http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8840684/site/newsweek/No fewer than three esteemed political reporters from The Washington Post were in the audience taking notes on a steamy Thursday afternoon at a forum called “Reflections of a Blogger,” sponsored by the New Politics Institute, a progressive think tank. There were plenty of other news stories to pursue, notably increased violence in Iraq that claimed 21 Marines in two days and a wave of new polls showing declining confidence in President Bush’s leadership. In one survey, taken by Public Agenda before the latest spasm of violence, 82 percent of Americans said they worry “a lot” or “somewhat” that the Iraq war is taking too many lives.
Two days earlier, an antiwar Democrat had come close to winning a special election in Ohio for a congressional seat assumed to be safe for Republicans. Former Marine reservist Paul Hackett, who returned from Iraq to run for Congress, had gotten a huge boost from bloggers around the country. Leading the charge was Markos Moulitsas, founder of the progressive Daily Kos, which attracts hundreds of thousands of daily visits and is considered one of the most popular political blogs on the Internet. For Democrats desperate to find their way back to a winning coalition, Moulitsas, 33, has emerged as one of the most creative thinkers and activists in the progressive ranks. The Post team, along with reporters from other national publications and scores of political operatives, had come to get a glimpse of the future.
Moulitsas is opposed to the Iraq war but says that isn’t what drew him to Hackett. “It’s not about ideology, pro-war, antiwar, it makes no difference,” he insisted. “In the online world, we need Democrats to stand up, not be afraid of Republicans, not be afraid of the right-wing noise machine … We don’t care about ideology. We care that you stand up for the party and don’t run scared.” He pointed out that bloggers backed Democrat Stephanie Herseth in South Dakota, who, he says, ran a Republican Lite campaign. “We’re pragmatic,” he says. If candidates aren’t 100 percent on the environment or they’re kind of iffy on choice, progressives should overlook these differences for what Moulitsas terms “the greater good,” which is restoring the Democrats to a governing majority.
The national Democratic Party had written off the Ohio seat because the district is the second-most Republican in the state, but Moulitsas and like-minded bloggers saw it as a chance to put everything they’d been saying to the test. They didn’t expect to win, though there was always that hope, but if they could turn a foregone Republican conclusion into a close race where the GOP had to spend money and sweat the outcome, that would be victory enough. The Republicans didn’t build their majorities overnight, and it was time for progressives to take a stand. Hackett had zero name recognition at the outset, but he quickly became known in the blogosphere, which raised $400,000 for his race. Every time the other side tried to “Swiftboat” him--using the tactics employed against John Kerry’s Vietnam record in the 2004 race--the bloggers struck back.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
