The War Among the DemocratsHoward Fineman is back with a
reasonable (if fence-sitting) column on the coming spat between the DLC (moderate Democrats) and the liberal blogosphere.
Rosenberg rejects that notion that the bloggers represent a new “Internet Left.” It’s not an ideological rift, he says, but a “narrative” of independence versus capitulation: too many Democrats here are too yielding to George W. Bush on the war in Iraq, on tax policy, you name it. “What the blogs have developed is a narrative,” he told me the other day,” and the narrative is that the official Washington party has become like Vichy France.”Heheh. Yeah, if you believe that Bush is Hitler and the US is the new Nazi Germany, then I guess you could analogize the moderate Democrats as Vichy collaborationists.
Oddly, Fineman seems disinclined to pop the bloggers' bubble. When discussing the evaporating candidacy of Howard Dean in 2004, he notes:
The First Battle of Bull Run (or First Manassas, if you insist) in this civil war occurred in 2003 and early 2004, when party insiders, the Mainstream Media and a network of long-time “funders” anointed Sen. John Kerry, only to see him get chewed up in the early going by Gov. Howard Dean.Hmmmm. Kerry actually only got chewed up in the blogs and in the punditocracy. When the Democrats started having caucuses and primaries, he crushed Dean like an ant. And that to me is the real story of the Lefty Blogosphere. Yeah, they can raise money for angry candidates like Dean and Paul Hackett. But can they deliver the voters? There is zero evidence of their efficacy on the only day that matters: Election Day.
Strategically, Clinton has no higher priority than reaching out to what Rosenberg calls “the emerging activist class” and word is that, through aides and advisors, she is doing just that: they have set up meetings with key bloggers.If she's smart, she'll stay away from Kos and Atrios and those idiots. She doesn't need them to win the Democratic primaries. Indeed, the sensible thing would be for her to publicly distance herself from them; it could be another Sister Soljah moment.
