"There's no need to set up the netroots and the Democratic establishment in opposition to each other."

Aren't there spoils and party control to argue about? And shouldn't the sharp guys be rewarded and the dead weight pruned?

Someone should get down to the specifics of the pre-election disputes between Dean and the netroots on the on side, and Emmanuel and Schumer on the other. Look at who won, what happened, and how it turned out. My impression is that Dean won, and that if he hadn't the Democrats would have done considerably worse. But I'm highly partisan on this question, and there are facts to dig up.

Hopefully the dispute will be resolved in a friendly way, but I think that that's most likely to happen if someone kicks Emmanuel and Schumer in the teeth a few times just to get their attention.

The contempt for the netroots is just part of the contempt that the DC losers have long felt for voluntarism and grass roots politics of any kind.

I think the most accurate description of what happened is from John at Americablog:

I don't think the election was a victory for conservative Democrats or liberal Democrats. It was a victory for Democrats across the board, and a repudiation of Republicans and conservativism.

As I remember, several netroots candidates had to fight past DNC candidates in the primaries before they could win their elections. And the netroots eventually warmed to Duckworth, but Emmanuel pushed her past an earlier netroots candidate, and then she lost anyway. And my bet is that she lost partly because, as an Emmanuel protege, she ran a bad campaign. The DC party been strongly criticized for micromanaging campaigns. (In Minnesota Wetterling, a good candidate, ran a poor, cautious campaign and lost. I'm wondering whether she wasn't getting a lot of help and advice from Emmanuel.)

This is so childish.

Both did their jobs, and both were necessary elements to the victory. Why is this a mutually exclusive question?

Because they disagreed in the past about important issues, and still disagree, and because Emmanuel is still trying to freeze out the netroots.

I think that Emmanuel was wrong and should keep his head down for a change, but above I specifially suggested that there should be an investigation of what actually happened.

It's my understanding that if Emmanuel had had his way, some of the defeated Republicans would have had no opponent or an unsupported opponent, and if that's true, Emmanuel should be called to account.

To me, I think that the clincher was "all things related to the Internet" since the big three networks, and most newspapers, seemed "at bat" for the current administration.

I think "Net Neutrality" is an important issue because I believe that "freedom of the press" lives on the internet's blogs, web pages and YouTube videos.

Gone are the days when Bush, and future presidents, will get your attention by preempting prime time television shows!

Everybody wins because blogs are giving people an opportunity to write again, the motivation to communicate persuasively and a place to sort out thoughts.

Additionally, the Internet helps people feel less isolated and, perhaps, less prone to becoming the targets of the psychological warfare that comes from the top or become victims of industry shrills.

If we keep working hard, we'll make the politicians work for their money and force them to figure out a way to become relavent to our online communities.

It's nice to have a place like tpmcafe.com because my senator, Norm Coleman, writes me terrible letters and if his office asks me: "do you want Norm to send you a letter?" I now say "no. those letters make me feel worse."

Perhaps Norm will see this post, start reading tpmcafe.com and expand his worldview. I'm hoping so because the next Republican convention will be in Saint Paul and I really don't to see the Republicans bad mouthing the UN, gays-- you name it-- again!

You were witness to the last election, and the ones before that, and you think the people chose this result? If anyone believes that Bush was elected, they must listen to NPR. The closest elections anyone can imagine, and the republicans are just backing down? Like Bush did when he was "elected" the first time? Get real!!! This election was planned from the start, the result was known before it was held. You are all just playing into their hands. Sounds bad? You bet! Fool me once.....

There's enough credit to go around, but there is room to point out some flaws. I think Dean gets huge props for the 50-state strategy, without which we would have been fighting for 15 seats not 50, and if anyone had screwed up we wouldn't have gotten them. We also wouldn't have made the major gains in state houses that we did and which over the next 2 decades may prove to be the really important advance. The netroots, as I understand it (and I'm not sure it can be uniformly defined), deserves a lot of props for finding good candidates in unexpected places and for pushing dems to take strong positions especially on the war, which ultimately was the right stance. The netroots also did an important job of motivating and activating the base (It wasn't Rahm that got me to give more money than I ever have to campaigns or to knock on doors every weekend for a month and a half), much like conservative churches did in the past few years. I don't see much room to criticize Schumer given that no one even thought 6 seats was possible, unless it's to point out that more support should have been given to Carter and Pederson. Emmanuel did a great job of fundraising and in some cases a good job of selecting candidates. In other cases he selected candidates who lost, or worse, selected candidates who lost in the primary to an eventual winner, proving his selection skills are suspect (I'm thinking of the CA-11 as an example, rahm's choice and we'd still have Pombo). I think he also did a relatively poor job of allocating all the money he raised. At some point he should have realized the breadth of the playing field and spread the money a lot more (and more efficiently) than he did.

It is important to discuss these things and not just sweep them under the rug in a big "we won, now we all get along" fiesta, b/c the next time around the republicans aren't likely to implode quite as badly and we'll need to be on our best possible footing.

Rahm ? Netroots ? I don't know. I don't care.

All I care is that the DLC lost.

No, you can't have your own facts!

I do not understand the idea that we should not debrief and see what worked and what didn't. Since different strategies were proposed by different individuals, and since all the players have their ideas about future strategy and are jockeying for influence, some individuals are going to have to win and some are going to have to lose. Let's see that they're the right ones.

As far as I can tell, it was Emmanuel who ruined the kumbayah mood. Some people seem to be afraid to offend Emmanuel, and some seem to be protecting poor little Rahm against mean people like me, but intra-party debate is part of the process.

Isn't the question "What would have happened if Emmanuel had been in control all along? Would things have bee better or worse for us?" ?

I think people are forgetting one very important component- Air America. I have converted many a conservative dem/ secular repub away from voting republican by tuning in Al Franken. Having venues for democrats to define our positions and values is vital in this ever hostile media political landscape. Air America not only gives like minded liberals a place to hear each other, but provides an audience for Waxman or Dorgan to talk about their TEN Profiteering hearings that I never heard of in WAPO or NYT. Also, authors of books like Cobra II, Hubris or Risk Shift get an audience to sell books so publishers are encouraged to publishs books that put out real information instead of just another beach read. I cut a check to Tim Walz, even though I'm havn't lived in MN for 8 years and I never lived in his district, but he made me proud to be from MN with his dedication and decency. I agree Dean's 50 state stratagy is right on the money, but we need a way to get the message out. AA, this blog, and holding the media accountable for it's distortions is the only way we can get to all 50 states without the 20 in the middle thinking democrats are only good for being the punchline to a joke. All this I get from Air America. It astounds me how little support it gets from main stream democrats. Fox has pushed the entire MSM to the right. How can you complain about Fox if you won't support an alternative?

Also, it seems likely that the $3m sunk into Duckworth's campaign to try to get her to the finish line could have been spread around among 10 races that were in the same range in terms of spread between the candidates and in less expensive races ... and now that we look at the results, with at least 3 good chances of pickups. A couple of hundred thousand to Kissell in NC-08, for example, would almost certainly have put him over the top.

The two factors critical to the Democratic takeover were Gee Dubyas unpopular war (Iraq) and the constant drip-drip-drip of Republican scandals. Events help create political environments and these two factors soured the public on the neo-cons and their fundamentalist brothers. Iraq is on TV every night just like the Vietnam war was and no plan of action for Iraq plus mounting casualty numbers shows the glaring incompetence of Bush & Co.

The troika of Dean, Emanuel and Schumer should get the main credit since they provided the organization and money for the successful takeover operation. Yes there were some mistakes made in selection of candidates, but on the whole it was highly successful. The netroots and progressive radio stations generated and maintained enthusiasm among the base and independents and provided funds and volunteers for local campaigns. A disjointed team at times, but we won.

Rove has consistently focused on their "base" and flipped off everyone else. You can't govern from the wings, just ask Arnold Schwarzenegger how he won re-election on Tuesday. The "true" Republican base should expel the neo-cons and fundamentalist religionists from their party and pull it back to the center.

the candidate who had no netroots help whatsoever, ford, didn't win.

the candidate who had no DC dem support whatsoever, lamont, also didn't win.

what's the lesson there?

An overwhelming victory for light and defeat for the forces darkness.

Lieberman is now clearly an ersatz Republican. The insufferable hypocrite no longer speaks for the Democratic Party in any way. That is very good.

It's a simple historical fact that the Democratic Party ceded a political position so dominant that there was talk once of the Republicans going the way of the Whigs by the Democratic fight against segregation. Would you have it otherwise?

Whether first or not, Chris Bowers at MyDD made a powerful argument for the marginalization of the southern anchor on the Democratic Party. The Democrats will not be a true national party until they speak for values of common decency everywhere rather than trying so hard to accommodate antithetical regional views. Ford was a candidate of ignorance and prejudice even though it was those same forces that defeated him. His loss was the Democrat's gain. The "loss" of Lieberman as a Democrat is a similar benefit in my view.

What good is winning if you win nothing?

Twas a famous victory for certain.

The South has great people too.

A diarist suggested drafting John Lewis for Majority Leader in the House. Never happen but would that not be far better than Ford speaking for southern Democrats?

Best, Terry

Yes, who does get credit for the overall success on November 7th?

Is it Rahm Emmanuel who recruited a good class of potential candidates for the most likely districts and effectively raised the money to support them? He did his job better than most Democrats have recently.

Is it Howard Dean who also raised a great deal of money and worked hard to build Democratic party organizations in all 50 states? That is absolutely critical to the future success of the Democratic Party.

Or is it the fledgling Netroots who reached out and provided an effective community for individual activists and activist-wannabees? I have been glued to FireDogLake for months, and I now have a much better idea what it means to organized and work for a candidate. dKos and MYDD have given me techincal inforation on the elections I could not otherwise have gotten unless I was living in D.C. and plugged into effective political networks (and presented the real world counters to the fantasies those public media networks get in D.C.) The Netroots have also provided the outside the beltway views that are critical to political success yet previously have been filtered out by the public D.C. media.

The Republican Party operates through a series of institutions and captured media to do what the Netroots is just beginning to do to facilitate realtiime information from the field to D.C. and the reverse. [This will always cause previously laid plans to be called into question, perhaps even upset. There is also a strong question regarding which voices in the netroots should be listened to, since the filters are not yet clear. Complaints are to be expected. That is mostly a result of the effectiveness of the netroots as a communications media.]

I don't see it as an either-or situation. Emmanuel provided the basic old-line money and candidates operation, and the success of November 7th could not have happened without him. Dean is building for the future and putting back institutions that have withered in recent years. It is a clearly needed operation, and could not have been done by Emmanuel because Rahmn had daily alligators to beat off. Swamp draining wasn't his function. The two functions need to be separate and will compete for funds. No one organization could do both functions properly.

The netroots is new and highly experimental. It helps to link and coordinate the center with the outlying fringes, and allows communities to grow up and replace the political clubs, unions and other instutiutions that have withered in recent years. It will grow and mature, and in four years we will not recognize what it has become. We also will not know how we operated without the netroots. But I'll still be reading the TPM family, dKos, MyDD, Kevin Drum, FireDogLake and others that have become daily reading for me this year. I'd really like to see the Democrats get so comfortable that the National Party starts putting money into Texas to take it back, rather than abandoning it to the religious right and using the funds generated here in the rest of the nation. Dallas, the city which was the only conservative right-wing Repulbinan city in an otherwise (conservative) Democratic Texas back in the early 60's saw a sweep of almost all major county and city races last Tuesday. That tells me the days of Republican domination of Texas are numbered. Someone needs to get Howard Dean to focus on this very large set of electoral votes for 2008.

So tell me, which of those three prongs do you want to give the largest amount of credit to for November 7th? I want all three, and I want the netroots linking the others.

^
I think this is a valueable and necessary discussion. And I think this is one of the best threads I've read on TPM (and that's saying a lot).

I feel the election results validated the "50 State" strategy moreso than the "targeted race" approach. So I give the nod to Howard Dean over Rham Emanuel. But clearly they both deserve some credit.

And it's not an either/or thing. The two sides of this debate are complementary, to a large degree.

I think that calling the Dean approach "netroots" muddies the waters somewhat. To me, "netroots" means a nationalized form of "grassroots". It means boots on the ground, where the ground is actually cyberspace. I think of netroots as a tactical element, and the other question (50-state v. targeted race) is a strategy issue. In other words, the netroots advantage can be applied in either case.

Of course, Dean deserves a lot of credit for being the first to recognize the value of the netroots, and to capitalize on it in his 2004 campaign. And I think that experience helped shape his vision that a 50-state strategy can really work.

The Duckworth race (IL-06) is the classic "targeted race" example. Rham Emanuel recruited a strong candidate, and poured tons of money into the race. The problem in this case is that the DCCC (or the DLC) trampled over an established, credible candidate, Christine Cegelis, who had grassroots support in the district, and who is a true progressive. Yes, the netroots (and local grassroots) got behind Duckworth after the primary. But you have to wonder whether it was really necessary (or desireable) to push Cegelis to the side like that. And it leads to the inevitable thought that, if Rham Emanuel is such a genius, then why didn't he win this race? Couldn't he have run Duckworth in a different race? Why so much focus on this one race, when a little extra money elsewhere (e.g. IL-10) could have done a lot of good?

Let's face it, this is mostly about money. The DLC (or DCCC) has a lot of money to inject into these campaigns. That's one of the things that allows them to recruit good candidates -- they can promise financial support.

But for my money -- and it *is* my money -- the DLC seems out of touch with the netroots community, and late to the party when it comes to a winning stategy. And by that I mean that the DLC/DCCC seem to me to be the posterboys and girls for triangulation -- finger in the wind, and go with the flow. Sometimes you have to stand on principle and simply make the argument that your point of view is right. (Actually convince people to follow you, rather than trying to find out where the crowd is already going, and just jumping out in front of it.)

Rham Emanuel surfed this blue wave. But the netroots helped really create and build the wave.

So this year I gave zero money to the DCCC. I gave my money directly to candidates. I gave the most to my local democratic challenger (Dan Seals, IL-10), but I also supported candidates in Indiana and Arizona -- who I wouldn't have known anything about without the internet. The only centralized money source I supported was Al Franken's "Midwest Values PAC".

Bottom line, we are all in this together. The leadership of the party will eventually learn to embrace the netroots community as they come to realize its value. And we can vote with our pocketbooks. Right now, the DLC/DCCC are a little bit stuck in the past, catering to corporate money and trying hard to model themselves as "Republican-lite" instead of the true Democratic party.

I believe this will change over time. But we will have to work at it.

-- ARG

=== The DCCC represents the status quo powers structure of the Democratic Party. Their goal is to take power from Republicans without upsetting the balance of power within the Democratic Party. ===

Actually, I would say that the DCCC/DSCC/DLC's goal is to take power from the Republicans without disturbing the power structure of Washington DC and the country. They have no philosophical problem with the K Street Project, the Bankruptcy Bill, the Telecommuncations Act, the DMCA, the Disney decision, even the Torture Bill. They just want the K Street cash redirected to them and their friends.

sPh

Yup. You get the feeling that too many of them are simply waiting for "their turn at the trough," and those are the Dems that need to go.

I think the Dems will be disappointed with the trough once they belly-up. Even when the balance of power was clearly beginning to shift in the house, the corporations were still giving two-to-one to the R's (an improvement over the five-to-one of 2004). This is not the seventies or eighties. Corporations now know where their bread is buttered. The ratio will never be better than two-to-one, R's over D's.

Plus, Rahm supports a moderate-Republican economic policy - i.e., fiscal austerity and pro-long-bond policies. While better than the borrow-and-spend polices of Bush/Reagan, they are not policies that advance the economic interests of the middle class. We need a compreheisive program to reestablish economic security for working and middle class Americans: universal health insurance, worthwhile unemploymeny insurance, and renegotiation of labor and environmental standards in our trade agreements with the developing world. Something on alternative energy would be nice as well.

As long as Emmanuel is as beholden to the financial service industries as the Republicans were to oil and gas, we will not have progressive change in America with him in a leadership role in the Democratic Party. This is why he should be opposed, not because he is taking too much credit for our electoral win in 2006.

Kos is being very high-minded about this. The only one missing now is Rahm.

I still say throw the SOB under the bus, but in the past my opinion has not generally been regarded as very weighty.

I applied silly to the people denigrating the netroots. Many of the people attacking the netroots are the people who attacked the unions in the '90s, and they are as stupid now as they were then. It is silly to me when informed people doubt the netroots contribution to 2006.

Rahm is not perfect, he was wrong not to use the Iraq war against Republicans earlier, and he acknowledges it. No doubt he made many other tactical mistakes, and I'm no fan of his centrist politics, but his job was to win the house for the Democratic party and we won the house.

The attacks on Rahm personally and the DCCC generally are more confused than silly. Many people confuse IE expenditures with overall DCCC spending, don't understand that the DCCC chair answers to the elected Democratic congressmen, mis-understand the legal limitations of being a party committee, or confuse the DLC with the DCCC and think that the DLC funds candidates.

I don't know what it would mean for the netroots to 'defy' the DCCC, the term covers too diverse a collection of independent people and I haven't seen any party heads try to order it around.

OK, I've just got touchy about the "silly" label.

Was it Schumer or Emmanuel who explained that he was running an incumbency-protection group? That description may appeal to the big-money donors (who like doing business with the same people year after year) but like a lot of grassroots Democrats I find it highly offensive. One of the Democrats' enormous problems is that the pros, consultants, and safe incumbents can do very well personally even when the party and the nation are doing badly.

My main point is that we should look at what happened month by month and case by case. For example, the Duckworth and Wetterling races don't make the DCCC look good, and in the months leading up to the election I think that Emmanuel made a number of bad moves.

And then after the investigation has been concluded, we should use the results to decide on future leadership and future strategy. Right now Emmanuel is using his institutional position to make sure that he comes out on top, and I think that he should be resisted.

And sure, he's learned a thing or two and is less resistant to the netroots than he used to be, but I don't think that he should be the one to decide what he learns and what he refuses to learn.

I am willing to grant the possibility that, in the end, it will be a wash -- in some ways Emmanuel is right, and in others Kos et al were right. But what I see happening is Emmanuel consolidating his position without netroots input and without acknowledging the netroots.

"Netroots" is not my word, BTW, but everyone else uses it so I do. You get what I mean.

Rewritten:
Centers are never that interesting. The party won the election because the center moved and someone noticed. But that motion did not begin on the perimiter, at least not on the perimiter of the middle class, and it also did not begin with the party itself or with the leadership. The party adapted, or was forced to adapt. The netroots were closer to expressing the values of mainstream america because in a very real way they were mainstream america. Kos is not a leftist, and he's not a genius, and he's certainly not my hero. But a more decent sort of mediocrity is now the order of the day, because that more decent sort of mediocrity is in the mainstream of American life.
---
On Clinton, Biden and Obama:
Biden is toast. Clinton has played the game for power without standing for much. I'm betting she's actually a loser long-term after this election. Better to watch Pelosi. Obama is smart and slick. He's annoying but we'll see what happens. He might grow into something. He might front something better.

Middle America is now made up of of sushi-eatiing, bi-lingual Eisenhower republicans with gay neighbors. The Democratic party did not make that happen and were not even the first to notice, but they noticed.

I note in the excerpt from Kevin Drum that "Dean said nice things" about Rahm Emmanuel, and I have to wonder if Rahm WILL "return the favor." I'm no Deaniac and perhaps I am naive, but Howard Dean's efforts seem geared foremost toward building a progressive Democratic movement and party. He may ultimately reap personal political advancement from it, but that seems a long way down the road and secondary. Dean could have responded to his 2004 fate bitterly, but he chose to engage. I admire that.
OTOH, Emmanuel seems ultimately out to assure his place in some "inner circle" of Democratic power. His efforts seem more clearly motivated for his own gain as the ultimate end. Helping the party seems a tool in this quest. Perhaps not, but that's the impression from this outsider.

Is my job now to hold the newly elected Dems to the higher standards the lack of which cost so many Republicans their offices?

You shouldn't be watching just the Democrats. We should be watching the entire Congress - member by member in detail and daily like a horde of crusading muckraking journalists.

In the past after the election was over the campaign committees folded up, the money people put their checkbooks away, and the pollsters who were finding out how the voters felt sharply reduced their effort. All that was left was phone calls and letters to the Congresscritters which they could do whatever they wanted to do about.

No more. Right now I have three questions.
1. Can Louisiana Rep. Jefferson be defeated in his run-off?
2. What happened in the voting machines in Florida CD 13 (Katherine Harris' old district?)
3. And how can we take down Bob Perry (lawsuits? Criminal actions? Forbidding all robo-calls in the last two weeks before the election on penalty of both criminal and civil procedures?

But that's just tonight. I'm sure more will occur to me tomorrow.

Can we create a set of blogs for each and every Senator and Congresscritter up there? Can we do it in a manner that prevents them from coopting it for themselves? In effect that could be a set of permanent opposition and supporting committees for each individual in Congress. They could link to every news article on each person within days, using only (or mostly) volunteer labor. [The savvy congresscritters would begin planting favorable articles.]

Can this same level of scrutiney begin to be applied at state, county, city, and other legal entity (like water districts and school districts?)

I live in Fort Worth, and we have more registered voters here in Tarrant County than Montana has people. [About 930,000 registered voters.] There is a boondoggle being created by developers here to create a major development centered on a stretch of the Trinity River right under the county courthouse (which is that beautiful old red brick courthouse you saw on Walker, Texas Ranger. That's not Dallas - That's Fort Worth!) Millions of dollars, and Congresswoman Kay Granger's son is heading up the operation. [Typical Republican qualifications - he came from the right family.] It should be getting the same treatment that our candidates for office get.

You're correct. This isn't over. I think it has only just begun.

You are so right. Thank you for framing it in this way.

I'm going to forward it to a few friends.

"I don't belong to any organized poltical party...I'am a Democrat"
Will Rogers-1930's