Posted on 07/06/2007 8:11:04 PM PDT by Lorianne
After crashing the gate of the political establishment, bloggers are looking more like the next gatekeepers. __
Last June, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, former soldier, one-time Reagan Republican, and proprietor of the wildly successful liberal blog Daily Kos, sent an email to an invitation-only listserv known as Townhouse. Consisting of some 300 liberal bloggers, journalists, activists, and consultants, the list was an outgrowth of weekly strategy sessions held at a D.C. bar—a forum for brainstorming on issues and tactics, and a means of creating a "unified message," as Moulitsas later put it. Its members were bound by one main rule: Nothing from the list was to be quoted or distributed, which, this being politics, meant that a leak was bound to happen.
In the message that would end up putting Townhouse, briefly, on the outside world's radar, Moulitsas asked list members to "ignore" a blog item by the New York Times' Chris Suellentrop that revealed that Jerome Armstrong—founder of the popular liberal blog MyDD and a close friend and business associate of Moulitsas—had once been implicated in a stock-touting scheme. Suellentrop noted parallels between stock-hyping and bloggers' touting of candidates such as Howard Dean, who had hired both Armstrong and Moulitsas as consultants during his 2004 presidential campaign. Moulitsas, who had recently coauthored the book Crashing the Gate with Armstrong, told Townhouse members that these revelations were "a nonstory." "So far," he wrote, "this story isn't making the jump to the traditional media, and we shouldn't do anything to help make that happen." He urged participants to "starve it of oxygen."
When The New Republic's Jason Zengerle blogged about the Townhouse email, "The Kos" urged readers to cancel their subscriptions, writing, "It is now beyond clear that the dying New Republic is mortally wounded and cornered, desperate for relevance. It has lost half its circulation since the blogs arrived on the scene and they no longer (thank heavens!) have a monopoly on progressive punditry. We have hit their bottom line, we are hitting their patron saint hard (Joe Lieberman) and this is how they respond. By going after the entire movement." Many of Moulitsas' followers—Kossacks, they call themselves—then filled Zengerle's inbox with all manner of invective.
The irony is this: Moulitsas' reaction echoes the very control-the-message philosophy the blogosphere once rose up to fight. Indeed, challenging the methods of an entrenched political elite was the subject of Crashing the Gate.
MoveOn Keeps Moving On Michael Cornfield, Political Scientist, Tech Consultant MoveOn has somehow found a way to continuously wield power. To me, they remain the most fascinating players online, far more than the presidential candidates.
David All, Republican Tech Consultant Did you listen to the MoveOn town hall last night? I mean, that thing was awesome—a perfect use of technology. We have nothing on the right that compares to that.
Phil de Vellis, "Hillary 1984" Creator How many people listened to that thing? 40,000? 80,000? Which is fantastic. But to win an election, you need hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, depending on the state.
Eli Pariser, MoveOn Director If you ask any MoveOn member, they say this is an easy way to stay connected to politics in five minutes a month. And that's part of the service we provide. We find those people and move them and give them ways to go deeper. That's not a socioeconomic thing.
Chris Rabb, Afro-Netizen.com MoveOn is incredibly popular, but I've never met an active black person in MoveOn. Today, top liberal bloggers have become an elite in their own right—one that is increasingly part of the political hierarchy. They've joined campaigns and drummed up lucrative consulting work. One, Swing State Project contributor Tim Tagaris, was tapped by the Democratic National Committee to head up its Internet outreach efforts, went on to work on Ned Lamont's Senate campaign, and is now a member of Senator Chris Dodd's campaign staff. Berkeley-based Moulitsas is in regular communication with Democratic leadership aides, and, on occasion, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid himself, according to the Washington Monthly. "Politicians court big bloggers now," says a national political reporter who wished to remain anonymous for fear of blogger wrath. "They have dinner with them. They have lunch with them. They stroke them in the hopes of getting favorable things written about them and harnessing that energy." Some politicians probably prefer holding court with bloggers rather than old-school pundits, says Michael Turk, the e-campaign director for the Bush/Cheney '04 campaign and, later, the Republican National Committee. "They say, 'Here's a way to make people who think like us echo our comments.'"
Almost as soon as the netroots arose, so did the questions—about conflicts of interest, motivation, and disclosure. After the 2004 election, Zephyr Teachout, who with her colleagues at the Dean campaign was widely credited with creating a new model of Internet outreach, noted on her blog that the campaign had retained Moulitsas and Armstrong "largely in order to ensure that they said positive things about Dean." (Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, has disputed Teachout's characterization, as has the campaign's director of Internet communications, Mathew Gross.)
As it turned out, Armstrong took a hiatus from blogging during the campaign, and Moulitsas put a disclaimer on his blog's masthead disclosing his relationship with Dean, urging readers to "take what I write with the proper grain of salt." But by then, Moulitsas and Armstrong had formed a consulting firm (since disbanded), whose clients, aside from Dean, they refused to name. And in the end, whether the conflicts of interest were real or perceived didn't matter: In politics, as in journalism—the two worlds the blogosphere straddles—it's often the appearance of taint that counts. "I don't trust the framing of anyone who is regularly writing and speaking about people they are taking money from," as Teachout put it.
The 2006 midterms saw a new wave of bloggers sign on to campaigns. Among many others, Lowell Feld and Abraham Chernilla (Raising Kaine) went to work for James Webb; Jon Henke (QandO) became the netroots coordinator for Webb's opponent, George Allen; Matt Singer (Left in the West) worked for Jon Tester's Senate campaign; and Aldon Hynes (Orient Lodge) and Tim Tagaris were on Lamont's payroll. On Election Day, Senate Majority Leader-to-be Harry Reid saluted Daily Kos readers in a video message: "In the past five months, you have donated countless hours exposing Republicans and volunteering for Democratic candidates," he said. (The Kos community had also raised more than $1.5 million for Democratic candidates through the fundraising site ActBlue.) "Without the netroots, Democrats would not be in the position we are in today," Reid added. "It is as simple as that."
"It's a very conscious effort to build a power structure," says Gross, the former Dean staffer who's now advising John Edwards. "These are people who are not just blogging, but who are thinking very sophisticatedly about what the Republicans did for 20 years to get to the point of being able to dominate the cultural discourse."
In many ways, says Gross, "it's the oldest story in the book. The establishment sort of loses its bearings, loses its compass, and from the bottom people come up, get involved, and make their way into the centers of power." He laughed. "Then in 20 years someone's going to come along and lop off all our heads."
So the Kosmonauts are in Kostant Kontact with the Kaiser? Kostantly! In their Kostumes! Are they wearing their Keds waiting on the Kosmet? Kos me a river!
All that to tout the power and sway of 300 bloggers?
Thats a pathetic start, even if it is supposed to be “under wraps.”
These new “gatekeepers” are just ex-Dan Rathers looking to compete where us FReepers still stomp about like King Kong.
I say “Bring It!”
I wouldn’t just dismiss the Koz Boyz out of hand, there are a few attempts among folks like Delay and according to Fox, “Two DC insiders want to start a organization like Kos to support the war on terror”
The mark foley debacle along with the Ted Grizzard gay prostitute bomb shell were also internet directed (dis)information campaigns that were blogger and ‘Net directed.
27 years ago, believe it or not, direct mail campaigns were one of the “keys” to Reagen’s victory and they kept Jesse Helms in office for several terms.
IMO though, I don’t see Conservatives taking marching orders from some blogger out on the “net I do see a need to have some direction for Conservatives to take, the MSM simply loves to point out that Hussein and Billary have 100,000 and 50,000 ‘Net donors respectively.
Politics 2.0 article, interesting interview:
http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2007/07/david_all.html
een realized is that now you can contribute money through MySpace. Entrepreneurs are going to be figuring out ways to better utilize social communities or “socnets” and truly mining your data because MySpace and those other things are just profiles where people put favorite movies, favorite everything else. So it will be a new form of targeting a message. So perhaps out of all of your supporters you’ll find one who loves Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, so you’ll create a video just for that message and then send it to all those people. You know, “Hey, this is John Smith and my favorite movie is Mr. Smith goes to Washington, dadadada.” There are companies out there that are doing this stuff, that are buying information to find out patterns and the way that people are connected through networks based on preferences and other things.
MJ: What are your thoughts about our definition of “open-source politics”?
DA: So you guys are actually saying this isn’t true?
MJ: We’re saying there’s some truth, but there’s probably a lot of hype here.
DA: Well, obviously I disagree. The Internet is clearly not going anywhere. In 2004 I think less than 25 percent of the population had broadband access. Today, we’re already at over 50 percent. By 2012, if not sooner, probably by 2008 or 2010, we’ll be at 100 percent or as close to that as possible. And then the next step will be free broadband for everyone. You know, the more people who get online, the more people are going to find how great it is. Instead of the one source of information that you used to have, you now have too many sources of information. You can look at it all and investigate to see what matters. The truth is that there is no one technology that is going to change the world of politics. It’s going to be a blend and a cornucopia of different stuff. I mean you know Twitter is going to have an impact. I can’t wait to see the first Twittering president.
MJ: We’ve got Edwards using it, I hear.
DA: I’m his friend and he hasn’t sent me anything yet. Twitter is an awesome phenomenon because it may actually engage the candidate himself with the campaign. As odd as that seems, that could actually happen. I’m predicting that Time’s person of the year is going to be “us.” It’s no longer going to be “you”-the idea that it is one person. It’s going to be the group that is changing the world.
MJ: What do you think is the most overhyped open-source politics technology?
DA: It is probably Second Life right now, just because it is really hard to figure out. It’s not a final version of a three-dimensional Internet that we’re going to see. I don’t even know how to create stuff in Second Life and I’m really good at this stuff. Did you listen to the MoveOn town hall last night? I mean, that thing was awesome-a perfect use of technology. We have nothing on the right that compares to that.
We don’t have a George Soros, someone who is willing to just give millions and millions of dollars for a spaghetti tactic-you know, to create 30 different 527 organizations that are all focusing like a laser on one particular issue. That’s the infrastructure that you need. And you need those resources. The RNC has never called me. They don’t call any of the tech and politics crowd. They’re just going it alone, which is fine if you want to continue to be a failure.
MJ: So it sounds like you think that the real issue here is just a lack of interest from the higher ups?
DA: No, I think it’s a number of reasons. We’ve never needed the Internet before. When talk radio emerged in ‘94, it was a very taboo thing, and it wasn’t until Newt Gingrich brought talk radio hosts into the Capitol that people started to engage talk radio. Now there’s an entire strategy focused on it. The White House has a talk radio person, the RNC does, and it’s seen as an effective medium. But the Internet-we haven’t needed to run around the mainstream media like we do now. And people are slowly realizing that those New York Times reporters are simply not going to call you. So this idea of a broadband bypass strategy is starting to get to these guys. My hope is that we don’t literally need to hit the iceberg during the 2008 elections and get swamped and that the guys will begin to see the light now.
MJ: When I talked to Bill Green at RightMarch, I asked him why they don’t do more of the stuff that MoveOn does with podcasting and social networking, and he was like, “Well, I don’t think that our members are as interested in that because they’ve got families and they’re working people and they don’t have time to meet at someone’s house and watch a webcast.” Do you agree with that?
DA: What I’ve noticed is that people are very communication-centric. Whatever form of technology they use most prevalent is what they think everyone else uses or should use and there’s no deviation from that. I’m a lot different. I use it all. Facebook, MySpace, all of that stuff-I’m out there, just because I know that it’s different communities of people. So, number one, I think that the problem is Mr. Green doesn’t do anything other than think and write emails. So he doesn’t understand the importance of connecting with thousands of people throughout the nation to spread a message because he’s always doing that through email. And everyone he’s talking to is doing the same. So it’s just creating all these different walled gardens and I think that’s the wrong approach. It’s like the new websites that are popping up like QubeTV. They’re trying to be a conservative YouTube and here’s the problem: Can you imagine if every conservative left YouTube? What would happen? It would be another New York Times. I don’t think we need to be building gardens and digging moats. I think we need to plop right down among the group of people singing “Kumbaya” and tell them why they’re wrong. You know, be willing to get yelled at and everything else, but at the end of the day they are going to appreciate you.
Since I started my company, one of the greatest things is that I now have people that I call friends. Like Matt Stoller of MyDD and Jerome Armstrong of MyDD. We hate each other politically, but we’re friends. You know Joe Trippi and I are friends on Facebook, and me and Micah Sifry. So it’s just recognizing that we’re people and it’s okay to disagree on the issues. It’s not a “I hate you” thing. It’s a “We’re usually in this thing for the same exact reasons, just different causes.” And that’s okay.
....gee, I couldn’t have guessed something like this was going on....
I'm a FReeper as well as a blogger - and to be honest with you , I'm quite impressed at the organizational efforts made by our misguided liberal adversaries even if I do disagree with their message.
On our side we have no effective counterbalance to effectively combat the left - I wouldn't go so far as to say we are winning, we are in many respects losing on a few fronts.
Talk radio we pretty much control, but the blogosphere is one where we don't seem to be advancing.
I've noticed that, too.
The Nutroots, err, Left, seems to be well coordinated, while the Right is, well, like trying to herd cats.
I was a amazed a while back when I saw a television interview in the United States of a *popular female blogger* and the interviewer was asking her some quite cerebral questions concerning Islam and this women kept going like the energizer bunny spouting off crap that she knew absolutely nothing about.
Interestingly enough the right side of the blogosphere is now becoming what they initially set out to defeat. If you are not part of the clique, then your voice is shut out from the mainstream of conservative blogging. Of course in the Wild Wild West of blogging - you can still find your own niche I suppose - but there remains no effective coordination as we see developing on the left. Many times the message does not get out - or the message that does is flawed.
After 9/11 I thought for a brief moment that my overseas experience living and working in a muslim country might add something constructive to the national debate that was starting to develop - well in many ways I have become disillusioned - it seems that everyone is a not only a pundit but an expert as well. ~ recently I've even had some of the bigger popular bloggers simply rewrite my posts and post them as their own - and that does piss me off.
If this sounds like sour grapes...well maybe there is a tingle of bitterness on my part... I can't deny that - but more importantly the national debate seems to be going no where - just repeating the same tired mantras over and over - in the end we all lose and not just me.
Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.
Illegitimi non carborundum.
Thanks FRiend - today is a better day ;-)
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