TPMCafe was buzzing last night with debate about Matt Stoller's case for the Netroots as a new political movement of the Left. After tracing its birth from Clinton's impeachment through the Iraq War and Howard Dean to the 2006 midterms, Stoller argues that, in contrast to the New Left of the 1960s, this new political movement is diverse in age, concerned with economics and willing to take over institutions to build power.

Nathan Newman takes exception to Stoller's history. Newman argues that what Stoller describes as a political drought between 1970 and 1997 for the Left was actually a time marked by tremendous progress for causes like environmentalism and feminism. He cautions against taking many of the post-60s institutions that do exist for granted.

Like Newman, Max Sawicky focuses his critique on Stoller's historical narrative.

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Barack Obama:

“When you watch Clinton vs. Gingrich or Gore vs. Bush or Kerry vs. Bush….you feel like these are fights that were taking place back in dorm rooms in the sixties.”

Matt Stoller:

But instead of coming up with new ideas, the New Left turned inward and the liberals were scared away from political combat. You can see this today in how the new and progressive movement is basically without institutional help, mentorship, or funding. Retreat to academia and the personal sphere happened because the 1960s left ignored economics and failed to defend the public as a meaningful concept.

The first post-boomer generation of political leaders is chomping at the bit. And with the possibility of a generation political realignment and power in the Democratic Party shifting significantly in just a few years, we here at TPM thought it would be interesting to bring Netroots activist and super-blogger Matt Stoller to the Coffee House to build on his past writing on the Netroots and the New Left.

Matt will post his first thoughts soon, and for the rest of the week he'll be spending some time engaging you and other Coffee House writers on how he understands this new progressive movement. If you would like to contribute a longer thought, please feel free to compose a blog post and send me the link to be included with my daily summaries.