How Delusional Are These People?Answer: Pretty delusional.
Power Line points to a post
over at MyDD about the race for the Democratic nomination.
I agree with Mirengoff's take:
But what both Obama and Clinton have figured out is that the best way to protect themselves from Republican criticism (aka "rightwing ammo") in the general election is by not allowing their positions and their persona to be shaped by the hard left. If Obama is nominated, the left-wing bloggers will do their bit by urging leftists (the only group with whose voting pattern they even arguably can influence) to vote for him. And, having kept his distance from these bloggers, Obama will be in a good position to compete for independent and centrist voters.
The same situation will obtain if, as seems likely, Hillary is the nominee.
But I had to chortle when I got over to the Jerome Armstrong post, because it is thoroughly deluded:
In Obama latest, he sent me an email titled, "What a movement looks like?" His campaign probably didn't notice the slip, but it's an obvious truth--that adding that "?" in the title. Maybe, he thinks, he's in one... maybe not... who can tell? He wouldn't have a clue, I'm beginning to think-- that the campaign really doesn't know what a movement is made up of and are fumbling in the dark amidst their media-created momentum (which is getting primed to turn on its creation). And who's got Obama's back when the media does turns on its creation? The netroots doesn't; he's never aligned with the existing movement that began with Dean in '02, swelled for Wesley Clark in '03, led Dean to the DNC Chair and propelled the Hackett and Lamont candidacies, leading to the surge of activists voting for Democrats in '06.
Yeah, they did a lot for Howard Dean in '02, and Weasely Clark in '03, so much that these two combined for 2 primary wins in 2004. And they propelled the Hackett and Lamont candidacies to defeat, not victory, remember?
It's ludicrous that some point toward the outreach and early partnership that Edwards has done with the blogging community and the netroots in the same manner that a candidate reaches out to an issue base group, and and argue from there that Obama doesn't kowtow to such groups. First of all, that's bs, he does plenty of pandering and is very ordinary in that regard; but more fundamentally, this is the base of the Democratic party's rapid response team. The issue is combating the rightwing machine in unison with Democratic candidates, but you can't partner with a candidate that not inclined to join the partisan progressive movement. In all those emails, Obama has never once even associated with the word Democrat or Democratic, not mentioning either word even once. Edwards and Clinton do. Whose nomination is Obama running for?
Translation: He panders to us, just not enough to make us feel important.
Labels: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Netroots Kooks
