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El Blanco El Blanco is offline
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Old Sep 25th, 2007, 01:43 PM        The Blogoshpere and the Left
A couple of times, Max and Kevin have butted heads over the influence of the so called "blogoshpere" has over Liberalism in the US. Max doesn't seem to think it exists while Kevin thinks it has an icy grip over all left leaning politicians (dramatizing for effect).

David Brooks from the New York Times (shocked they are now free by the way) weighs in in this editorial. He sees the blogoshpere as extremists that can hurt the Democrats, if the Democrats fell in line with their extremist views. This would alienate their more centrist voters as well as shoot down any hope of getting disenfranchised Republicans.

The Democrats danced with this in 2004 without engaging it fully. However, it may have hurt them enough to cost them what should have been an easy win.
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KevinTheOmnivore KevinTheOmnivore is offline
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Old Sep 25th, 2007, 04:51 PM       
Take a look at who showed up at this year's YearlyKos, and then look at who didn't show up to the annual DLC conference.

They may be viewed internally by the campaigns as yet another constituency to appease, butthat's bad enough. They can generate a lot of attention on issues that many might not want to discuss.

They can also raise a whole lot of cash.
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El Blanco El Blanco is offline
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Old Sep 25th, 2007, 04:56 PM       
Well, are the blogs and online communities themselves raising the money, or is it the traditional donors using electronic means as opposed to signing a check?

Do you honestly believe MoveOn's boast that the road to candidacy runs through them?
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Old Sep 25th, 2007, 08:03 PM       
Haha... Kevin said "butthat."

I do, Blanco. The road to the 2006 wins was definitely paved by Moveon.org. I do not believe, however, that 2006 has anything at all to do with 2008. I think the Dem candidates and the party are running down a razor blade here. Hillary speaks to Kos' people and shrieks about bringing the troops home now, then hits the Sunday shows last weekend and refuses to pledge to do so as President. She speaks for Moveon when she dresses down General Patraeus in front of the Senate, then echoes his sentiments to the letter when explaining why she can't make that pledge.

Not a one of the Democrats that wish to be President spoke out against the "General Betrayus" ad that appeared the day after Harry Reid boasted that Democrats have "others" to do their political dirty work now. The Democrat Congress poll numbers appear to have no bottom because the only thing it seems to be able to cough up is bile against a war America has no interest whatsoever in losing, especially when it's looking at least a little better.

What the Democrats say sounds way too much like what America's enemies are saying... so much so that America's enemies have begun using Democrat talking points to explain why their despotic shitholes are so much better than the Great Satan. Ahminajihad is criticizing our healthcare and immigration policies? Chavez is parroting the party line on our flawed education system and no more critical of Bush's handling of Katrina and Minneapolis than is your average Democrat congressperson.

The left blogosphere is dragging the Democrat party into a perilous situation. Hillary has already had to flip-flop on issues more before the primaries than Kerry ever did in his entire career, and if the Republican ads don't paint the picture of Democrats being as much our country's enemy as Iran and Venezuela then THAT party has definitely lost it's last grip on sanity. The Democrat rhetoric has become so anti-American... thanks to the MoveOn voters and Soros' money... that Europe is actually becoming MORE pro-American and MORE appreciative of our leadership in the WOT. EU voters are moving to the right because the American "left" makes their skin crawl.

Thanks to the e-left, the Democrats have become even more the anti-Republican Party. They are even less the party of ideas than they were two years ago. They are the party of hate and platitudes, and here comes Newt Gingrich with his "American Solutions," hoping to recreate the "Contract with America" that fired the Republican Revolution of 86. The Democrats are about to try and fight well thought out ideas and simply spoken solutions with rumors, innuendo and personal attacks. Newt is packaging up a campaign for whomever the Republican candidate will be that America will buy, where all the Moveon Democrats have to sell is slung mud and the same old political dead-horses they've been beating since McGovern.

The Republicans lost the Congress more then the Democrats won it, and the Democrats have tried to repaint voter disgust as a mandate to end the war. At least Hillary seems to understand so far she can't possibly win with an anti-war campaign, but that means she won't win with the e-left's support. In short, I believe she can't win at all, so MoveOn.org and the rest of the Internet Left has basically handed America 4-8 more years of a Republican administration.
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mburbank~ Yes, okay, fine, I do know what you meant, but why is it not possible for you to get through a paragraph without making all the words cry?

How can someone who obviously thinks so much of their ideas have so little respect for expressing them? How can someone who so yearns to be taken seriously make so little effort?!
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Perndog Perndog is offline
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Old Sep 25th, 2007, 08:29 PM       
I have two forum suggestions inspired by this thread:

1) an official :butthat smiley

2) a ban on FUCKING BASEBALL AVATARS
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El Blanco El Blanco is offline
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Old Sep 25th, 2007, 09:58 PM       
I'd change mine, but the giants aren't off to that great a start.
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KevinTheOmnivore KevinTheOmnivore is offline
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Old Sep 25th, 2007, 10:34 PM       
Maybe Reyes won't pop out to second every at bat if you change it.
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Old Sep 26th, 2007, 09:42 AM       
Maybe if he used Giambi's masking agent, he'd have better luck.
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KevinTheOmnivore KevinTheOmnivore is offline
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Old Sep 26th, 2007, 01:31 PM       
Quote:
Originally Posted by El Blanco View Post
Well, are the blogs and online communities themselves raising the money, or is it the traditional donors using electronic means as opposed to signing a check?
It's a little bit of both. The "blogosphere" is a lot things, not easy to pigeon hole. Think of them like a union or a local GOP chapter of diehards. It's not like they're all this new breed of people who have never been involved in politics before--these are the same partisans who stuff envelopes, knock on doors and make phone calls.

To answer your question, it's most certainly the blogs themselves. ActBlue is a Kos founded site dedicated to electing Democrats, and to this point, the FEC has declared them essentially exempt from traditional campaign finance laws.

But what makes blogger fundraising so powerful is its ability to pull in and pool low-dollar donors, at a relatively small over head. In direct mail, let's say someone gives $25. You probably don't hit them up again until the next quarter, or if the campaign is closer, you hit them up every two weeks.

But this takes time, and the turnaround is slow. Also, in mail, you're always trying to bump up that $25 donor. If they donated that once, then you ask them for "$25, $50 or $100" the next time.

With the web, you get your money almost immediately, and you aren't dumping thousands of dollars into those donors. Whereas other forms of fundraising are viewed as a longterm investment that will pay out over time, blog fundraising is immediate and of little cost. That makes small donors very powerful, whivh makes the ability of bloggers to whip up a frenzy something for the candidates to pay attention to.

Bloggers also make and break careers. Ned Lamont was made relevant by bloggers, and turned over much of his campaign to idiots like Jane Hamsher, who brought heat on the campaign for depicting Lieberman in black face. They keep people like Wesley Clark relevant, even though he didn't do well electorally in 2004, and has decided not to run in 2008. Look at Ron Paul--Granted, his on-hand cash looks impressive because he doesn't have the field staff of a Romney or McCain, but the internet is keeping guys like him in the conversation.
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