Brother Flugennock's earlier post about Unity '09 reminded me of something I saw a week or two ago, and meant to write about:
Bloggers Create PAC to Recruit Liberal CandidatesThe Other Gray Lady provides some characteristic Markos Moulitsas tough-guy talk:WASHINGTON — A group of liberal bloggers say they are teaming up with organized labor and MoveOn.org to form a political action committee that will seek to push the Democratic Party further to the left.... [T]hey are planning to recruit candidates to challenge the more centrist Democrats now in Congress, known as “blue dogs.”
...The new organization is in many ways the liberal equivalent of the Club for Growth, a conservative group that has financed primary challenges against Republicans it deems insufficiently dedicated to tax cuts and small government.
Organizers of the new group, called Accountability Now, bristle at the comparison, saying they will not provide an issues-based litmus test for candidates. They say they will mainly support primary challenges when there is clear evidence that a lawmaker is out of step with his constituents....
[T]hey spoke in terms of enabling Mr. Obama to pursue liberal policies without fear of losing support from more conservative Democrats in Congress.
For instance, said Moulitsas, the coalition will not punish Mark Begich, the new Alaska senator, for backing expanded oil drilling, since it realizes that his is a popular position in the state. And, Moulitsas added, it will not target Democrats for opposing gay marriage, since it recognizes that public support for gay marriage is not yet at critical mass. Instead, it will do polling -- overseen by whiz-kid Nate Silver -- to find issues where Democrats have truly strayed away from their own constituents.That Moulitsas, what an ice-cold technocrat -- the Dr Rotwang of dispassionate electoral science.[Moulitsas says] "Everything is going to be poll-tested -- we're not going to try to do push them to do what's unpopular."
The interesting angle to this story is precisely the indignant rejection, by this Ladies' Home Improvement Society, of the proven winning strategy exemplified by the Club For Growth -- and by extension, the whole armies-of-the-night post-Goldwater movement that certainly did succeed (whatever you may think of the result) in becoming a force to be reckoned with in the Republican Party. These folks were being mocked, back in my early days, as "little old ladies in tennis shoes", but they soon made the mockers laugh out the other side of their mouths.
Moulitsas and Hamsher and (I'm sorry to say) Glen Greenwald are made, it seems, of less stern stuff.
In the first place, they're too loyal to the instutional party. The Little Old Ladies In Tennis Shoes (LOLITS) didn't mind destroying the Republican Party if they couldn't take it over. But Moulitsas and Co. are moving vewy, vewy cawefully.
Relatedly, the Accountability Now folks -- and by the way, how wimpy is that name? -- don't really have an ideological axe to grind the way the LOLITS did. Right-wing propaganda that paints the Hamshers and Moulitsades as ideological zealots in fact gives them far too much credit.
The LOLITS were at any rate True Believers. By contrast, Moulitsas et al. seem so tepid and mild that one wonders why they bother at all.
Comments (19)
correction on the link title: BLAWGgers Create PAC...
LOL. nice post.
Posted by Montag | March 17, 2009 6:15 PM
Posted on March 17, 2009 18:15
Some of my best friends, who used to fight the war, are now fighting for things like accountability, ending torture, restoring habeas corpus, protecting unions, boycotting Israel, etc. I admire them; it seems like the right time to be doing it.
Sending money to Moveon to do it, though, is pretty pathetic.
Posted by seneca | March 17, 2009 6:21 PM
Posted on March 17, 2009 18:21
They're going to push a hardcore centrist regime to the left by electing more "progressive" politicians, but they're going to keep hands-off a guy who wants expanded offshore oil drilling because it's popular with his constituents?! Jeezus H. on a Segway; I'm surprised Kos' head doesn't explode from his simply uttering that concept. Basically, they want what they don't want. What a bunch of tools.
Btw, am I the only one here who thinks that reading/hearing position statements or press releases from outfits like "Accountability Now" (snicker, snurf, giggle) could be made into an ideal weed-smoking game?
As in, every time you hear some beat old Pwogwessive faux-radical catchphrase or buzzword -- like, say, "accountability" -- you have to take a bong hit?
I mean, a real bong hit, too, like a "Mount Everest" bowl, not a wussy-assed "level" bowl.
Hell, I'll bet that if I'd downloaded and read that entire Post piece, I'd be ripped off my ass by now.
Posted by Mike Flugennock | March 17, 2009 9:50 PM
Posted on March 17, 2009 21:50
obviously
the hallowed SMBIVA
prog primary by pass
straight into the general election
vote split caper ...
still don't make the cut
at pwog pond central
you know
the knock out the blue dog
and
elect the real deal approach
the build gideons army approach
i guess
maybe it just has n't
caughton .org -ed itself yet
Posted by op | March 17, 2009 10:21 PM
Posted on March 17, 2009 22:21
I've never been able to suppress my vomit reflex long enough to know this, so I ask, as a follow-up to MJS's wondering why they bother: What does an outfit like MoveOn.org think is its greatest triumph?
The mofos are even named after their sickening initial project, which was to get Killiam Klinton off the perjury charges and turn him loose to enact welfare reform and kill the independent counsel statute.
I assume they say their great victory is their own reputation as players.
What do they imagine Obama will do with the political capital they donate to him? Another round of Christmases for Citi and AIG?
Well, I suppose they'll be useful in helping paint the GM and Chrysler greasings as something quite leftist now. After all, these overlords actually make things!
Posted by Michael Dawson | March 18, 2009 12:53 AM
Posted on March 18, 2009 00:53
"these overlords actually make things"
md i'm sure you'll agree
they buy and sell hunks of orgs ...that make things
they're front line creditarian lizard heads
converts agents and embeds
for and from hi fi laputa
Posted by op | March 18, 2009 8:18 AM
Posted on March 18, 2009 08:18
" the activist organization MoveOn.org and the influential Service Employees International Union last year formed the Accountability Now PAC"
... influential Service Employees International Union
never forget benito stern
Posted by op | March 18, 2009 8:34 AM
Posted on March 18, 2009 08:34
Whoa. . . , SEIU too? How the mighty have fallen!
Posted by seneca | March 18, 2009 9:59 AM
Posted on March 18, 2009 09:59
Michael: what is your website? According to google you are either a football player or a cartoon character.
Posted by seneca | March 18, 2009 10:02 AM
Posted on March 18, 2009 10:02
At todays Firedoglake (a well-meaning pwog site) a picture of Hane Hamsher delivering petitions about "transparency" to Congress. A young congressional staffer, in shirt and tie, is moving earnestly in the background, unaware of the camera.
\
Somehow, this touching tableau reminded me of the flower children of the seventies -- innocents yearning for a better world -- only the flower children never became a political organization, and they had more fun.
Posted by seneca | March 18, 2009 10:14 AM
Posted on March 18, 2009 10:14
Electing
real full blooded
Republicans ought to be prefered to
Blue ball dembos
The prog-pop that
Can't grasp this
is either a fraud
Of the lantos stripe
Or a hack like henny frank
What else
If not that then a party split
Do u think the. Orthrian core
Would hesitate
To run a. Candidate in the gen elect
against a sitting
Post split pwog knowing it would elect a repug??
Posted by op | March 18, 2009 1:30 PM
Posted on March 18, 2009 13:30
Sen, being a cartoon character or a football players is certainly my dream, but not my reality. The blog in question is www.consumertrap.com, which you can also see by clicking my name in my posts here.
Meanwhile, don't get me started on what I think the car capitalists really are, op-san, sensei. I was just trying to pre-phrase the coming NerObama/Accountants/Unitizers argument for giving them big cash to subsidize manufacture of $40,000 EV dinosaurs/avoid the topic of true transportation reform.
Posted by Michael Dawson | March 18, 2009 2:25 PM
Posted on March 18, 2009 14:25
Michael: I got to your site but couldn't make a comment without revealing my reading habits, income and sexual preferences to js-kit. Re your comment on dropped tax deductions, the one that pissed me off the most was limiting medical deductions to anything over 12% of your income. Without insurance, that was one that I really needed.
Posted by seneca | March 18, 2009 2:55 PM
Posted on March 18, 2009 14:55
Thanks, Seneca. I'll ditch JS-Kit.
Posted by Michael Dawson | March 19, 2009 1:37 PM
Posted on March 19, 2009 13:37
I've been thinking lately that Democrats have some sort of complex. It's like they don't think they deserve to win.
They start this project and immediately explain how they aren't going to actually be pulling the Democrats to the left unless they're already in a really leftist district.
Beyond the obvious problems, my question is, wouldn't a proper Democracy provide some way for the constituents themselves to oust a politician who wasn't following their desires? If we need some special group to come in and ensure that elected officials do what the people want, aren't there some rather more pressing problems with this country then whether Obama has support from all the Democrats (In areas that already support him)?
Posted by Christopher | March 19, 2009 8:15 PM
Posted on March 19, 2009 20:15
Christopher writes:
Not exactly, I think. They really believe they deserve to win. But because they think the electorate is so deeply stupid, they've accepted that they never will.This stance has its advantages. When they do win, they get Carters, and Clintons, and Obamas. Who wouldn't prefer the subjunctive mood?
Ah, if only...!
Posted by MJS | March 19, 2009 9:26 PM
Posted on March 19, 2009 21:26
"It's like they don't think they deserve to win."
Judge each man by his deserts, and who shall 'scape whipping?
Sens Schumer or Feinstein, don't need to "win" anything. They're already in the cat-bird seat. They wouldn't do anything different if they did win (or now that they have.) Day to day governing is about paying off your contributors, and keeping yourself elected. Your party's success is only a distant second goal.
Posted by seneca | March 19, 2009 10:30 PM
Posted on March 19, 2009 22:30
I'd take Sen's point a step farther: "Party success" for the Bots is entirely apolitical. The DP's 100 percent a marketing front. So, there's nothing to win or lose, if one expects political beliefs to be the yardstick.
I think this is literally true. It's the only explanation that fits the facts, for one thing.
The DP the smiley-face packaging outfit. The RP is the bad cop.
Posted by Michael Dawson | March 20, 2009 12:49 PM
Posted on March 20, 2009 12:49
I agree with MD. They're hostile to political beliefs. Hence the constant moaning over "purity". All the careers they care about are in the marketing of something people will accept as related to political beliefs. All the metrics are measured at the point of sale, the polls, with advance placement of excuses, e.g. people are too stupid to buy their pitch. The deeper they got into marketing, the further they got from having any beliefs at all. There's a secondary, parasite's parasite industry tacked on to the marketing; the Lakoffian junk psychology for the stress caused by trying to market something that doesn't exist.
Posted by Al Schumann | March 20, 2009 1:03 PM
Posted on March 20, 2009 13:03