“Choose the collective good over the desire to collect goods.”
Iraq: Some say there are only two bad options: Stay and contain civil war, or let it spiral into regional conflict. BR would leave zero troops behind — not a single one — aside from Embassy personnel — and if they’re not safe, they come home. Not worth one more life to patrol a civil war. Clinton, Dodd, Obama and Biden voted for legislation with loopholes.
Once we’re gone from Iraq, the Iraqis will have no use for Al Qaeda, and they’ll drive them out.
We need to bring back diplomacy. “You don’t make peace with your friends, you make peace with your enemies.”
… I don’t think Richardson is an electric speaker, but he’s thoughtful and clear. I’d like to hear a little more fire in the belly. But I like him.
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OK, on to the bloggers’ panel, bloggity blog blog blog, because you don’t know enough about what we are and what we do … It’s TomPaine.com’s Isaiah Poole, MyDD’s Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers, FireDogLake’s Jane Hamsher, Oliver Willis, and Jim Dean, of sausage-link fame, Howard’s brother. I ran into LiberalOasis auteur Bill Scher on the way to the conference room. If I run out of things to say, I’ll steal Bill’s ideas …
Bowers: Setting clear goals necessary for good blog activism. Can’t just be “make Democrats stand up for something”; must be specific, like challenging Lieberman, or the Plame affair, etc. Persistence: Must establish blog as destination for content on specific topic. (I’m not sure I really liked the “Googlebomb the elections campaign”, which made negative stories about GOP candidates come up first on Google, but fair’s fair …)
Blogosphere can’t make a dent in the national discourse on its own; needs buy-in from other groups and influentials.
Jim Dean: We now have a vehicle for political discourse. It’s the free market system at its finest. It’s the replacement for one-way discourse. It’s almost like the liberation of Eastern Europe. (There’s a powerful metaphor — and I agree.)
Oliver Willis: This is a celebration. The lefty blogs have been so successful, the Right is envious. They’ll catch up to us. Conservative movement not dead yet — I want to kill it. (Oliver channels Grover Norquist.) There’s no barrier to entry.
Right wing feeding chain: Bad ideas pushed from think tanks to talk radio to Fox to MSM. We’ve got to show up for battle.
Jane Hamsher: The right will always have trouble replicating what we do, because they’re top-down.
Talks about Alito, putting up some resistance. Ned Lamont battle — defying DSCC and conventional wisdom, which may have changed tenor of 2006 election: ran against war and won. Persistence of community and its candidates: A number of congressional candidates are running again, with continued support of blogs and readers.
You can’t get away with Whitewater/Lewinsky-era right-wing mau-mauing of the press any more, due to blogs’ influence and fact-checking.
Matt Stoller: The pushback against media climate dates back to 1998: founding of MoveOn against impeachment. We’re arguing for ideas, not slogans or cults of personality.
Ideas live in institutions. What’s the role of media in a democracy? Skeptical of power. Fox News/Nevada fight: implies that propaganda and open, honest media are the same thing. (Stoller just referred to the “creepy Mormon chair of the NV Democratic Party.” That’s just gratuitous.)
Empowered people to support our idea of media — allowed them to ignore the siren song of Fox News.
Blogosphere is response to institutional betrayal — as were the pamphleteers.
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I ducked into a session on “Austerity Financing”, about financing of public programs. Jeff Madrick is talking about the great public investments: universities, public health, etc. Government is central to economic growth. If we neglect its role, we are going to run down our basic assets. We built those assets through a couple of hundred years, but we’ve stopped doing it.
This, of course, has great implications for MA, since we’re looking at a failure to invest in infrastructure, such that we’re now looking at a $1 billion/year backlog. And the Governor is now talking about major new investments in education as well. We’re going to need a change in expectations and priorities to get these things done.
Beth Shulman points out the necessity of those who believe in the role of government to insist on accountability from government. There is bad spending, but spending to invest in greater economic growth is good. A business borrows money to invest in itself, as with individuals. Why then should government be any different?
Health care system needs to be made affordable and efficient.
It’s not just borrowing that goes onto the backs of our children. It’s immoral to balance a budget on the backs of our children. Yes, it cuts both ways.
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We’re about to hear from Barack Obama, then John Edwards. Roger Wilkins introduces Obama.
Standing room only — or sit on the floor. Obama enters to loud applause and Aretha Franklin’s “Think”. He’s interrupted by protesters holding up signs for “$50B for AIDS”. He says “All right — I agree with that” — and they sit down pretty promptly.
Obama talks about a “longing for something new.” What is it? Talks about his background working in Chicago — doing community organizing for $12k a year, setting up job training and youth programs. “It was the best education I ever had.” I have to say, this is really the most remarkable thing about Obama, and while he certainly seems ambitious — what Presidential candidate isn’t? — how many future-pol sharks go into real ground-level organizing?
He’s talking about the corrupting influence of special interests: “Our government is not for sale and we are taking it back.” It’s a somewhat harder sell for Obama than it may have been just a few weeks ago.
“Don’t talk about supporting our troops, and then leave them to fend for themselves after they return to our country.” That’s a big deal.
Pokes fun at his own status as a “hope-monger” — then relates experience in Chicago and in IL legislature, passing first ethics reform in 25 years and getting health insurance for kids. “On paper, it’s impossible that I’m here, as a United States Senator running for President.”
Keeps saying his health care plan will cover every American. That’s not true — close, but no cigar. Pledges to sign universal health care bill by the end of first term.
Boasts of telling auto industry execs that he’s going to raise fuel efficiency standards — pointing up his unwillingness to pander. Didn’t mention his coal-to-liquid about-face.
Talks about the lack of foresight in Iraq. Relates personal story from NH mother of Iraq soldier — “I can’t breathe — when can I breathe again?” Crowd goes very quiet.
“I’m proud I voted against a blank check for this President” for Iraq. But he didn’t come out against the bill early, when principled, forthright leadership might have meant something.
Very autobiography-heavy, very meta-heavy speech. Nothing wrong with that, but I want to hear a truly radical departure from Bushism — from all the candidates. Obama sounds good, but I’m not sure it’s quite the paradigm-shifting, eye-opening tone that I’d like to hear.
To my mind, only Al Gore is doing that right now, and he’s not running. I think in his heart, Gore doesn’t want to run, but will only if he has to. There’s an opening for any of the candidates to mov
e into Gore country — and probably no one would welcome that as much as Gore himself.
—
Here’s Edwards: Starts right into Iraq — no more half-measures. It was wrong, and now we need to lead on getting out. Need to estabish America as force for good in the world again. Says his first deed as President will be to close Guantanamo. “America will neither condone nor engage in torture.”
Edwards making an even stronger case than Obama for the radical change away from Bushism. Obama’s good, but it’s almost as if Bush never happened. He could have given much the same speech in 2000 or 1996, and it would largely be true. There’s a little more urgency and sense of crisis in Edwards, which I really identify with.
Talks about Darfur, and AIDS, and our moral responsibility to the world. Education for the children in the world who currently have nothing. Think about the transformation that would bring about. Clean drinking water.
My comment: It’s a very idealistic, Peace-Corps kind of vision — and indeed, there’s really no reason why we couldn’t do it. There’s unprecedented awareness of these problems — cf. Bono’s work — and a sympathetic American president could do immense good.
Greenhouse gases: Cap and trade — reduce by at least 80% by 2050. Until we do wind and solar, there should not be another coal-fired plant built in America. It’s time for Americans to be patriotic about something other than war. Conserve energy, drive more efficiently. Green-collar jobs.
Talks about the other America: the disgrace of Katrina. “How about a decent living wage?” Talks up the labor movement — the union makes jobs good jobs.
I hope he’s dropped the “Two Americas” line — he hasn’t trotted it out here — because a. It’s too simplistic, even for politics, and I don’t think most people actually believe that, and b. avoiding that sound bite actually keeps his speaking heartfelt and fresh.
He’d pay for new initiatives by getting rid of Bush’s tax cuts.
Edwards: The great movements in American history didn’t begin in the Oval Office; college and university campuses, communities, etc. The same kind of social movement that ended segregation and the Vietnam War is happening right now.
Edwards explains his (and Elizabeth’s) role: “This is what I do. This is my life’s work. I will speak for the poor. I will speak for the uninsured.”
… As I say, Edwards has a little bit more of that urgency I’m looking for, a bit more idealism, a bit more fire in the belly.
So far:
Gravel: Grandpa.
Richardson: Technocrat.
Obama: I’m nice and have done interesting stuff.
Edwards: We’re in deep @#$$ and gotta do something. (Heavy on the RFK-resonance, though I don’t find it at all contrived — it fits with his career.)
—
Just heard a really excellent presentation: “Winning Hearts and Minds: Why Rational Appeals are Irrational if Your Goal is Winning Elections”. The presenter Drew Westen talked about how webs of associations are activated in voters minds — under the level of logic and conscious thought. Those who are know Lakoffian Framing 101 would find his ideas familiar. Voters are much more swayed by their feelings about the candidate him/herself than about particular issues; more by values than by policy-talk. This is contrary to how Democrats tend to run their campaigns: heavy on the policy laundry-lists, trying to touch all the bases … and diluting the candidate’s passions to a thin, impersonal gruel.
Westen himself can hold forth with powerful (hypothetical) barrages of talking points. He sounded like a skilled politician, because he knew what would stick and what wouldn’t. Anyway, I’ve asked him to put his Powerpoint up on the web; it would surely be very useful.
It struck me as interesting, and telling, that Westen recommended tying George Bush to the Republicans as much as possible. As the polls indicate, that means in most people’s minds that “Bush”=”failure”. So, did we do that ourselves, using our powerful psychology of association … or was that just reality poking its head up?
Asked how the current crop of Presidential candidates were faring, Westen sounded lukewarm: They’re all bright people, but they’ve got some things to learn.
Yikes on Richardson. That sounds a little doctrinaire.
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We will necessarily, as a result of the present fiasco, have a diminished ability to project military power in the Persian Gulf. But the Gulf is still the most strategically vital region on the Globe, save actual US territory and perhaps Western (and Central) Europe. I don’t think you can just leave the region altogether, which would increase Iranian influence even more than we have already, and perhaps open the door to the China or Russia.
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One wonders if he includes the Navy in his “not a single one” statement, as we could keep carrier groups on perpetual patrol rotation.
“Yikes on Richardson…sounds a little doctrinaire”. Meaning: a stubborn person of arbitrary or arrogant opinions.
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I genuinely don’t see what’s arrogant or arbitrary about wanting to get our troops out of Iraq. Anyway, there is not a single Democratic candidate for president who wants our troops out of the Persian Gulf. Not even Kucinich.
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I’m afraid you’re conflating “Iraq” with the “Persian Gulf”. Richardson wants to keep a significant number of troops in Kuwait and Bahrain, easily accessible to Iraq should our interests be threatened there. To me it makes more sense than keeping them in a country engaged in a civil war that makes 1980s Lebanon look like The Wiggles Go To Beirut.
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PS: The only reason the Persian Gulf is strategically important is because that is the source of most of Europe’s, China’s, and Japan’s oil (we get ours domestically, and from Venezuela, Canada, and Norway.) Sometimes I wonder why we’re protecting their sources, considering ours are secure.
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That is reassuring.
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Not even a single member of the armed forces, not even “over the horizon” (something that came not from the above post, but from a TNR article that the post caused me to seek and find) sounds like a far more aggressive withdrawal than from geographic Iraq alone.
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As if he were opposed to sticking around in Kuwait, or Dubai, or in the Gulf itself.
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Perhaps this is an artifact of spending time on a “progressive” message board, but I am continually concerned that the Democratic Party is learning the wrong lesson from this fiasco, as it did from an earlier fiasco in Vietnam. The lesson is that the projection of military power is bad/imperialist/evil, and therefore we mustn’t project any. Hearing Democrats make anti-war talk therefore has the effect of causing me to be (perhaps unreasonably) alarmed.
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And since it is June, I am not spending much time researching every candidate’s position on this. I waste enough time on here already. So I thank all of you for educating me continually.
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So, back to cautious interest in Richardson. Thanks.
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Anyway, we protect the supply of others because the thing being supplied is a commodity. If the supply in Europe and CHina dries up, the price shoots up for all applications in the US as well. I am not at all keen on another oil shock. It would be unfortunate if the bungling of this Republican president produces a new oil shock, the political fallout from which lands on the next, presumbaly Democratic president.
The right will always have trouble replicating what we do, because they’re top-down.
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Yep, and astroturfing doesn’t fool anyone anymore; it’s easy enough to spot.
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I think the shift in fundraising trends is a big indicator of the way the wind is blowing in the US now. Just 2 or 3 years ago the Republicans were acting like we’d become a one-party country. And now they can’t even keep up with Democrats for raising money.
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Of course the downside of that — something we’ll have to be diligent about — is the likelihood that this money will influence Democrats to set increasingly anti-progressive policies. The progressives i know are increasingly wary of the Democratic party for this reason, but where else are we going to turn if the Democrats continue to look more Republican by the day? And at what point will progressive grassroots no longer even matter to Democratic leadership?
“I bought a new sportcoat yesterday at the Davis Square Goodwill — $8 — and hope it passes muster in dress-up DC.”
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I have to get off your case. You’re a cool dude.
tell me you will fit in fine with that $8 sports coat. I laughed and was pleased at where you found jacket.
I’ll tell ya, I’m leaning toward Edwards now – not because I really, really, really want to vote on Edwards, but because he seems like the best bet of those few anyway.
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Mike Gravel may sound interesting and it’s nice and all that he wants out of Iraq and fully supports equality, but then you learn things like he favors a Flat Tax system and that scares me the hell away. Come on, I love equality, but obviously equality extends beyond glbt and into the tax system… and a flat tax is anything but equally fair for every citizen in America. Bill Gates and Random McDonalds Employee’s wages are different and thus need to be taxed differently.
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After CoalGate, nasty Clinton memo, Libby-should-be-Pardoned Gate and any other number of weak/unsavory/etc. moments of Obama’s career and campaign, I highly doubt I’ll be paying mind to his campaign.
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Richardson? I’d LOVE to vote for Richardson, but sadly his rhetoric does not match his record on GLBT issues. He’s either for equality, or he isn’t, and not supporting marriage whilst also not only voting for DOMA when he was a congressman, but also saying he supports DOMA now… really rubs me in the wrong way.
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I’m not even going to talk about Hillary, because of her Iraq positions.
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Edwards? I’d like someone with more experienced, but at least he’s solidly against Iraq and – while he technically doesn’t support full marriage equality – he does support the removal of DOMA, which basically amounts to the same thing.
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So, I’d love to be there with you guys on Richardson – he’s certainly got the strongest background in the race – but I’m going to have to stick with Edwards, at least until Al Gore jumps in.
I really thought Edwards was quite terrific today. He addressed a lot of those questions that we all have had about what kind of force America could be in the world — the immense amount of good we could accomplish. And I’ll tell you, I got the strong impression that he really believed what he said.
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Obama was good too, but like you, I’m finding his stump speech to be out of sync with how his campaign is being run, the coal-to-liquid kerfuffle, and so on.
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I have to say, Drew Westen’s words are ringing in my ears — pay attention to who’s able to get his case across, who makes you feel good about them … since there’s so much more difference between any of the Dems and the GOP than between each other.
are going to be reporting and challenging the campaigns?
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or flakking for them?
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And here I thought you were not warm at all to that line of thinking. Have I mispegged you?
Read our endorsement of Deval Patrick, from 2006. I am extremely conscious and supportive of using direct emotional appeal in politics. That’s how campaigns win. That’s how leadership happens.
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Those who are so inclined – i.e. people who read this kind of site – can and should compare substantive policy positions, to act as a kind of gatekeeper of ideas for what happens down the road. We can help create good or bad press for candidates.
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But we should not labor under the illusion that elections are won or lost based on policy minutiae. They’re won on personality, and a very general list of policy priorities, and how strongly they’re projected. And however wonky we want to be, that aspect is a serious one to consider when choosing a candidate to back. Find someone who moves you — chances are he or she will move other people, too.
I’m more than likely going D in ’08 because I think the GOP needs a time out.
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But I’m unlikly to go for Edwards, or perhaps, it seems, Richardson, because of their Iraq positions.
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On paper, I like Clinton. Heck, I wish I could vote for Bill again. But I also fear that she has frightening potential to re-ignite and re-cohere the religious nutjobs. In other words, I fear that she could be the best hope for Republican victory in ’08.
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Dunno about Obama. He sure seems to have potential. Much of what makes him intriguing to me is what makes the self-styled progressives nervous. He talked about religious values! He seems to argue in favor of liberal goals using what some consider to be conservative arguments. Etc. He has some work to convince me that he has national security/foreign policy chops.
of Bush/Cheney/Rove wiping their asses with the Constitution, 10 plus years of Delay/Abramoff/Cunningham looting the treasury, and you “think the GOP needs a time out”?
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Are you sure? Maybe you should just send them to bed with no dessert.
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I’m one of those progressives who make the “self styled” moderates “nervous”, I’ll vote for Obama, or any of the other top Democratic candidates. I can also think of something else that “the GOP needs”, and it isn’t a “time out”.
and as long as Obama doesn’t make you completely happy, he remains plausible. If he runs too far left, you can include me out.
is in Clinton’s favor. Obama and Edwards are one-term senators, which in the end are just not a sound enough political footing to become president. (Could say almost the same about Clinton too perhaps, but she does know what it feels like to be in the White House.) Richardson is her only real competition on the D side.
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And the longer the campaign stretches on, the more time there is for anyone who has any doubts about a woman being president to settle them. By the time the primaries start, anyone who asks “are we ready” will look like a rube.
I’m not trying to stir trouble, but in recent times Democrats don’t demand much public service to get into government. Look at our governor, to begin with. Look at the fact that Niki Tsongas is the probable front-runner in MA-05. And that’s not just this state. Jim Webb never had political time, and Jon Tester spent less time in the state Senate than Edwards has in the federal one.
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Granted, Hillary’s not a one-term senator…she’s a one-term senator, with a whole six additional months at this point. Oooooh. And no, time as first lady isn’t public service, sorry. But please, by all means. make experience a prerequisite…please do.
Would be Edwards/Richardson
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Anyone want an Edwards button or bumpter sticker for free?
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Just let me know!
has a fairly well thought out flat tax proposal that is not regressive. I liked his reasons behind it once I found some details. As I’ve said before, Mike Gravel is doing all of us a favor by bringing up the real issues in the debates. I will not support anyone who hasn’t been solidly opposed to the Bush insanity. I can support Mike Gravel or Al Gore because both have been vocal about the war, global warming, etc. They are both good leaders.
Surely, they must be kidding.
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When I found Gravel was anti-Iraq and pro-marriage equality, I looked him up a bit more. Then I saw “flat tax” and new it was too good to be true. I will never support ANYONE who supports flat tax. Even if they someone developed one that’s “not regressive,” it would become regressive by the time Republicans were through with it… and I just don’t trust Gravel enough to stop it from becoming that way.
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No, we need a MORE PROGRESSIVE tax system, not one that’s less progressive. We need more brackets. People who earn more income should pay higher taxes on the additional income over other brackets, not less. The rich, in America, have never had it so good – at least since the Gilded Age. We don’t need to make their lives richer (pun intended), thank you very much.
Charley,
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Thanks for doing some of the little unbiased, interesting original reporting left in the 2008 race. Surfing around, I see bloggers who are in the tank for Obama saying how awesome he was at TBA, and how limpid Edwards seemed. Then I see Edwards folks saying the opposite.
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This is Kos, MyDD, Oliver Willis — all the usual suspects. Most semi-prominent bloggers are about as objective and reliable as the mainstream media at this point. I’m fine with people being in the tank for someone, but I thought they were better than that. Or at least more interesting. Some folks are adopting some of the worst habits of the traditional media.
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Outside of Edwards and Obama, there’s a script, too. Most bloggers say Hillary was bad but they expect the horrible media to say she was good. Though rarely do we get proof of either statement. The other candidates are largely ignored, but occasionally people will toss off a line that Richarson was bad (without giving any reasoning), that Dodd and/or Biden were surprising, and that Kucinich and Gravel should just be mocked. Oh, and Gore should run. And Clark, too.
Not sure I’m unbiased. I’m biased towards what I want to hear, as opposed to being loyal to one person or another. I understand the personal loyalties and the cults of personality, because the ability to attract people to your side through charisma and persuasion is part of governing.
Care to provide any links to support these allegations? I confess, I no longer read Kos and MyDD daily, but most of those allegations you’ve just uttered have, coming from other people in the past, been pretty much all BS as far as I can tell. Kos, as far as I’m aware of, hasn’t picked a candidate yet. I’m sure he’s anti-Hillary, but it’s pretty hard not to be if you’re in the progressive base. Her Iraq positions just don’t jive. One of the MyDD bloggers supports Edwards, but his election coverage has been reasonable – and that’s just one blogger out of several.
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Seriously, do you even read these blogs? Or are you getting your news from the NY Times these days?
My last sentence should have been:
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“Or are you getting your news on those blogs from the NY Times these days,” I have no problems with you getting your news from the Times – just news on the blogs. The Times pretty much hates all big bloggers and doesn’t really make any bones about going after them with sensational – or should I say sensationally stupid – pieces.
“I confess I no longer read them daily” … but even though I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll attack your post because, well, it’s what I do.
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Thanks, Ryan, but mayb eyou want to start reading some blogs more often. I’ll start you off — DailyKos and MyDD are not one person, Ryan. They are group diaries, with many many people. These people write diaries, and other people read those diaries and leave their own comments. That’s what this is based on, and I’m not going to prove this stuff anymore than I’m going to prove that MyDD is a group diary or that the website exists. Some things are too obvious to require proof. I’ll note that you’re the only person on Kos or BMG that has these objections, which I think speaks well to who spends how much time reading these blogs.
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I’m starting to think some bored MIT researchers wrote a program that would mix pedestrian insults with liberal cliches. They named it Ryan Adams and released it online to see how many people it would fool.
…I don’t very often, for two reasons. One, it seemed to be little more than a nuts and bolts political strategy site for Dems. I’m not interested in that.
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More importantly, in the 2004 Congressional elections, Kos himself endorsed (and was raising money for) a Dem homophobe from South Dakota (thankfully, I forgot her name). I have better things to do that to pay attention to sites like that: “screw the fags, as long as we get Dems elected.”
You mean Stephanie Herseth. I’ll admit to not being familiar with her position on equal rights, but I am familiar to know that she’s the only living Democrat who was electable in South Dakota. She defended her AL seat at the same time Tom Daschle lost his. Not saying I like her on balance, but that was the situation.
…but the idea that Kos should have supported the homophobe b-word is not. She voted in favor of the federal anti-gay-marriage amendment. Kos knew that she would.
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Kos is nothing more than another Democratic apparatchik who would sell gay people down the river. I have no use for Democrats like that.
Is that, in the vast majority of cases, these people don’t end up on the committees where their non-comformity would effect the committee vote. If I had the choice between a dem who voted for the fed amendment or a Republican, I’d pick the dem… becuase that helps us control the committees and we can keep nasty legislation out that way.
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Is it ideal? No.
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But it’s better than the other way around, with a Republican who’s hatefulness is rewarded and they’re granted a committee where that position would have the most impact.
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Furthermore, Kos also supports ousting DINOs in progressive states… where we’ll win either way.
I read Kos during the elections daily. He writes mainly about elections, which is what I’m interested in. I still visit Kos probably every 2-3 days, which means I know the gist of what’s going on there.
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In terms of diaries, no duh, no one can control what people write for dairies.
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However, there’s a huge difference in both influence and traffic between what’s front-paged and what’s diaried or commented. If you were referring to comments to begin with, you should have said that up front. You can’t change the rules to please yourself later on.
Charley sez: “I hope [Edwards] dropped the ‘Two Americas’ line”
Edwards sez: It’s comin’ back!