Edwards, Obama and Richardson...Where is Hillary??

I think Hillary will respond to DFA in good time. Remember it is early in the campaign and there is no hurry. She may have wanted to wait until the other candidates made their statements, so that she knows exactly what they all said and can make her own case in the most informed manner. This is a logical thing for her to do because she is the frontrunner, and it is fair to assume that if she put her response up first, that other candidates would use their responses to attack her either openly or in an implied manner. Btw, Kucinich just sent his in, which you did not mention.

This does bring up the question though of whether or how the netroots is evolving into yet another powerful special interest group. Just as the NRA wants republican and other like minded candidates to say "how loud?" when they are asked to bark, some netroots groups are starting to do the same thing. When I saw the blistering, relentless pressure put on Hillary for months by Markos and others for her to apologize for her Iraq vote, I got the sense that this wasn't just about an apology over the war. It was about demands for respect, about wanting an act of ass kissing to show appreciation for the new power order. If the mods on Daily Kos or Progressive Majority say "jump!", is the proper response for a progressive candidate to make up their own minds and do what they think is right or is the proper response to say "how high sir?"

It was I think in a way a test of power. It was Markos and others saying, "if we got Edwards to apologize, and get Hillary to apologize, we'll really be strutting our stuff. We'll REALLY get respect!"

I think Hillary and her people probably concluded that she couldn't apologize for that vote, without being roasted the following year in the general for pandering to special interests. You can be a progressive without going to all the meetings and towing all the lines.

Back in the 80's, we all learned the dangers of special interest groups getting control of candidates and their agendas, to the detriment of anyone who wasn't in those groups. On the left it was Labor and women's groups for instance, on the right it was the NRA and the Moral Majority. Is the netroots, as it becomes more organized and demands more mainstream respect, evolving into its own niche special interest? This is the feeling I get particularly when I read stuff like the long list Liza posted itemizing things using words like 'we' and 'you' and here's what 'we' want .etc If so, it is counterproductive. Voters, particularly general election voters, want INDEPENDENT minded candidates, those who have not constantly gone out of their way to kiss one group of voters' asses and not others. They want candidates who will think for themselves and not take positions, or apologize for past positions, simply because Markos or ten thousand other bloggers tell them to do so.

I have been in DFA since the beginning, but I don't regard a candidate bowing before that group, or any other group I'm in or support, to be some kind of pre-requisite for my support. I am not looking to have my ass kissed, and I am not requiring some public show of respect. I will not base my support of Hillary or any other candidate on whether he/she posts something on the DFA site, or goes on Daily Kos and grovels. What are you are asking for, in insisting Hillary or any other candidate go to this or that site, is symbolism. What we need to ask for in all candidates is substance and independence.

Why do you demand respect? This isn't supposed to be about ego gratification. This isn't about you. Or your compatriots. It is about making this a better country. If you are in politics to get respect and appreciation, you are in it for the wrong reasons. All of these candidates recognize the changing political terrain, and all have put great time and effort into their web efforts. The fact that one candidate doesn't bend over and kiss the asses of one particular group shouldn't matter. Like I said, I think Hillary will respond to DFA in good time, and it is unfair to assume at this point that she will not. But it is also unfair to make that a prerequisite for support. Also DFA does not= the netroots.

Believe it or not there were people volunteering for Dean, I met some of them in Iowa, who did not use computers. They were just plain liberals who were involved, and always had been involved. Some netroots types, not you necessarily but certainly others, have gotten so full of themselves that they act like there wasn't a vital progressive movement, better yet, a LIBERAL movement before they started being active. That this "movement" is something new. It isn't. There was and there always has been a progressive movement. The attitude some seem to have is that most people were dumb and stupid until the internet brought the few smart ones together. There is an interesting cover story in the current New Republic on the netroots, and the author correctly points out that there is the same kind of eliteness and insider snobbery evolving in this new "movement" as the participants have always accused political insiders of having.

When you talk of wanting "respect" and demanding proper respects be paid, you sound like a typical political insider. Suddenly your interests matter more than the next person's. When I see Liza threatening to ban people who criticize Markos Zuniga, I realize the author of that New Republic article is right, the netroots "movement" is starting to become insular, the insiders protecting each other over and above protecting the common cause. It is becoming a clique. A typical political power clique. When that happens, it becomes everything that we have been fighting against.

You demand respect, you want politics as usual. Period. True "people power" only comes when the average person doesn't have more respect, more power than the next person. When no one person or one group can make politicians serve their interests above the great common interest, no matter how great a 'movement' is involved.

or at least confusing ME!

I can't tell in the remarks from either of you, whether you are focusing more on the preferred degree of "progressive" positions, or the preferred degree of online communication and organizing -- are you are equating the two, using them interchangeably because you see them as so directly correlated?

what I see as two different ideas, and I am wondering if maybe you are saying "progressive" but I am reading it as more "populist?"

is on my mind -- Favorite Daughter and I were watching "Inherit the Wind" this week, the original and then a color remake with George C. Scott in the William Jennings Byran role (also a perennial presidential candidate!)
He is SO populist and somewhat progressive in some ways, but also SO reactionary as an individual . . .

A populist is by definition a "supporter of the rights and power of the people" A true populist should by definition be a supporter of "the rights and power of ALL the people" I read a lot in recent months about the early communist movement, Lenin and Trostsky, and it was in its beginnings a great populist movement. A bold new beginning for a great country brought to its knees by greedy monarchists and class elitists. But what happened when the great "movement" got power? Suddenly Lenin's succesors stopped being populists. You had those in power becoming insular and starting to protect their own self interests and the interests of their "group" above everything. They became the oppressors. They became that which they fought so hard to defeat. Trotsky called them out on it and he got exiled. Stalin got power and became a Tsar, even if he did not use the title, as corrupt and privileged as all the other Tsars.

This is what I fear can happen with the netroots movement, something with great potential brought down because certain groups get more influence than others and certain people within those groups get real power Then others within that clique start to value protecting those people within their groups who have the power, and start to see them as more important than the cause. You can see it happening when you see Liza banning anyone on this site from attacking Markos Zuniga. Markos is highly influential. His site has helped Liza in her own strivings, so she acts to protect him, as a way of protecting herself. When protecting him, protecting the cliques and the groups, becomes more important than free expression of ideas, then the cause is lost. Because when you start serving your own interests, instead of general interests of the people, you stop being populists.

This will lead the netroots, the progressive part of it that coalesces around the main sites, to become insular and cliquish, and the potential for a true "movement" will become diluted. Just as it did with the early communists, bold progressives who lost their way amid their own egos and insecurities.

A true populist, in my opinion, one who supports the rights and power of ALL the people, therefore must not fall prey to the allure of power. Must not demand more influence or respect than others. Just an equal voice. I am a proud member of DFA, and DFNYC, but if I go around saying that my groups are better than all other progressive groups, and my candidates better damn well bow down before us, I am demanding more than equal influence. When this happens, we become as corrupt as those we fight.

I get tired, as I have alluded, of this self-congratulatory air among some netroots types. It is like they think there should be this great ticker tape parade down broadway, with all of us marching down the streets holding our laptops high as the masses congratulate us on our great intellectual triumph over conservative evil. It is like there is this desire to see or make everyone bask in the elite greatness of the netroots movement. Hillary MUST therefore show deference to DFA, or she is not acknowledging the elite greatness of the movement. Thats the inference.

If Hillary thinks for herself, if she supports the rights and power of the people, all the people and not just the ones demanding respect and attention, then she is a populist. But I am not sure the emerging power structure in the progressive netroots movement, markos and co., want true populists. For those who truly think for themselves are not going to always show the proper respect. Joe Lieberman is a populist. Has the good of the people, all the people at heart and thinks independently, and isn't owned by any group, nor does he go out of his way to pander for endorsements by saying what the powerbrokers want him to say. Yet he was villified for his independence. The netroots strongly supported candidates in the last election just as conservative, if not more so, than Lieberman. The only difference is those candidates showed the proper respect and deference. John Edwards may have more support among the netroots than Hillary, if only because he apologized for his war vote and has done other things to show respect and deference. To show that some people, some groups, are more important than others. That is not what a true populist should be doing is it?

Hillary & Bill are DLC people, the ones who worked to bring down Dean 4 years ago, who opposed him for DNC Chair, the ones who mock him almost as relentlessly as do the wingnuts. the DLC, fortunately, are both inept and impotent. they lost the Congress under Terry McAuliffe, and now he's her campaign chair. I'm down with that (being an Obama supporter).

if she answers the DFA, it'll be because she feels she has to, not because she supports the DFA. the Clintons will welcome the work of DFA and MoveOn, but they have little of the regard for the 'roots that Obama does. that's why he's generating the passion that's absent from her campaign -- just as Dean did.

the Clintons, and especially Hillary, were desperately searching for anyone to wage an effective challenge to Dean's DNC challenge. if they've patched things up since, good, but the Inside-the-Beltway gang continues to believe they know the Party better than does Dean. i still little sign that any of them respect him. this includes Hillary. especially since she knows the 'roots, which still supports Dean so much, cannot, for the most part, stomach her (her refusal to acknowledge she was wrong on voting for the war).

mole, how can you say Gingrich is a populist and not Lieberman? That makes no sense whatsoever. If the definition of populist is a "supporter of the rights and power of the people", then clearly both could fall under that category, just with different approaches. Lenin too, as you are confusing his later actions with his initial intents. My point was that good people can become corrupt when they get power, when ego gratification and maintenance of power become more important than allegiance to the common cause. If this "netroots" movement starts to become more of a vehicle for the few who have gotten a few steps up the ladder to become movers and shakers, than it is a vehicle for the masses and ultimate "people power", then it will have become corrupted.

You know that is true.

Hillary Clinton has had a long life of progressive activism, she was an active feminist liberal leader in the 70's and 80's chairing committees, giving indigents legal services, and starting/staffing rape counseling hotlines. It strikes me as the height of arrogance for anyone to say well, if she doesn't respond to the website of some group whose endorsement she isn't going to get anyway, that it automatically means she isn't progressive anymore. We don't need to be that full of ourselves.

This sounded so jarringly unlike any understanding I had of "populist" and "progressive" as political descriptors, that I went looking for something more meaningful than the definition quoted above. Glad I did, because I found
this color graphic:

The diagram below seeks to rectify the most grievous "divide and conquer" misrepresentations of the corporate media, by restoring the ELITIST versus POPULIST dimension of the spectrum.

Notice here how economically elite most politicians liberal OR conservative are (even previous prez candidates like John Kerry and Al Gore) compared to the actual political interests of real working people. And George Soros, netroots funding or not. These are not populists and they are helping only "their own people" (the rich and powerful) not the people generally. Why I hate organized politics as a fraught power game for ultra rich celebrities btw -- the regular people can't afford it much longer.

I see Hillary Clinton in that category, closer to Kerry than to her own husband and his VP. Edwards and Obama remain to be seen clearly by the people, but they are both rich and incredibly privileged personally, so it will be an uphill climb getting downhill for them, if you know what I mean.

See mole once again I try to contribute here and start a meaningful dialogue, and you turn it personal and instead of responding to the substance of my post, you want to bash me first. I have news for you. NOBODY CARES what you think of me as a blogger, or what you think others think about me. The fact that you want to flame like that doesn't speak well of you (have I ever for instance said, "well I think a lot of bloggers think you are a fool" or some such") No, that kind of flaming is counter productive. I won't do it. You will.

Also I was expressing my opinions, and the definitions I accept for certain things. You can disagree with them, without implying there is this overwhelming consensus opinion that you represent. You can get a hundred different responses and opinions to these questions. You are not some arbiter of the truth anymore than I am.

You can view Newt Gingrich as a populist. I can say I think Lenin was before he got corrupted. We may both be right and we may both be wrong. Big deal. Everyone has a different opinion. There is no need to take contradicting opinions as personally as you seem to.

As for Hillary Clinton, she and Bill didn't start making the big money until they left the White House. They were deeply in debt and did not even own their own house, because Bill had been making $40,000 a year as governor of Arkansas and Hillary had been the primary wage earner to make their ends work. They both could have had long, lucrative legal careers in the private sector, but they opted for public service, because they wanted to make society better. Nobody was making Hillary do the pro-bono legal work and the rape hotlines. She was an activist just like us and for a long time.

This is a fact, the Clintons were the only residents of the White House in our lifetimes who were not millionaires. The Bushes were millionaires. Carter was a millionaire. The Clintons were not. The Clintons got turned down by the bank when they tried to get a loan to buy their home here in Westchester. Thats how not rich they were, they had to get a private loan from Terry McAuliffe, he goes into it in his book. They were far less wealthy than say John Edwards, with his hedge fund money, his huge mansion (largest private residence in North Carolina) and $400 haircuts.

There is no reason to deny that or disrespect Hillary's past accomplishments just because you don't like her. She is probably going to be our nominee. It is better to talk positively of her even if you don't intend to vote for her.

Look I gave you my definition of populist, a "supporter of the rights and power of the people" By that definition, you could look at the views of any of these candidates, and their approaches, and come to the conclusion they fit under that category. It is all a matter of opinion. Mole, what you do is act as if everything is subject to strict scientific categorization. That nothing is subject to opinion, that you either see things one way or you are ignorant. This isn't a black and white world, you are going to get people who look at the same things you do and see different colors. When you have standards that are too exacting, as you do, you take yourself too seriously.

I like Edwards for instance. He talks about the haves and have nots. But I think living in a 26,000 square foot mansion with an olympic size swimming pool and basketball court, and working at a hedge fund between campaigns, isn't reflecting this great concern about the rich getting too rich now is it? The amount of money he spends on his haircuts is just another indication of that (the fact that you mention "homoerotic" just shows your mind is in the gutter) Anyway, you talk of Hillary's growing up in a upper middle class family as somehow disqualifying her as a populist, which could be seen as making as little sense or as much sense as disqualifying Edwards because he's a really rich guy now. Its all, as I said, a matter of opinion.

Also you tend to think blog posts should be like academic term papers, footnoted and researched thorougly. Blog posts are conversations, typing that reflect spontaneous moments of thought. Maybe you do hours and hours of research, and proof read and fact check every damn thing you post, but not everyone does. This is why I faulted those who attacked those two female bloggers who got hired/fired/re-hired by the Edwards campaign, because they wanted to subject their posts to journalistic standards. They aren't journalists. Neither are you and neither am I. We don't work for the press, nor are we doing doctoral theses here. We are just commenting, having conversations, just CONVERSATIONS about things that are important to us. It wasn't fair to those two girls to go back to find some things that they typed years ago and belittle them over those posts, while not realizing they were typing in a conversational mode, off the top of their heads without researching or thinking too much about how their words would perceived years from the posting date. They were having fun making intellectually stimulating posts that they did not feel the necessity of researching or thinking them through to any great detail. Those old posts came back to haunt them and it wasn't fair to them at all. What you do to me (and others) in belittling our posts is the same thing those press hawks did to those girls. Taking conversations and insisting on defining them as journalism.

All I'm trying to say is that we can do our political activism, without taking ourselves so seriously that we have to get offended when others don't see the merits of our conversations as clearly as we do. There is no need to get on your high horse and bash on fact checking and political correctness as if you are some great expert. Nobody made you an expert. Nobody made me an expert. We are just two people in an ocean of people who like to talk politics. We are not important. Keep things in perspective.

I think you are way too sensitive. We are all snobbish and cliquish in our own ways, it is part of human nature. I was really saying that, in general, the potential is there, particularly when one gets attention and starts craving more attention, to put personal needs and desires ahead of the movement. Historically it happens more often than not in political movements and crusades, where you have people who are well intentioned and crusading for a gret cause, who get caught up in the cliques and seduced by the power they have achieved. They end up protecting their own interests ahead of their cause.

Like it or not, this can happen, and if you consider what some are saying (like Jonathan Chait in the New Republic, with his story, "The Left's New Machine: How the Netroots Became the Most Important Mass Movement in U.S. Politics") already is happening. Doesn't it seem like the netroots blogosphere is organizing into cliques, and developing its own power structure, with some bloggers gaining more influence perhaps unduly than others. Take someone like Markos Zuniga for instance. Markos has more influence than many other bloggers because his site was up earlier and became this big gathering place and other web sites developed more or less as satellites of his. This is fine and good, but what happens if Markos gets caught up in his own fame and starts putting his own agenda, making sure he gets his personal respect from politicians and that they show proper deference to him and his site- ahead of the cause? If that happens, he has become seduced by the power and the clique he has developed. If others then also start to protect him (as Liza did by banning attacks on him here), they too threaten to become seduced by his power and his clique.

Chait, in his article, makes this point. As the netroots develops and becomes organized, there will be a tendency to become insular, to have groups protecting their own interests above the overrall cause. It is just human nature.

Chait also has the typical professional media disdain for netroots types calling themselves journalists. He thinks there is a danger in the netroots environment of giving too many people too much instant credibility. For instance, he criticized the Edwards' campaign for hiring those two female bloggers, because he seems to think their blogging presence/reputation was wrongly accepted as some substitute for a degree or professional training in journalism. That they were given credibility as "journalists" when they were not such by trade, and that the Edwards camp got what was coming to them for hiring them in the first place. I am not sure I agree with him, but you can see where he is coming from. He thinks the netroots is a clique, and when the clique protects itself and assigns itself credibility that might not be earned in real world terms, it insulates itself, and can threaten to become something that does not reflect the real world.

In short, as Chait implies, the netroots-- like any other great movement-- can get swallowed up in its own self importance. It is a great movement but we have to keep the proper perspective. Otherwise, the netroots will come to be seen by outsiders as some fantasyland, and its ability to affect what goes on in the real world will become less than what it is right now.