10-12-2004 05:45									#1
	MoveOn.org bids to take over Democratic Party Inflate your Upload Space

From today's wires:

quote: MoveOn to Democratic Party: "we own it" - - - - - - - - - - - - By Sam Hananel Dec. 9, 2004 | Washington -- Liberal powerhouse MoveOn has a message for the "professional election losers" who run the Democratic Party: "We bought it, we own it, we're going to take it back." A scathing e-mail from the head of MoveOn's political action committee to the group's supporters on Thursday targets outgoing Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe as a tool of corporate donors who alienated both traditional and progressive Democrats. "For years, the party has been led by elite Washington insiders who are closer to corporate lobbyists than they are to the Democratic base," said the e-mail from MoveOn PAC's Eli Pariser. "But we can't afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers." Under McAuliffe's leadership, the message said, the party coddled the same corporate donors that fund Republicans to bring in money at the expense of vision and integrity. "In the last year, grass-roots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the party doesn't need corporate cash to be competitive," the message continued. "Now it's our party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back." Pariser urged MoveOn supporters to help support a DNC chair with a bold vision to represent Democrats outside Washington. Democrats will vote at their February meeting in Washington on a successor to McAuliffe. DNC spokesman Jano Cabrera declined to engage in a ***-for-tat with MoveOn, but praised McAuliffe's efforts. "Call me crazy, but I think the fact that for the first time in party history we outraised the Republicans, and did so primarily through grass-roots fund raising is something to be proud of," Cabrera said. Among those vying for the party chairmanship is former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, an early darling of MoveOn's cybernetwork of activists when he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination.

An interesting development, and one that probably delights the GOP (who should nevertheless remember how Dems condescendingly dismissed Reagan and his branch of conservatives, at their peril). Glad somebody with clout put the DNC on notice, but I'm not sure MoveOn is what I'm looking for in party leadership. Still, hell, ANY leadership would be preferable to ongoing Democratic Drift.

	10-12-2004 05:47									#2
	Inflate your Upload Space

I've got a friend who is a rabid right-winger (Apart from the whole gay atheist thing she's got going on), and she is going to go insane when she reads this. It's what she's been saying all along.

	10-12-2004 05:48									#3
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Oy... any moderate democrat should avoid this as it'll hurt their party and give the Republicans something to lick their lips with. With Reagan, at least he was a Governor. MoveOn is just a website with anti-Bush flash crap and other rabble-rousing stuff.

	10-12-2004 05:51									#4
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This is something that no Democratic with his/her head on straight, should ever even begin to take seriously.

	10-12-2004 06:00									#5
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Eli!!!

	10-12-2004 06:03									#6
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Well, it's true. MoveOn.org and their ilk do own the Democratic Party. They have been able to do so because of the rise of internet contributions from millions of small donors (seeded by several very large donors), making corporate contributions increasingly meaningless (most corporations bowed out of major funding this election cycle). These grassy astroturf operations are revolutionizing political organization. All of this is happening in the GOP too in different ways. The 2008 presidential elections will be very interesting.

Personally, I find these developments very refreshing.

	10-12-2004 06:04									#7
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This simply represents the current struggle to move the power-base of the DNC from the beltway elite, back to the grassroots level. In otherwords, this = good.

	10-12-2004 06:13									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Gibsie I've got a friend who is a rabid right-winger (Apart from the whole gay atheist thing she's got going on), and she is going to go insane when she reads this. It's what she's been saying all along.

Dude, she's a rabid right-wing lesbian athiest. What do you mean, "going to go insane"?

	10-12-2004 06:17									#9
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In a different development I was listening to Juan what's his name on NPR (He's the half black half latino announcer on NPR) when they ran an article on Howard Dean's speech today. Dean was saying the Democratic Party needs to move hard left and appeal more to leftists and that doing so would magically make Democrats win more elections. Even the announcer said Dean was dead wrong and that moving further left would alienate far more voters then they would gain.

	10-12-2004 06:19									#10
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Actually, what I heard was that Dean advocated going neither left nor right, but simply ignoring the Beltway and appealing more at the grass-roots level.

	10-12-2004 06:26									#11
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quote: Originally posted by Guynemer Actually, what I heard was that Dean advocated going neither left nor right, but simply ignoring the Beltway and appealing more at the grass-roots level.

Yeah, that was my sense of the speech, too: that the Dem's needed not to move, but to build more on where they are.

	10-12-2004 06:32									#12
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This is bad news. God knows we don't want the Republicans to have an unbeatable majority for the forseeable future...

	10-12-2004 06:42									#13
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It's about time this country swung back left.

	10-12-2004 06:45									#14
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How does the country enter into it?

	10-12-2004 06:46									#15
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quote: Originally posted by Guynemer Actually, what I heard was that Dean advocated going neither left nor right, but simply ignoring the Beltway and appealing more at the grass-roots level.

And the whole part about not being Republican lite and becoming more progressive?

	10-12-2004 06:47									#16
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It'll be nice not to have two Republican Parties.

	10-12-2004 06:49									#17
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More like a centrist or slightly left of center party and a right wing party.

	10-12-2004 06:50									#18
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If you have a statue of a bird, with one outstetched right wing, and no left wing, what will happen when you try and stand it up?

	10-12-2004 06:52									#19
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If it's a Republican bird then apparently it sweeps the elections.

	10-12-2004 06:53									#20
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Yeah, well, centrists like Kerry don't excite the party base.

	10-12-2004 07:02									#21
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"If people want to vote for a Republican, they will vote for the real thing."

-Harry Truman

	10-12-2004 07:10									#22
	Tired of ads?

quote: If you have a statue of a bird, with one outstetched right wing, and no left wing, what will happen when you try and stand it up?

Politics is not a statue of a bird.

	10-12-2004 07:14									#23
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Agreed. It's more like the thing birds do to statues.

	10-12-2004 07:16									#24
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara Yeah, well, centrists like Kerry don't excite the party base.

Kerry spent 20 years being a leftist and he only moved center in the last two years. He even swerved back left during the primaries.

BTW Kerry got a record turn out of the left wing base and he got some 95% of the leftist vote. I'd say he excited the base in a completely dominating fashion but that the left wing base was to small to win a national election on.

Thus the need to court the center.

	10-12-2004 07:17									#25
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They have courted the center for two straight elections, and what has it got them?

	10-12-2004 07:24									#26
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quote: Originally posted by monkspider "If people want to vote for a Republican, they will vote for the real thing." -Harry Truman

We're not talking about becoming Republicans. We're talking about dumping gay marriage as a central issue. We're talking about demanding Republicans be punished for dumping our nation's children with the largest debt in history. We're talking maintaining a seporation of church and state without trying to expunge all public expressions of religion. We're talking about health care for all Americans. We're talking about spending on defense when it benifits soldiers but cutting the pork and waste which consumes so much of the defense budget. We're talking about pro-consumer laws and actually enforcing our current anti-trust laws. We're talking about spending more on things that matter to Americans like schools, student aid, roads and law enforcement but cutting wasteful spending like corporate & farm subsidies, Bush's missile defense system which fails even the meager tests its supporters rigged in its favor, we're talking about ending tax deductions which encourage American factories to close and move to China, and a dozen other things.

	10-12-2004 07:26									#27
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They are courting the center. They're just not doing it effectively.

Here's the deal with the center: "center" is not an ideology, like left or right. People in the center tend to want things off both the right and left menu -- for example, they tend to want lower taxes, but also to want fairly extensive government services. The way you "court the center" is to make your offerings more appealing than the other guys' -- not because they are more appealing, but because you're a better salesman. The Dems used to be better at this than the GOP; that all changed years ago, though. But there's no reason the Dems couldn't get their own advantage back.

	10-12-2004 07:29									#28
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quote: Actually, what I heard was that Dean advocated going neither left nor right, but simply ignoring the Beltway and appealing more at the grass-roots level.

Yep. It's frustrating that the DLC types still don't understand what the Dean movement is about. It's not about rehashing the liberal vs. moderate battle in any traditional sense (as I keep pointing out, Dean's generally to the right of Kerry); it's predominantly a reform vs. status quo battle. It's about whether the Democratic Party should be funded by small donations and have a grass-roots organization in every state, or whether it should be funded by big money and be run by career politicians trying to hold onto their beltway fiefs. It's also about whether the Democrats should persuade or triangulate, whether they should have a coherent message or a laundry list.

Incidentally, I thought that Dean's speech was very good.

	10-12-2004 07:29									#29
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I should add that I can understand the need to appeal to middle of the road voters, but I believe that the best way to do that is taking a strong, reform-minded approach.

Lurching to the center is a disasterous approach for two reasons. One, it concedes that we were wrong all along on politically-left issues, the issues which should be our bread and butter, and two, everytime we lurch to the center, the Republicans just lurch further to the right.

	10-12-2004 07:30									#30
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quote: Originally posted by monkspider They have courted the center for two straight elections, and what has it got them?

We've courted the center in four of the last four and a funny thing happened. When we had a candidate with a strong personality who had convincing centrist creditials we won (1992 & 1996). When we had candidates with weak personalities whom didn't have strong centrist credentials we almost won.

The lesson here is have candidates with strong personal charisma and unimpeachable centrist records. That way Republicans can't tar them with the claim so and so is the "most liberal sentor in the entire sentate".