Shadow of the Hegemon has the answer:
The problem is that while having people provide your content for you is pretty much what “Web 2.0” is about, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Markos is going to be seen as anything but a representative for his own community. They’ll pander to him as much as they need to ensure that he keeps his people on-message and donating time and cash, but don’t really care about anything his diarists write. DailyKos isn’t like the “institutes”: nothing the diarists or commentators write is being cited on television or in print, or really acknowledged by anybody outside the community. None of them are going to be talking heads on television, and while some may have books, they aren’t going to be pushed like the right’s think-tank stuff. It seems to have stalled as being seen as a “community”, nothing more.
(Not surprising: a lot of the “netroots” seemed to stop paying attention to the actual generation and discussion of ideas back in 2004 or so, and for all their faults that’s what think tanks and instututes and the like are for. If Kos et al don’t care about anything other than scooping up as many bodies as possible under the label “Kossack”, not caring about what they’ve got to say, then why on earth should the Dem leadership?)
I must admit to feeling a bit of schadenfreude at seeing the socalled big boys of the liberal blogging world being treated as beyond consideration, since they themselves decided they didn’t need the little people anymore. It was Kos and co who decided to purge their blogrolls, to turn the open network of the liberal blogs into a closed, oneway pyramid with themselves at the top and all the little blogs feeding into them, but not the other way around. They thought they didn’t need to built a proper infrastructure, didn’t need to support smaller players, and now it turns out the Democratic apparatniks they’ve been chasing only want them for their readers? That’s worth a “ha-ha!”
Palau
August 6, 2007 at 5:37 amThat’s even worth a “Mwahahahahaha”.
bjacques
August 7, 2007 at 7:41 amI read the whole article. I can see the guy’s point and I agree that it’s a good thing that the Democratic candidates aren’t afraid of the netroots. If they don’t fear the progressive netroots then I hope they won’t kowtow to the conservative (not to mention wingnut) netroots either.
I don’t think the Democrats can ignore the netroots entirely. Sites like DailyKos are pretty good at aggregating and loosely coordinating local efforts (i.e., raising money and votes) and thus undermining DLC fiat. Internet-based politicking doesn’t guarantee better candidates but it does promise local citizens a better chance to decide who will represent them. It also enabled local Democrats last November to outflank the GOP money machine, which itself was outflanking candidates sticking to the DLC’s “key races” plan.
In short, I think candidates don’t have to follow the dictates of a DailyKos but they’d be crazy not to work with netroots. DailyKos and Firedoglake are not the only game in town and nor should they be. Short of another round of Enclosure Laws as with happened to the airwaves in the 1930s (in the US), the netroots could even bypass Markos.
Another, shorter point, is that not all progressive blogs are the “netroots.” Steve (PBUH) and Jen’s The News Blog was emphatically *not* a political support blog. It was a real news site. Steve had said many times that he would never make political endorsements nor work on any political campaign, even if he’d made his preferences clear. He was a journalist by trade and, since he had worked on local political campaigns in the past, he knew where to draw that line.
Blogs like Steve’s (and possibly the Group News Blog) might help progressive (or at least less rightwing ones) politicans but they don’t serve them. As long as bloggers and politicians (and their staff) understand the difference, the netroots will count. I think progressive bloggers by and large understand this better than conservative ones, and the smarter progressive politicians are catching on.
Palau
August 7, 2007 at 8:16 amI do think the big boys and girls o progressive bloggers need to decide whether they want to be players or commentators, because they can’t be both and stay honest.
Once you’re a player you’re on the inside and part of the very machine you criticise. You lose your detachment and if anything is important in politial blogging, it’s that.
bjacques
August 7, 2007 at 7:17 pmI agree totally, and I’m glad the Group News Blog folks understand that. Kewl Kids Klub tendencies aside, I’m glad Daily Kos do what they do, but I get my news mainly from the GNB (and UK political news here!).
Demosthenes
August 10, 2007 at 9:55 amThanks for the link. I’ve felt a bit of Schadenfreude myself, but the question that really grabbed me was the one that I think nobody has answered, and even I only speculated on: who do the Dems listen to, and why? If it were just about cash, they wouldn’t be anywhere near as contemptuous. Kos and the other big “Netroots” bloggers are efficient, successful bundlers, no matter the faults. There has to be something else that divides “worth listening to” vs. “worth ignoring”, and eugene didn’t even try to engage that question.
bjacques: good point, and I would extend that to blogs like, say, Crooked Timber. The “wonkosphere” DOES put out things that people read; what I think the problem is is that thanks to policy-averse leaders like Kos, the side of blogging that’s activist and the side of blogging that’s analytical and engages in policy advocacy are dividing up. Yes, many diarists and commentators on Kos are advocates of policy, but the site itself is “netroots”.
The biggest problem with the “wonkosphere” stuff, though, is that most of the people on it were analysts before they’d even heard of a blog. Henry Ferrell and Glenn Reynolds and Brad DeLong are academics first, bloggers second. While that’s common and not bad per se, it shows that “pure” bloggers tend to get ignored, especially if you’re pseudonymous. That’s a problem, because while a lot of famous bloggers use their own names, the vast majority of the “netroots” doesn’t, with good reason.