bloggers beg to appear irrelevant by dwelling on items which the general public ignores for good reason. While some bloggers persist in using the IWR vote as a false litmus test, most voters were smart enough to recognize that Bush was the pro-war and Kerry the anti-war candidate.
Bloggers who continue to falsely claim that Kerry supported the war, who think there is a shred of logic behind their mantra that “Kerry conceded before all the votes were counted” and ignore the actual work towards election reform, or who use Skull and Bones to devise theories that Kerry did not want to win, are thinking so beyond the realm of reality that they will never be able to have a meaningful impact, and the Democratic establishment would be wise to stay clear of them. Other bloggers are more likely to play a role, but by demonstrating their value and not by dreaming of crashing any gates.
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Ron hanging out at a pool with Gov Granholm?
Uh oh, how long did it take you to get back into Mrs. Chusid’s good graces after that?
I have not read Markos and Jerome’s book and do not intend to read it. However, I think it is clear by now that their reputation is built on two false pretenses:
- They care about issues: time after time after time, they have supported center to conservative candidates when they thought they liked them or that they could win, and this even if there were candidates that were closer from where they stood (see Amstrong working for Warner or kos “endorsing” Webb).
- They are outsiders: LOL. kos is beginning as much as insider as anybody else and as much “inside the Belway” as you can be leaving in CA.
There are some bloggers that may be still grassroots and outsiders. But the type of subjects these two care about (polls and rumors) are not compatible with that.
This is one of the major reason I have stopped reading them at all except if I am directed toward one of their posts by somebody I like.
Mass,
I will read the book if it has impact beyond their narrow corner of the blogosphere. It sounds like there may even be some good points. I will also speak out to make it clear their views aren’t representative of all bloggers.
The lack of concern for the issues is a major problem. I chose to support John Kerry after evaluating the candidates’ stands on the issues. They ignore the issues and go for the candidate whose rhetoric is most compatible with theirs, then come up with phoney charges of Bush-lite even when they are supporting candidates who are far more moderate than Kerry.
Dave,
Actually it was more a case of hanging out with my wife and friends and briefly speaking with the Governor.
My wife was no more upset at this than she was when she saw me meet Teresa Heinz Kerry–and in that case I even got a hug from THK.
Mass
The way some in the liberal blogosphere jumped on certain issues is always interesting. I see a sense of using the same tactics they decry the repubs for using which does not make sense to me.
Great Post Ron,
Since I have moved from reading politically based books to anything to do with starting a business, this one is off the reading list for the forseable future. Your analysis is, intuitively, on track.
The perspective I have had is that any time enough newbies gets into an organization that they think needs to be changed and how to change it; they run up against the folks who have been running it, who are of variable positions as to how much they will listen or even try to include the newcomers depending on how much they want to see the organization change.
Being human, I doubt we could do it any other way. I avoid kos (”I didn’t even know what a margin of error was when I started”) and other blogs that have a lot of poorly supported posts with mostly meaningless replies, rants and putdowns, leaving very little constructive discussion. As Pamela said, using a lot of GOP tactics.
Ultimately, I hope the Beltway people will at least tune in enough to pick up some perspective on what matters to this group, and to find the blogs who do make constructive suggestions without the blatant attitude that the folks who know the ropes and the institutional history are incapable of making appropriate changes. We won’t get the changes we want any more than we will get perfect candidates for every race. We will do a lot better working together and creatively handling the conflicts than yelling and interupting without listening.
Ron,
Glad you got a picture of Granholm while she was a governor.
Do you think she can hold off DeVoss?
The Repubs did a smart thing by finially approving the minimum wage increase after fighting it all these years.
In Grand Rapids, DeVoss is king because of his family.
Granholm may pull it off but she needs something good to happen on the job front. Supposedly, there is a huge downtown secret GR development under way that is supposed to net 10000 new jobs. Will the developers – who are probably Repugs – sit on it until after the election to give DeVoss a gift? It sure looks that way!
DeVoss will carry the Grand Rapids area, but Granholm will carry the state.
Thanks Ron,
How are Dem doings in the Muskegan area?
In Michigan Dist 3, Dems aren’t even running anyone against Ehlers.