Thursday, September 30, 2004
Dean Campaign Discussion
Looking for something to tide you over until the "debate" starts? Matthew Yglesias has some interesting thoughts on the demographic roots of the Dean campaign, while Ezra Klein reviews Joe Trippi's new book and the role of on-line support in politics.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
The O-Blog sucked http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/09/28/internet_politics/index2.html
A strong title, to be sure, but one that immediately leapt to my mind after reading Farhad Manjoo's excellent article in Salon on blogging (watch an ad for a day pass). Farhad mentions how at Dailykos, a Diarist (Zackpunk) wrote an excellent piece, which was Recommended, then Promoted, and ultimately ended up in Kerry's stump speech. That's the true power of Scoop as a system of community building that allows a campaign to skim the best of the ideas from the proverbial Chaos of participatory democracy.
That's a capability that Moveable Type, old technology that the Dean campagn's o-blog never graduated from, sorely lacks. Farhad asks:
Farhad is mistaken - Trippi may have taken thematic cues from the o-blog community, but to my knowledge never used any of our strategic advice. The o-blog was an echo chamber, where dissenting and critical voices were drowned out in a sea of raw enthusiasm. Here on the Dean blog, we were much more strident, and we as a sub-community within the larger Dean movement produced many excellent ideas that were never capitalized on. The best example is the "I am Howard Dean" Superbowl Ad idea, which I still think would have had a decisive impact, and would have been relatively cheap compared to the monetary outflow in the later stages of the campaign.
Had the Dean campaign listened to us more, things might have been different indeed - says Peter Beinart in TIME, "If Dean were the nominee, flip-flops wouldn't be the issue; Iraq would. The former Vermont Governor opposed the war from the start, and his rationale was as simple as Kerry's was convoluted: Saddam was not a threat."
We tried at Dean Nation to promote ideas from the comments (some good, some fanciful - see the Blimp), but we never had the resources to run Scoop. The Dean campaign DID have those resources, and had both Markos and Jerome on the payroll - but when they proposed Scoop, the campaign rejected the idea, prefering to stick with Moveable Type. The reason is clear: Scoop is too much "people power" and not "top down" enough. For all Joe's visionary rhetoric about bottoms-up democracy, Scoop was just too scary for what was essentially a classic old-fashioned campaign, managerially speaking.
I'm previewing my upcoming review of Trippi's book a bit here, but my general point is that the Dean campaign did not suffer from letting the inmates run the asylum. It suffered from not believeing in itself - and the inmates - enough to let them take over. When the campaign became too conservative in its approach, too wedded to the intoxicating fandom at the o-blog instead of the constructive criticism here at Dean Nation, it lost the reins of the powerful force that drove it.
As Daily Kos proves, and Salon recognizes, there's more to this Net Roots thing than just fund raising. Sadly, the Dean campaign never realized it. At least Kerry gets it now, somewhat...
BTW, here's llamasonic's original Dean Blimp page.
That's a capability that Moveable Type, old technology that the Dean campagn's o-blog never graduated from, sorely lacks. Farhad asks:
In the Dean campaign, Trippi and other advisors professed to rely on the readers of the official Howard Dean blog for at least some strategic advice; we'll never know if this advice ultimately helped Dean, propelling him to a position that he never would have attained without help from the bloggers, or whether, in the end, the cultish Deaniac movement drove people away from Dean and did in his candidacy.
Farhad is mistaken - Trippi may have taken thematic cues from the o-blog community, but to my knowledge never used any of our strategic advice. The o-blog was an echo chamber, where dissenting and critical voices were drowned out in a sea of raw enthusiasm. Here on the Dean blog, we were much more strident, and we as a sub-community within the larger Dean movement produced many excellent ideas that were never capitalized on. The best example is the "I am Howard Dean" Superbowl Ad idea, which I still think would have had a decisive impact, and would have been relatively cheap compared to the monetary outflow in the later stages of the campaign.
Had the Dean campaign listened to us more, things might have been different indeed - says Peter Beinart in TIME, "If Dean were the nominee, flip-flops wouldn't be the issue; Iraq would. The former Vermont Governor opposed the war from the start, and his rationale was as simple as Kerry's was convoluted: Saddam was not a threat."
We tried at Dean Nation to promote ideas from the comments (some good, some fanciful - see the Blimp), but we never had the resources to run Scoop. The Dean campaign DID have those resources, and had both Markos and Jerome on the payroll - but when they proposed Scoop, the campaign rejected the idea, prefering to stick with Moveable Type. The reason is clear: Scoop is too much "people power" and not "top down" enough. For all Joe's visionary rhetoric about bottoms-up democracy, Scoop was just too scary for what was essentially a classic old-fashioned campaign, managerially speaking.
I'm previewing my upcoming review of Trippi's book a bit here, but my general point is that the Dean campaign did not suffer from letting the inmates run the asylum. It suffered from not believeing in itself - and the inmates - enough to let them take over. When the campaign became too conservative in its approach, too wedded to the intoxicating fandom at the o-blog instead of the constructive criticism here at Dean Nation, it lost the reins of the powerful force that drove it.
As Daily Kos proves, and Salon recognizes, there's more to this Net Roots thing than just fund raising. Sadly, the Dean campaign never realized it. At least Kerry gets it now, somewhat...
BTW, here's llamasonic's original Dean Blimp page.
Monday, September 27, 2004
Florida Voting http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3693354.stm
Jimmy Carter, known throughout the world for his interest in fair elections, is warning of possible irregularities in Florida. Many of those who regard this as a bizarre conspiracy theory are Republicans who strongly believe Kennedy won the 1960 election due to corruption in Chicago. I suspect that in 2000 and 2004, Florida has become the latest Chicago.
Obama and nuclear pre-emption http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0409250111sep25,1,7098310.story?coll=chi-news-hed
I think the ISraeilis were wise to have bombed Iraq's Osirak reactor a few decades ago - and that kind of pre-emptive strike in general is something that, unlike land invasions of non-nuclear non-threatening countries, something that needs to be consdered "on the table". The idea that fanatical islamic terrorists could get their hand on a nuclear device is beyond terrifying - it;s a much more direct threat to the global order - not just America - than 9-11 ever could have been.
This kind of talk from Obama is pretty much the only realistic attitude left - but it has the benefit of helping to reclaim the tough Democrat mantle from JFK's ghost as well.
(via Glenn, who I wish had trackbalk enabled)
This kind of talk from Obama is pretty much the only realistic attitude left - but it has the benefit of helping to reclaim the tough Democrat mantle from JFK's ghost as well.
U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama suggested Friday that the United States one day might have to launch surgical missile strikes into Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting control of nuclear bombs. . . .
Obama said that violent Islamic extremists are a vastly different brand of foe than was the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and they must be treated differently.
"With the Soviet Union, you did get the sense that they were operating on a model that we could comprehend in terms of, they don't want to be blown up, we don't want to be blown up, so you do game theory and calculate ways to contain," Obama said. "I think there are certain elements within the Islamic world right now that don't make those same calculations.
(via Glenn, who I wish had trackbalk enabled)
Thursday, September 23, 2004
discussion thread - Debate questions for Kerry http://dailykos.com/story/2004/9/23/10206/1085
It's great that we can come up with gotcha questions for Bush, but we also need to look forward to a Kerry Administration and what direction policy will turn under his leadership. My Deaniac bias aside, I think that Kerry needs to be sent through the same wringer - in advance. So let's play the same game - what questions would you ask of Kerry at the town hall debate?
Here's what I want to ask Kerry:
post yours - and recommend this diary of you think its important to ask Kerry substantive questions too. Maybe the campaign is listening - or at least, someone from the St Louis metropolitan area who might be in that audience.
(btw, link goes to my DailyKos diary on the same topic, please do recommend it if you think it should be seen more widely).
Here's what I want to ask Kerry:
A common critique of you by Republicans is that you lack a guiding principle in your foreign policy. You recently disavowed promotion of democracy abroad, and mentioned giving nuclear materials to Iran. What are your principles and how will they inform your foreign policy decisions?
post yours - and recommend this diary of you think its important to ask Kerry substantive questions too. Maybe the campaign is listening - or at least, someone from the St Louis metropolitan area who might be in that audience.
(btw, link goes to my DailyKos diary on the same topic, please do recommend it if you think it should be seen more widely).
Friday, September 17, 2004
Tom Coburn: Howard Dean of the right? http://azizhp.redstate.org/story/2004/9/17/83852/9869
I think I detect a similar pattern here - see my RedState diary for details.
I should clarify that I don't really care about Coburn being elected or not to the Senate - unlike most Daily Kos readers, I'm not on the Democrats Always Rule train. I don't think I know enough about Coburn to assess whether he really is a right-wing wacko r whether he's just coming off that way. We complained about the media filter alot around here when it made our guy look like a leftist moonbat - one has to at least acknowledge the possibility it works in reverse too.
My larger point is that Coburn seems to have the same ability to torpedo himself that Dean displayed. Remember Dean's refusal to open his Vermont records? Remember Dean's Confederate Flag in Pickup Trucks comment? We defended him as best we could but he did damage to himself. Coburn strikes me as remarkably similar in his tendencies.
I should clarify that I don't really care about Coburn being elected or not to the Senate - unlike most Daily Kos readers, I'm not on the Democrats Always Rule train. I don't think I know enough about Coburn to assess whether he really is a right-wing wacko r whether he's just coming off that way. We complained about the media filter alot around here when it made our guy look like a leftist moonbat - one has to at least acknowledge the possibility it works in reverse too.
My larger point is that Coburn seems to have the same ability to torpedo himself that Dean displayed. Remember Dean's refusal to open his Vermont records? Remember Dean's Confederate Flag in Pickup Trucks comment? We defended him as best we could but he did damage to himself. Coburn strikes me as remarkably similar in his tendencies.
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
One Nation, Indivisible
In an earlier open thread, Generational Storm wrote:
Pravin also commented,
what Pravin describes is exactly what Dean preached - facts, not ideology, should determine policy. There's a reason I put Matthew Miller's 2% Solution book on the reading list - it's exactly that kind of attitude towards compromise on idealogy for the sake of *successful* and *effective* policy that Dean exemplified, in his record as governor and in his rhetoric. Its exactly what attracted me to him so much that I founded this little blog :)
I agree with GS that conservative is a bad word to many Dean supporters, but remember that many Dean supporters were drawn to him solely because he was th eonly one speaking out against the handling of the war. Their attitude shouldnt concern us as much as the general goal of forging a new identity independent of these labels.
I've definitely decided I am going to launch a Scoop site after the election. Not prior, because its too acrimonius an atmosphere. I was hoping to register indivisible.us but it was taken :( I want there to be a place where Republican, Democrat, conservative, and liberal are all outlawed words and we create a new lexicon for talking about the issues.
I thik we need to do this ourselves. We cant just lament the fate of our current system, we have to heed Dean's lesson, that we have the power. And we have to heed Trippi's lesson, that the power can best be excercised through the amplifier of the Net.
I'm just wondering if any of you are as frustated as I am by the disdain that some people in the DFA movement have for "conservatives".
Pravin also commented,
I would like to see the Dean movement not wedded to a rigid idealogy. There should of course be some common principles - like accountability, transparency in goverment, compassion for your fellow human beings, concern for the environment, security of the country. How you go about accomplishing them should not be wedded to a certain ideology.
what Pravin describes is exactly what Dean preached - facts, not ideology, should determine policy. There's a reason I put Matthew Miller's 2% Solution book on the reading list - it's exactly that kind of attitude towards compromise on idealogy for the sake of *successful* and *effective* policy that Dean exemplified, in his record as governor and in his rhetoric. Its exactly what attracted me to him so much that I founded this little blog :)
I agree with GS that conservative is a bad word to many Dean supporters, but remember that many Dean supporters were drawn to him solely because he was th eonly one speaking out against the handling of the war. Their attitude shouldnt concern us as much as the general goal of forging a new identity independent of these labels.
I've definitely decided I am going to launch a Scoop site after the election. Not prior, because its too acrimonius an atmosphere. I was hoping to register indivisible.us but it was taken :( I want there to be a place where Republican, Democrat, conservative, and liberal are all outlawed words and we create a new lexicon for talking about the issues.
I thik we need to do this ourselves. We cant just lament the fate of our current system, we have to heed Dean's lesson, that we have the power. And we have to heed Trippi's lesson, that the power can best be excercised through the amplifier of the Net.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Texas Tuesday: Richard Morrison https://www.onlinecontribution.com/rmorrison/donate.php
Take on Tom Delay! Texas Tuesdays is featuring Richard Morrison, running against Delay in TX-22. Don't miss the interview!
As you may recall, Morrison actually met with a group of Texan bloggers during the state Democratic convention in Houston this year (photo). This race is symbolic of the struggle against all that is wrong with modern Republicanism. Please consider donating - it is literally the one congressional race that has the potential to transform the nation overnight. Let's show Tom Delay that Dean Nation still has the power!
Campaign website - http://www.richardmorrisonfordistrict22.com/
Donations - https://www.onlinecontribution.com/rmorrison/donate.php
As you may recall, Morrison actually met with a group of Texan bloggers during the state Democratic convention in Houston this year (photo). This race is symbolic of the struggle against all that is wrong with modern Republicanism. Please consider donating - it is literally the one congressional race that has the potential to transform the nation overnight. Let's show Tom Delay that Dean Nation still has the power!
Campaign website - http://www.richardmorrisonfordistrict22.com/
Donations - https://www.onlinecontribution.com/rmorrison/donate.php
Friday, September 10, 2004
Senator Dean? President Obama?
GS in the previous thread mentioned the idea of Senator Dean. What do you think? its an intriguing possibility. Dean is popular enough in VT to win office again, and as senator he'd still be able to cultivate DFA v2. Plus he would add a political power base to his organizational one.
Maybe we need Dean in the senate, making sure that his ideas remain part of the public debate: emphasis on fact-based policy, fiscal discipline, etc.
I really like the idea.
As for Obama, I think he wont be ready to run until 2012 at the earliest anyway, so lets not get ahead of ourselves :) and i want to see what Obama's Senate record will be before I endorse him for president the way i have endorsed him for Senate. By 2012, he will have a record we can evaluate with more detail.
Maybe we need Dean in the senate, making sure that his ideas remain part of the public debate: emphasis on fact-based policy, fiscal discipline, etc.
I really like the idea.
As for Obama, I think he wont be ready to run until 2012 at the earliest anyway, so lets not get ahead of ourselves :) and i want to see what Obama's Senate record will be before I endorse him for president the way i have endorsed him for Senate. By 2012, he will have a record we can evaluate with more detail.
Thursday, September 09, 2004
What Would Kerry Do? http://www.redstate.org/story/2004/9/8/221151/2620
Red State looks at the "evidence" and draws the conclusion that Kerry won't prosecute the war on terror in his first term, whereas Bush will begin to in his second term. Tacitus is intellectually honest to admit that Bush hasn't been prosecuting said war very effectively until this point (of course, the definition of "prosecute the WOT" is itself open to legitimate debate).
The opinion ultimately boils down to a question of faith, in your party's strength and righteousness, or more accurately in the case of Red State, the Other party's craven weakness.
I don't believe it is intellectually rigorous to support Bush in 2004 on the basis of actions he will (may) do but has not yet done. I see this election as a referendum on the incumbent's performance. The right to vote, if not excercised punitively against leadership who fail to meet expectation, is ultimately wasted.
The reason that I think Bush won't do a good job in a second term is NOT because I'm some frothing lefty who holds Republicans in contempt. Ratherm it's because I evaluate Bush on his record so far and find him wanting - an assessment with which Tacitus also agrees, in sum if not on specifics.
Further, my evaluation of Kerry wrt the WOT is positive not because I think Democrats are saints, but because I think that a Kerry Administration is more likely to see American power from a multi-pole perspective. I am heavily influenced by Gary Hart's vision laid out in his book, The Fourth Power, and also his comments in this recent interview. I believe Liberty is hard and that our foreign policy under Bush and the neoconservative school assume it to be easy.
But I may of course be wrong and Kerry may pursue a philosophy towards foreign policy and the war on terror completely opposed to the Hart school of conservative-neo-Wilsonianism. In that case, I will be pulling the lever for Kerry's opponent in 2008. It's as simple as that.
A referendum on the incumbent, if consistently applied, will make all incumbents that much more inclined to listen to the power of the people. A rubber stamp of approval for failure is almost an innoculation against success.
UPDATE: Tacitus takes some offense at my characterization, with justification. I've edited my first sentence accordingly. In addition, Tacitus drew a distinction between the war on terror and the war in Iraq - I would have agreed with that distinction prior to our invasion, but today they are for better or for worse one and the same. Also, he backtracks from his prior multiple, angry, critical assertions of Bush's failure in prosecution of the war, saying now only that Bush has been lackluster. In this post, he concludes,
Hardly a ringing endorsement of success, though technically not an outright accusation of failure in specific terms. And his evidence for the supposed craven self-abnegation of John Kerry remains thin gruel. Which is why I initially used the word "partisan" in my first sentence to describe his conclusion - because the evidence of Tacitus' own words still suggest an a-priori conclusion rather than one arrived at by objective analysis.
The opinion ultimately boils down to a question of faith, in your party's strength and righteousness, or more accurately in the case of Red State, the Other party's craven weakness.
I don't believe it is intellectually rigorous to support Bush in 2004 on the basis of actions he will (may) do but has not yet done. I see this election as a referendum on the incumbent's performance. The right to vote, if not excercised punitively against leadership who fail to meet expectation, is ultimately wasted.
The reason that I think Bush won't do a good job in a second term is NOT because I'm some frothing lefty who holds Republicans in contempt. Ratherm it's because I evaluate Bush on his record so far and find him wanting - an assessment with which Tacitus also agrees, in sum if not on specifics.
Further, my evaluation of Kerry wrt the WOT is positive not because I think Democrats are saints, but because I think that a Kerry Administration is more likely to see American power from a multi-pole perspective. I am heavily influenced by Gary Hart's vision laid out in his book, The Fourth Power, and also his comments in this recent interview. I believe Liberty is hard and that our foreign policy under Bush and the neoconservative school assume it to be easy.
But I may of course be wrong and Kerry may pursue a philosophy towards foreign policy and the war on terror completely opposed to the Hart school of conservative-neo-Wilsonianism. In that case, I will be pulling the lever for Kerry's opponent in 2008. It's as simple as that.
A referendum on the incumbent, if consistently applied, will make all incumbents that much more inclined to listen to the power of the people. A rubber stamp of approval for failure is almost an innoculation against success.
UPDATE: Tacitus takes some offense at my characterization, with justification. I've edited my first sentence accordingly. In addition, Tacitus drew a distinction between the war on terror and the war in Iraq - I would have agreed with that distinction prior to our invasion, but today they are for better or for worse one and the same. Also, he backtracks from his prior multiple, angry, critical assertions of Bush's failure in prosecution of the war, saying now only that Bush has been lackluster. In this post, he concludes,
"If the choice is between creeping defeat and outright surrender coupled with craven self-abnegation, well, give me the former. Therein, at least, lies a fighting chance. Therein lies the possibility, however faint, of a change of course. What remains is for us to make that change happen. This is gut-check time for Republicans, and particularly for Republicans on the Hill. Are we in it for the Administration? Or are we in it for America".
Hardly a ringing endorsement of success, though technically not an outright accusation of failure in specific terms. And his evidence for the supposed craven self-abnegation of John Kerry remains thin gruel. Which is why I initially used the word "partisan" in my first sentence to describe his conclusion - because the evidence of Tacitus' own words still suggest an a-priori conclusion rather than one arrived at by objective analysis.
Obama Profile http://www.qctimes.com/internal.php?story_id=1034533&t=Iowa+%2F+Illinois&c=24,1034533
The Quad City Times has a profile of Barack Obama, which includes lots of good stuff about the state of our political debate and various issues in the Illinois Senate race.
Monday, September 06, 2004
Discussion thread: should Dean run again?
I really hope that this discussion gets input from as many people as possible, een gthough I know that many members of our community no longer actively participate online the way they used to.
But in a recent comment, someone mentioned rumors that Dean stated he's run again in 2012. Whats your opinion?
Personally, I think that Dean's work on DFA v2.0 is important. It wont pay dividends until probably 2012 anyway - but I have a feeling that Dean, amazing candidate that he is, would be as divisive a figure were he to run as Hillary Clinton. Even if that divisiveness is manufactured or unfair, I still think it's important to look for someone who both sides of the current partisan divide can look at and say, "well, I can disagree with him and still spport him."
Of course the right wing machine will try to paint ANYONE they oppose as a threat to America's existence, but as a firm believer in the rationality of the general public, I think there's only so much mileage to be gained from those tired old tactics.
I thinka new era of politics is dawning - one fueled by hyper-information access and true grassroots influence (as exemplified by DFA and the forces Trippi talks about in his new book). Dean helped us cross that threshold, but wouldnt his running drag us back?
But in a recent comment, someone mentioned rumors that Dean stated he's run again in 2012. Whats your opinion?
Personally, I think that Dean's work on DFA v2.0 is important. It wont pay dividends until probably 2012 anyway - but I have a feeling that Dean, amazing candidate that he is, would be as divisive a figure were he to run as Hillary Clinton. Even if that divisiveness is manufactured or unfair, I still think it's important to look for someone who both sides of the current partisan divide can look at and say, "well, I can disagree with him and still spport him."
Of course the right wing machine will try to paint ANYONE they oppose as a threat to America's existence, but as a firm believer in the rationality of the general public, I think there's only so much mileage to be gained from those tired old tactics.
I thinka new era of politics is dawning - one fueled by hyper-information access and true grassroots influence (as exemplified by DFA and the forces Trippi talks about in his new book). Dean helped us cross that threshold, but wouldnt his running drag us back?
Friday, September 03, 2004
You Have the Power http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743270134/unmedia-20
New book by Dean out, available for pre-order from Amazon (release September 27th). Subtitle is "How to Take Back Our Country and Restore Democracy in America."
This is his memoir of the campaign and his thoughts on the future of where the movement needs to go. Probably make a nice companion to Trippi's book (which I am currently reading for review)...
wonder if I can get my hands on a review copy of this one too? If anyone has a contact with the publisher, let me know..
Thursday, September 02, 2004
caption contest!
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Kerry's campaign evaluation
Well, which is it? Is Kerry's campaign asleep at the helm, and ceding the momentum to Bush, as claims Joe Trippi? Or is Kerry being remarkably competitive, holding his own against a popular incumbent despite having been the focus of a coordinated, multi-million dollar smear campaign, as claims Chris Bowers at Daily Kos?
A little bit of both, actually.
Kerry's campaign staff has ballooned, and the resulting inertia makes it hard for the organization to spin on a dime. Hence the slow, largely defensive response to the Swift Boat smears. But despite that, Bush's victory is in no way guaranteed given his poll situation, one that no previous incumbent has ever prevailed against.
2004 is 2004, not 1968 or 1980 or any other year we want to invoke to justify our pet analysis of the moment. The reality is that Kerry and Bush are in a close race. Either side can stumble, or rally, for that matter. The bulk of the independent voters won't even decide until the final days of October.
This election will be decided in the endgame.
A little bit of both, actually.
Kerry's campaign staff has ballooned, and the resulting inertia makes it hard for the organization to spin on a dime. Hence the slow, largely defensive response to the Swift Boat smears. But despite that, Bush's victory is in no way guaranteed given his poll situation, one that no previous incumbent has ever prevailed against.
2004 is 2004, not 1968 or 1980 or any other year we want to invoke to justify our pet analysis of the moment. The reality is that Kerry and Bush are in a close race. Either side can stumble, or rally, for that matter. The bulk of the independent voters won't even decide until the final days of October.
This election will be decided in the endgame.
The RNC Continues...
While watching the Republican National Convention, everyone remember that Dean was attacked for strident anti-Bush rhetoric.
For a series of really good posts on the RNC, check out Cliopatra.
For a series of really good posts on the RNC, check out Cliopatra.
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About Nation-Building
Nation-Building was founded by Aziz Poonawalla in August 2002 under the name Dean Nation. Dean Nation was the very first weblog devoted to a presidential candidate, Howard Dean, and became the vanguard of the Dean netroot phenomenon, raising over $40,000 for the Dean campaign, pioneering the use of Meetup, and enjoying the attention of the campaign itself, with Joe Trippi a regular reader (and sometime commentor). Howard Dean himself even left a comment once. Dean Nation was a group weblog effort and counts among its alumni many of the progressive blogsphere's leading talent including Jerome Armstrong, Matthew Yglesias, and Ezra Klein. After the election in 2004, the blog refocused onto the theme of "purple politics", formally changing its name to Nation-Building in June 2006. The primary focus of the blog is on articulating purple-state policy at home and pragmatic liberal interventionism abroad.
