Please explain to me why anyone thinks any analysis of the "netroots" as some sort of monolithic entity is worth the pixels it occupies.

News flash: lots of different kinds of people read the internet. Lots of different kinds of people write blogs. They think lots of different things. There is no netroots, not as a discrete phenomenon with a discernible ideological valence or measurable influence.

I'm always perplexed by this notion that if only Candidate X had been Y percentage further in ideological direction Z, he would have won.

This strikes me as a question that misses an altogether fundamental problem. What if people just don't like Candidate X? Having never met the man, I can't speak to the truth of this, but my old boss told me what a Yalie friend of his said once: John Kerry was an asshole in 1965, and he's an asshole today, and that's why he lost.

Harsh. Maybe people just didn't like him.

I think Kerry picked a good ideological position to stake out for a Democratic candidate in the 2004 race - I can't see a substantial shift either right or left having done anything but hurt his prospects. Even on the war, taking a slightly more hawkish stance would probably have been just as good as long as he had been consistent with it. The real problem was that Bush's campaign managed to focus the debate about the war on Kerry's inconsistency rather than Bush's incompetence.

Rhetoric aside, the party as a whole is much, much more moderate than it was in the 70's or 80's

Actually, the Democratic congressional caucuses are more liberal today, due to the process of attrition that saw the defection/retirement/defeat of moderate-to-conservative Democrats. People today may bitch about Nelson, Lieberman, and Landrieu, but they're anomalies today where once they were common. For the last ten years or so, the parties have been much more ideologically-aligned than they ever have been.

Well, there is a way we can judge that point.

There was a candidate that did take a strong line against the war in Iraq - Howard Dean. The fact that he opposed the war from the get go was used as a reason that he lacked any credibility on National Security. The Washington Post said that he was "outside the mainstream" as did commentators too numerous to mention.

Dean has been both vindicated and unvindicated. At the time that he suggested that the capture of Saddam Hussein might not be a turning point, he was attacked for it. Blitzer framed the question "With the conflict pretty much over does [Dean]feel differently now?"

Now, a dozen or so false turning points later (does anyone even count them any more), its clear that he was right. If anyone in the mainstream media has pointed out that Dean was right all along, I've missed it.

Why would they have treated Kerry any different?

Well, they might not have, but part of the point behind Kerry's candidacy was that he had considerable foreign policy experience. If he had been an opponent of the war from the get-go, it would have been part of the debate over the war authorization, at a time when Democrats still held a majority in the Senate. Kerry would not have been harder to smear, but he would have been harder to ignore.

The bigger problem with Kerry was his inability to attack Bush aggressively, and particularly to attack Bush's phoney war on terrorism. All the pieces were there, he had Rand Beers, he had all kinds of facts about ports and planes, but he waited much too long to mount an attack on Bush's supposed strength. I think you could argue that this was a problem for Kerry accross the board, in contrast to Clinton in '92. I'm not sure Kerry was significantly ideologically different from Clinton, but he was much less aggressive and focused in his criticisms.

As my grandmother said when my uncle asked her if she'd voted for Stevenson like the family had prepped her to do, "No; I voted for Eisenhower; he has such a kindly face."

I really like the phrase "moderation on the issue of flag burning". It is an issue that does not lend itself to "moderation" -- burn flags only at rare occasions? Or to reverse it, breath nationalistic fire only at rare occasions? Foam at mouth in a judicious manner?

Gay marriage issue is a red herring. Small minority would see it as a litmus test issue. Support for state rights on this matter is a reasonable minimum that was clearly sufficient to majority, and this was also pretty much a consensus position of all more serious candidates, from Dean to Biden.

Next bunch of issues, what we do about the war, about torture and about the right of the government to snoop without judicial oversight. Without lengthy discussion, I think that "netroot" position are becoming majority position among American public. The peak of post 9/11 paranoia is over, and many of the people swept by the wave of this paranoia seem to suffer from hangover -- hence mediocre approval of Bush.

Environmental positions are subject of wide consensus, and so is Social Security (witness how Lieberman discovered that he ALWAYS opposed privatization).

On the issues of health care reform, taxes, and protectionism there is quite a spectrum of opinions, and it is hard for me to tell that liberal positions are vote loosers.

And then we have issues that netroots will forgive any candidate to be evasive, like military spending and support of Israel.

Scot Winship is connected to something called "Democtratic Strategist", and this has a whiff of sulphur. Someone said "a women should have bones, but they should not be visible". The fewer positions a candidate adopts "strategically", the better --- at least, the fewer position he (or she!) is perceived to adopt strategically, the better. Hence the appeal of Feingold, a very moderate Senator who nevertheless does not look at all like being a strategist. Try to attack Feingold for flip-flopping!

The "Boll Weevil Democrats" of the early 80s certainly abetted Reagan. There were still an enormous number of conservative southern democrats in congress right down to 1994, which is why Democratic congresses didn't actually do much in the way of passing major progressive legislation. On the other hand, Democratic control of the house was generally able to prevent the worst Republican excesses from coming to fruition - but this is a function of the fact that Democrats controlled the House. The current democratic crop in the house would presumably do the same thing if they had a majority, but a house minority is basically worthless for anything except rhetorical activity.

The Democrats who participated in the IA caucuses and NH primary liked him, and given the way our system is set up, the rest of us pretty much have to defer to their judgment.

I'm sure some people voted for Kerry for random reasons as well. Can you really devise a better way of choosing candidates based on having a "good" personality? Can you figuer that out in advance and promote it? Who should win in 2008 based on that metric?

Given the difficulties inherent in that, it's no wonder everyone analyzes small differences in policy positions, etc.

They won't need flip-flopping with Feingold. They'll paint him as far outside the mainstream on foreign policy (Patriot Act, etc.) and as way too liberal domestically, as they could with any Dem Senator to some extent. They'll say he voted to raise taxes 303 times, just like they did with Kerry.

Someone with a short record, say Mark Warner (or GWB in 2000), would have an easier time dodging those sorts of bullets. Never had to take a position on the war or anything related to it.

I think this analysis is both right and wrong:-)

What I mean by that is yes, there are very few of the old style Conservative Democrats left in either the House or especially the Senate. But the resulting set of "liberals" are not as far left as the liberals that were there in the 60s-80s.

Or put more simply, there are more of them but they aren't as far left.

I think you could argue that this was a problem for Kerry accross the board, in contrast to Clinton in '92. I'm not sure Kerry was significantly ideologically different from Clinton, but he was much less aggressive and focused in his criticisms.

Yes. This is really true you must know when to go on the attack and Kerry didn't respond to the attacks well. It was Hiliary who told Bill that he had to respond to the attacks or people would simply beleive what was said. Sometimes, people are unable to see the forest for the trees. Hiliary was the one who had to go on the offensive to counter the 'womanizing' issues Bill had. 

Kerry it seems was too busy being a statesman even Edwards urged him to go on the attack, without being negative but just attack the issues dead on. Edwards understands people better than Kerry.

What you can say about Kerry was that he was too soft on conservativism, which isn't the same thing as being too conservative.

You win elections by turning out your base and by grabbing the center. You can get the votes of the center two ways - slide to them or drag them to you. Sliding to the center suppresses your base. Kerry's base turned out in droves, so he didn't go too conservative, obviously. He didn't do enough to discredit conservatism, though. He didn't pull enough of the center to the left.

It isn't enough to figure out what the majority want and convince them that you'll give it to them. You have to change what some people want or you're just wasting opportunities. Republicans managed to make middle-class people want to end inheritance taxes. Why can't we point to similarly staggering accomplishments on the Democratic side?
Njorl