The Crazy World of the Liberal Bloggers(Welcome fellow
Wizbang readers! Thanks
Lorie!)
Byron York
infiltrates the Kossacks in Las Vegas, and highlights something that I've been talking about here for awhile; the tendency for the liberal blogosphere to think they've won when they beat other Democrats. Or even when they don't:
From that modest beginning, according to Moulitsas’s storyline, came triumph just one year later. “2003 was the year of Howard Dean,” Moulitsas said, “where an unknown governor from a small, remote, and usually forgotten state was propelled to front-runner status on the strength of people power.”
Then came a setback. “2004,” said Moulitsas, “yeah, let’s not talk about 2004.” But after that, another triumph. “2005 was the year we helped Howard Dean become DNC chairman. We also helped Paul Hackett prove that a strong unapologetic progressive voice could compete in a blood-red conservative district.”
The odd thing was that Moulitsas’s victories weren’t actually victories. 2003 might have been the year of candidate Howard Dean, but 2004 was the year in which the Democratic presidential nominee was actually chosen—and Dean lost. And while 2005 was indeed the year Dean ascended to the top of the DNC, it would be a mistake to attribute his victory mostly to Moulitsas’s influence. And Paul Hackett, a Moulitsas favorite who ran for a seat in the House from Ohio in 2005—well, he lost. And so did more than a dozen other candidates who ran with Moulitsas’s support.
What’s more, some of them lost in part because they said the kind of things that bring cheers on the DailyKos but that turn off many voters. Hackett not only called President Bush a “chickenhawk,” he also said—echoing earlier statements by Moulitsas himself—that “the Republican party has been hijacked by the religious fanatics that, in my opinion, aren’t a whole lot different from Osama bin Laden.” Voters thought he was a bit over the top—just like some of the bloggers who supported him.Kos was on with Sam Seder on Air America Radio last night as I was driving home, and was consumed with triumphalism over the nomination of Jon Tester. The funny thing is that the more he went on and on about how they beat the DLC candidate, the more I realized that they kayoed the guy who had a chance to defeat Senator Conrad Burns in November. The DLC candidate was the son of a former governor, an attorney with great name recognition and contacts in the state, while Tester's an organic farmer.
