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The 'Netroots' Versus The Establishment

The unexpectedly strong showing of Democrat Paul Hackett in Ohio's Aug. 2 special House election has Democratic bloggers pumped about their party's political prospects. But an increasingly bitter battle between the Democratic "netroots" and the Washington establishment over the party's political strategy and policy priorities could undermine such efforts.

	"Every Republican should be on notice," one Dem blogger warns. "But so should the Democratic establishment."

The upstarts who believe that every GOP seat should be contested have had their fill of campaign "experts," especially those at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and right now they are attacking their own party as harshly as they do the enemy.

"Every Republican should be on notice," said Bob Brigham, a blogger at Swing State Project who traveled to Ohio's 2nd District in the last days of Hackett's race. "But so should the Democratic establishment."

The netroots have a bold vision that is based on the 50-state strategy of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, the party gadfly whose 2004 presidential campaign ignited the fire within the belly of the liberal blogosphere. John Kerry doused Dean's flame in that race, but the "Deaniacs" are true believers in his often-liberal ideology and unconventional thinking.

Their determination to fight everywhere, and to use in-your-face, sometimes vulgar rhetoric about the war in Iraq and the GOP "culture of corruption," was apparent immediately after Hackett's defeat. At TPMCafe, blogger Josh Marshall invited readers to name vulnerable Republicans. The query elicited several typical responses, like incumbents who won with 55 percent of the vote or less in 2004, but the tone of the comments suggested a passion for unrestrained political warfare.

One reader calling himself "Electoral Math" pointed to a blog-published list that identified the House races won by less than 20 percent. That kind of spread is unlikely to prompt many bets from the DCCC or any other Washington-based campaign group, but the reader saw reason for confidence. "A 12-point swing takes every seat on that list," he wrote. "A more modest six-point swing takes 29 out of 47."

Nebraska Democrats, meanwhile, already have adopted a 93-county strategy. And a New Jersey group called the Blue 7th PAC is targeting Republican Mike Ferguson, who won 57 percent of the vote in 2004. No Democrat is in the race yet, but that doesn't matter to the PAC. It has a Dump Mike Blog and on Saturday will host an old-school political event with a netroots twist: a picnic to raise money for an unknown candidate.

Brigham is part of a similar effort in California. He is the treasurer of the new Leave No District Behind PAC, which organized quickly after Hackett's loss in Ohio. The PAC will send a campaign manager, field director, finance manager, communications director and scheduler to the 48th District, a heavily Republican seat recently vacated by now-Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox. All five people worked together in Ohio.

Brigham said the district is "the reddest of the red" and features an expensive media market. "Instead of betting on 30-second ads, we're going to bet on a team of passionate individuals." There is no candidate for now, but he said, "Forget the candidate; we have a campaign to win."

MyDD also is pushing hard to generate enthusiasm in California's 48th, and Daily Kos is showcasing the race, too. Both of those blogs, as well as Brigham's Swing State Project, played significant roles in driving money and volunteers to Hackett after the blog swarm began in Ohio.

Brigham added that many top-notch bloggers are within an hour's drive of the 48th and could be key players in that battle, just like the Ohio 2nd blog and others were from the outset of Hackett's race. "I'm hoping to see one of those in every district," he said.

Brigham, whose profanity-laced tirades against the DCCC and Chairman Rahm Emanuel are becoming legendary, condemns the Democratic establishment for not sharing the every-state, every-district mindset and for saving its money for late-campaign television ads. "Instead of war-chest stockpiling," he said, "campaigns need to invest on the ground, in the people."

But DCCC communications director Bill Burton defended the committee's work. He said Democrats now have more than 30 candidates to contest GOP-held House seats in 2006 -- 10 times more than the same point in 2003 -- and the DCCC "has broken records every quarter" of 2005 in fundraising. "What's realistic," he said, "is us expanding the playing field, which is exactly what we're doing. ... We think that we can really be competitive in a lot of GOP districts."

Burton also said numerous bloggers, including ArchPundit, Seeing the Forest and Sisyphus Shrugged, remain on good terms with the DCCC. "It's an ongoing relationship and a successful one," he said.

The DCCC has reached out to Brigham and other influential Democratic bloggers. Executive Director John Lapp posted an entry at MyDD the day after Hackett's loss, and Emanuel held a conference call with bloggers a week later. DCCC blogger Jesse Lee even tried Brigham's rhetorically brutal tactics in a defensive post at The Stakeholder -- one that he later softened.

But both Brigham's response to Emanuel's conference call and Seeing the Forest's agreement with Brigham's take show that the rift between the Democratic netroots and the political establishment remains wide. "I'm holding out hope for Emanuel. I'm waiting to be inspired," Brigham wrote. "But nothing leads me to believe that the DCCC realizes the importance of investing early and running full campaigns."

If necessary, Brigham added in an interview, the netroots are ready to take the fight to the GOP front lines themselves, with the help of groups like Democracy for America, MoveOn and Project 90, an initiative of former Dean campaign worker Walter Ludwig to recruit Democrats for races in Republican-dominated districts.

"The DCCC is not the only game in town when it comes to fighting for congressional districts," Brigham said. "It's no longer just the official wing of the party that fights."

Posted by | 08:06 AM

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Comments

For the record Seeing the Forest is on good terms with DCCC and Bob Brigham. All of us are all about getting corrupt Republicans out of office. Our arguments (public and private) are about how best to accomplish that.

Dave Johnson | 08.15.05 01:37 PM

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