Nation-Building

On May 17th, 2003, Joe Trippi posted a blog entry at the unofficial Dean Nation weblog entitled simply, The Perfect Storm . In that post, since reprinted many times elsewhere, he wrote like the prophet he is: never -- until now -- would there ever have been any hope of 1 million Americans contributing $100 each to take back their country and promote a common vision for the future of the nation. Maybe it will be 2 million who contribute $50. But the Internet makes that possible. Or maybe it will be 5 million Americans contributing $20. The tools, energy, leadership and the right candidate, are all in place to create the Perfect Storm of Presidential politics -- where millions of Americans act together and organize their communities, their neighborhoods and their precincts. It is ironic I think that the Perfect Storm may indeed be made possible by the internet -- but in the end the real storm it may create is the largest grassroots/election day get-out-the-vote -- shoe leather/door knock...

A Bizarro World article in The New Republic by Brad Plumer argues inexplicably that the netroots favor Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. The article appears to have been written prior to Edwards' dropping out, even though it was just published last week. As such it is hopelessly out of date, even if it's central premise were true, which Plumer strains mightily to prove with quotes from various netroots chiefs like Stoller, Markos, Hamsher etc. It's true that Obama has been heavily critiqued by the left for pursuing an inclusive, post-partisan theme rather than a transformativem hyper-partisan theme, but to conclude that there's some kind of rift from this is really letting the thesis drive the story. Well, it made RedState happy , at least. Let them take whatever solace they can.

It's 2000 all over again, and this time it's blogs who are the mainstream media (though the mainstream media is also the mainstream media). Case in point: Kos takes Hillary to task ! Hillary said she paid a tip but actually the waitress says she didn't even though the manager says she did and the campaign she did but now there's questions about her TRUTHFULNESS and lol OMFG HILLARY"S WEBSITE HASN'T UPDATED WITH THIS!! I am paraphrasing somewhat. Why are the liberal netroots so eager to buy into the bogus frames and smears of the right? As far as I can see it's because it's just too tempting not to pile on. Fundamentally, Hillary's crime is not sharing the dogma about Iraq withdrawal. And because of that, every smear on the right is going to get serious traction on the left. This is dangerous brinksmanship. If Hillary beats Rudy, it will be in spite of teh netroots, not because of it. If she loses, then the netroots become the Green Party circa 200...