Centerfield

*yawn.* Brilliant?

I'd have gone with de rigeur.

Running for President? Accept invitations. Talk to the people who invite you. McCain goes to Liberty College, Warner talks to the kossacks. Partisans get their panties all atwist. Aftermath? Everyone sticks to their guns.

You know what this goes to show? It goes to show that McCain and Warner are running for President. Which, BTW, I think we already knew. If you wanna win your primary, you've got to play bass. The rhythm section is the foundation of the tune.

Posted by: bk at June 13, 2006 02:12 PM

5 points to Brian for innovative use of the word "bass".

Posted by: PatHMV at June 13, 2006 02:34 PM

Right. Brilliant. No. Natural. Yes.

Posted by: Cavalier829 at June 13, 2006 03:14 PM

A future Presidential candidate offering a high class event at the top of the frigging Stratosphere to low-dollar, outside of the beltway, political activists who have been shunned by most establishment politicians withing the party is typical? I don't know what the hell campaigns you guys have worked on, but Warner's blatant attempt to massage the netroot activists is anything but typical. We have over and over again said that Kos is fatal to a political candidacy on this site, and here is a centrist, moderate, Democratic nominee contender not just showing up at the event, but enthusiastically advertising it on his web site and borderline bragging about it to the press. If Hillary went to Vegas, how much effort do you think she would have put in to promoting it? Wow!

Posted by: Mathew at June 13, 2006 03:31 PM

Mathew, I agree with you that's Warner's appearance is a notable event for the blogosphere. But I'm not sure I see any real evidence that the Kos crowd accepts him or is in any way likely to support him.

Your point about a shift in focus by Kos, from party purity to electing Democrats, is significant. If in fact he makes that shift, the "netroots" crowd he has assembled may have some possibility of reversing his 0-20 electoral record. On the other hand, when partisans start talking about enforcing "party loyalty", the first question to ask is: "who gets to decide what the loyal party position is"?

I see that all the time at RedState, where if you are not against stem-cell research, or are for allowing a husband to remove a feeding tube from his coma-ridden wife, then you are a RINO and nothing more. You are not a "real" Republican, and thus you get no respect. That's not the only voice at RedState, but it is quite common.

Posted by: PatHMV at June 13, 2006 04:12 PM

A Dem doesn't lose anything nationally by dancing with Kos. The eventual nominee is going to be painted as a ComSymp by the GOP no matter who it is. This is a no-brainer to me. You massage the feelings of a thousand self-indulgents with less influence, collectively, on politics than the Socks the Cat, so that they won't bad mouth you all summer because you didn't show up for their shin-dig. You let your people try to peel off a couple of their people for a mainstream campaign.

Kos has the potential to eventually morph into Freep -- a place where the radical fringe can masturbate together and give birth to brilliant memes like "The Culture of Corruption." NPR speaks glowingly of it. Anything NPR speaks glowingly of has the capacity to someday, if they try really hard, reach 1% of the electorate, all of whom would be backing Dems anyway.

Posted by: Greg63 at June 13, 2006 04:13 PM

The problem for Kos is that he cannot deliver. Having created a monster, he will discover that the monster is beyond his control, and thus, while he might well see the wisdom in what Mathew suggests, his fellow Kossacks may, in large part, fail to follow him. He thinks he is leading a revolution; in fact, he has simply created a mass movement that now has inertia of its own; you can't stoke the fires of tacking hard left for a few years, suddenly pivot back for the center, and wonder why your following keeps going full steam a-port.

Posted by: Simon at June 13, 2006 04:20 PM

Kos has the potential to eventually morph into Freep -- a place where the radical fringe can masturbate together and give birth to brilliant memes like "The Culture of Corruption."

On what do you base the implicit statement that Kos is not already a leftist equivalent to FR? It is the playground of the professional malcontent, the grand arena of the terminally embittered, the last chance saloon of the lost cause. Posted by: Simon at June 13, 2006 04:23 PM

Apropos of my first point, the blogometer today asks "Is Kos Too Centrist For DailyKos?", noting that "[f]eeling pressure from his own comment boards, Kos posted a lengthy defense of ex-VA Gov. Mark Warner's (D) 6/10 Las Vegas party . . . [but] A completely unscientific survey of comments to kos' post shows the DLC is still hated and most Kossacks are weary of Warner."

Posted by: Simon at June 13, 2006 04:27 PM

Simon,

That's an interesting point. Kos will have to make a decision if he wants the movement to remain faithful to its angry, perpetually discontented netroots (and so remain largely irrelevant, politically) or to move closer to the mainstream in its political advocacy. The true test of Kos's skill will be demonstrated in his ability to lead the movement to support objectives that they'd otherwise not support (since, things they'd support without his direction would make him not a leader, but "just a spokesman"). But in doing so, he risks alientating himself from the very movement that he helped breathe life to. It's a true test of leadership, and only time will tell how well he does at it (if he's even trying to do that; he could still end up choosing continued irrelevance).

If you've seen Edward James Olmos' "American Me," that's basically what happened (albeit far more violently) to Mexican Mafia founder Montoya Santana-- he created a powerful organization that ruled the prisons, but once he tried to get them to deviate from that course (even just slightly as it happened), it went against their interests and they murdered him. (Interestingly enough, the Mexican Mafia maintains that the real-life "Montoya Santana," Rudy Cadena, was murdered not by his fellow gangmembers, but by a rival gang, but that's neither here nor there).

But that's the thing when you catch a tiger by the tail-- you don't dare let go for fear of what it will do to you.

Posted by: Bobby at June 13, 2006 05:32 PM

Well said.

I've been researching the Kos record on endorsements, to either kill or verify the "0h for nothing" chatter point. Kos this week claimed three winners since he started up. One of them is Jon Tester in the Montana primary for the US Senate, who prevailed over the DLC-backed candidate last week. Sorry, Markos, but if they don't make it to office, it's not a win. Call me back in November on that one.

The other two, Ben Chandler and Stephanie Herseth, were indeed endorsed by DailyKos in 2004 and won their elections and are in Congress today. Kos can legitimately claim them as winning endorsements. Both would quite likely have won without the DailyKos endorsement, and in Herseth's case it actually may have knocked her numbers down some at the polls. But they were endorsed, they did win. Credit where credit is due.

Now the interesting part: Both Chandler and Herseth are long-time centrist/moderate DLC members, the very type of Democrat that Kos rails against constantly. Indeed, Herseth won the NRA endorsement in 2004, and has consistently supported the Family Marriage Amendment.

Interpret that as you will. Your mileage may vary.

Posted by: Tully at June 13, 2006 06:14 PM

Tully,
I think it is laughable for Kos to claim any kind of credit for Stephanie Herseth; indeed, I'd go so far as to make the suggestion that - whatever Kos now says about pragmatism and wanting to win - Stephanie Herseth represents everything that the Kossacks despise about the modern Democratic party. As you say, it is simply inconceivable that an endorsement from Daily Kos helped Herseth win an election in South damned Dakota. Frisco liberalism doesn't play well out there. The best hope of the Democratic party, it seems to me, is that there be more Stephanie Herseths than there are Kossacks, and if they've got any sense, they'll put her on the '12 ticket.

(Uhm...I'm also biased because I think she's a total knockout, even with the silly haircut. We're all entitled to the odd shallow moment.)

Posted by: Simon at June 13, 2006 06:30 PM

As I said, the Kos endorsement probably cost her votes. But they did endorse her, and she did win. Same with Chandler. I don't give them any credit for actually having swung any elections. Tester's primary victory was due to the late run-up revelation of Morrison's affair with (and payments to) the wife of someone he later prosecuted ineptly for securities fraud. As I also noted, Tester won a primary. He has not yet won the seat, and he's running against an incumbent Senator.

But I'm not going to use a stat that is either false or highly questionable, either.

Posted by: Tully at June 13, 2006 07:10 PM

As I wrote on my blog, I believe it's a great move--and I am happy to see he and Wes Clark wooing the left without giving up their principles.

Posted by: JP at June 13, 2006 07:21 PM

Tully, how many endorsements did he make? Just so I can use an accurate stat if I need to.

Posted by: PatHMV at June 13, 2006 07:37 PM

Don't know--I simply checked his claims of three "wins." Other sources (Wallace-Wells at WaMo) notably claimed they went 0 for 13 in 2004, but I found actual endorsements and funding calls for both of the two Congresscritters cited, pre-dating the elections.

I haven't kept track of the off-year shots since then, but they most definitely got hosed in the Cuellar-Rodriguez election in February. (Since Cuellar is running unopposed in the general, that primary election was an actual win for Cuellar.)

Posted by: Tully at June 13, 2006 07:57 PM

When kos was on the Colbert Report, he offered Barack Obama as one for the victory column.

Posted by: Todd Pearson at June 13, 2006 08:22 PM

They didn't make any fund-raising or volunteer pleas for Obama, and he had the race locked up from time of filing. That's kinda like claiming a win for backing an uncontested candidate. Grasping.

The two I cited are the only two where they backed an underdog and the underdog won. And in Herseth's case, it may well have been despite them rather than anything else. In Chandler's case they claim to have raised about 10% of his money via the blog. No such claims for Herseth.

Posted by: Tully at June 13, 2006 09:08 PM

Time Magazine sez it was 0 for 15 in 2004. I don't know how they reached their figure either. All I know is that I found endorsements and funding calls for Herseth and Chandler on DailyKos that preceded the 2004 November elections by a month or more. In both cases, much more, going back before the primaries. Both were (slight) underdogs at the primary starting gate, both now have seats in Congress. In at least Chandler's case, the amount of money raised via the blogs was significant.

IOW, I have demonstrated to my own satisfaction that the oft-repeated claim (repeated again by TIME in the latest issue) that the Kos nutroots have never backed a winner (or at least one that didn't have it locked up just by filing) is false. And y'all know I'm not a Kos-kisser. Their track record of backing candidates may suck and the net effect of their backing may have been minimal or even adverse for their candidates, but they did back a couple o' winners who actually had to go out and win, not just walk into office. But....

This is the modern DLC -- an aider and abettor of Right-wing smear attacks against Democrats. They make the same arguments, use the same language, and revel in their attacks on those elements of the Democratic Party that seem to cause them no small embarrassment...we need to make the DLC radioactive. And we will. --Markos Moulitsas, 8/22/05

Both of the candidates the Kos Kiddies can claim as "wins" are life-long card-carrying DLC'ers. Your IQ (irony quotient) on that is your own.

Posted by: Tully at June 14, 2006 09:47 AM

This would not be the first time that a preacher was disabused of the misapprehesion that he was truly leading his rabble. Instead, they'll celebrate you so long as you continue to give voice to their discontent regardless of how reasonable that discontent is.

Opinion not founded on reason is not accessible to adjustment based upon reason. Such opinions will very often clothe themselves in reason. Kos was apparently fooled by this into believing that he was a leader, an opinion-maker, a preacher, a visionary. But now he is discovering that the only kind of leader that he is, is a cheerleader.

Posted by: bk at June 14, 2006 10:02 AM

On what do you base the implicit statement that Kos is not already a leftist equivalent to FR?

Divination.

It is the playground of the professional malcontent, the grand arena of the terminally embittered, the last chance saloon of the lost cause.

All forums for public speech follow an ideological Gresham's Law -- angry, radical, aggressive comments drive out quiet, considered, nuanced comments. The great advance of the internet is that we can now do this in weeks, rather than decades. I'm sure this is the future (hopefully distant) of any given centrist forum as well. The well-meaning then congregate in a new place, and start the cycle over. It's unavoidable, and Kos is certainly well down the road.

Posted by: Greg63 at June 14, 2006 12:03 PM

The New Republic's Ryan Lizza has a good article out, "Wag the Blog" (no subscription required), reporting on his observations at the Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas. Lizza makes a few interesting points: he argues that Governor Mark Warner didn't get as positive a response as Governor Bill Richardson or General Wes Clark; the internal struggle about the blogger rebels becoming a part of the mainstream establishment; and the coming "partisans versus ideologues" debate for blogs like the Daily Kos. It's actually quite interesting, and well worth reading.

Posted by: Bobby at June 15, 2006 05:15 PM