The Movement is in The Party
Howard Dean and Ned Lamont are the iconic Netroots candidates of the 2004 and 2006 cycles. They were Boomers who, despite little personal experience with or connection to internet politics prior to their campaigns, were able to ride a wave of support from organizers, fundraisers and bloggers to more serious challenges than anyone could have expected. But their campaigns may just have been a testing grounds for what we're now seeing: Netroots candidates.
These are not candidates simply supported by online communities and activists as Dean and Lamont were, they're folks of the Netroots whose rhetoric comes directly from it and who, again unlike Dean and Lamont, are obviously personally experienced with it.
Take Donna Edwards, whose victory last Tuesday was a dramatic win for both the general Netroots and its prominent leaders like Matt Stoller of OpenLeft and the quickly growing "Blackroots" and its leaders like James Rucker of Color of Change. Edwards raised $400,000 through Act Blue (a clearing house for online cash for Dems) from online communities by running against incumbent Al Wynn from the left on Iraq, political corruption, FISA legislation, and other core Netroots issues.
And unlike Dean and Lamont, her fluency in Netroots culture is obvious. On election night she cut videos thanking a half dozen political blogs and offering little inside jokes. For months she's been talking to Matt Stoller's webcam to make her opinions known.
Or, looking forward, take candidates like Darcy Burner. Burner, who sent this picture over to Atrios yesterday to offers congratulations on his birthday and who, like Edwards, has been around the movement at events like Yearly Kos using Netroots language about standing up to Bush on Iraq and the War on Terror and against Democrats who don't. Burner is running for the House for a second time and, with $150,000 through ActBlue already, is likely to improve on her near-miss in 2006.
If the pattern continues, and something like a Netroots caucus begins to form in congress (small though it may be at first), we may see a fascinating Movement/Party synergy that could bring a new generation of rhetoric and power to DC.
As Todd Gitlin observed in The Bulldozer and the Big Tent, the Movement is in the Party. Watch out.
Comments (7)
So when does the party wake up to this? I know, it takes time. But both Clinton and Obama stayed away from Ned Lamont when he needed their help and Nancy Pelosi supported Al Wynn, effectively telling the netroots that the Democratic establishment won't support insurgencies against incumbents.
The party apparatus is going to have to realize that some of us want more than majorities in both houses and the White House. We want to shape the party as much as we want the party to win elections.
February 19, 2008 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
...using Netroots language about standing up to Bush on Iraq and the War on Terror...
What's "netroots language"?
I realize I live on the East Coast, so I obviously have no idea what "real America" sounds like. Although my state is "significant," so maybe I do.
Anyway, what I hear when I talk to non-bloggers (pretty much everyone I know...) sounds exactly what I hear on the blogs: "Bush must go," "We need to get out of Iraq," "Global warming is a real problem."
And many of these people aren't latte-drinking liberals, either.
I'm not discounting the idea that there is something going on with the "netroots," and maybe it is a "movement," but I also think that The People are way ahead of the politicians and the pundits and the conventional wisdom that's being passed around.
It might just be that netroots candidates are winning because they are saying the same things that people everywhere are saying.
February 19, 2008 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's not ONLY the language of the Netroots which, as a social movement, is certainly supposed to sound more like "the people" than folks in DC. It's just a language and attitude that has been pushed by the Netroots. The candidates are of the Movement, not just loosely allied with it. So it's logical that their spirit would be more in tune with the Movement, and with the people who flooded into it from the bottom up.
February 19, 2008 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
But be aware that you may soon have a Democratic president that does not think that much of "the language of netroots" is helpful at all, indeed, here he said in the past specifically that it was most definitely not:
Tone, Truth, and the Democratic Party
by Barack Obama:
I noted with interest when his 20-something speechwriters admitted to the New York Times that they look to the 60's for inspiration, a very retro theme, not "netroots."
And I don't think utilizing the internet for small donations is the same thing as "netroots," not at all, not unless knowing how to use ebay and amazon.com qualifies someone as being "netroots."
While I don't think Obama as president is going to make "netroots" into his Sister Souljah, I do think he is very much into carefully controlling message, and that does not bode well for involving "netroots." As a matter of fact, from what I have seen him say and do, I can easily see a President Obama fighting a netroots effort to affect Congressional legislation he wants by specifically naming a netroots group like they were lobbyists trying to derail something he was trying to do. He's not clueless about it, very true, he recognizes "netroots," but so far he hasn't shown any liking of it, rather, he says over and over he's into creating unity among a majority of the American public, and is very anti-interest group, and I take that as a true belief.
I also found "his explanation of abstaining from the vote on move.org's Patraeus ad" to be indicative of this. He doesn't want netroots interest groups or the reaction to them defining message.
He really seems to want to let majority of voters rule, to govern for the majority, not activists on issues. Maybe it's because he's seen activism up close? That's speculation. Whatever the reason, that's the message I get from everything he says and does.
February 19, 2008 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
second link in the above didn't take, here's the url:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/09/20/372106.aspx
February 19, 2008 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's not clueless about it, very true, he recognizes "netroots," but so far he hasn't shown any liking of it
Good point about Obama. I think many people get confused about this, because he and his organization have been extraordinarily successful with using social networking software and tools.
But that doesn't make him "netroots."
February 19, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. Seems like the best way to describe Obama is "popular with younger voters, some of whom consider themselves to be netroots."
Young and netroots aren't interchangeable. A lot of young voters believe all of that bipartisan Brodery stuff. Netroots are partisans.
Anyway, there's no way that Obama is a netroots candidate in the way that Ned Lamont was. He's a centrist running against partisanship.
And, as Aretappraiser pointed out, Obama himself would reject the netroots label.
February 19, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink