May 8, 2006
Right for the wrong reasons
Markos "Screw Them" Moulitsas has an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled "Hillary Clinton: Too Much of a Clinton Democrat?". His thesis is that Hillary cannot win the 2008 presidential election because she represents the mainline Democratic party machine, and not the vibrant, "netroot" progressives represented by the likes of Moulitsas and Howard Dean.
Well, he's right that Hillary can't win in 2008. But the reason is that progressives are in the minority. And while Bush may be an unpopular president who has - I am increasingly ready to believe - committed numerous illegal/unconstitutional acts, the kind of people who supported Howard Dean are completely crazy. Bush may be incompetent, but he's not insane.
Al Gore ran a largely Clinton-esque campaign and got narrowly defeated in the electoral college. The popular vote was essentially split 50%. John Kerry ran a campaign motivated in no small degree by an attempt to look and sound like a moonbat, and got pretty soundly defeated. Not a landslide, by any means, but a clear, undebatable verdict. There aren't nearly as many people on the hard Left as there are on the hard Right. The Democrats didn't do as good a job at mobilizing their base as the Republicans did, but it wouldn't have mattered: there aren't as many of them.
All the Republicans need to do to win the next election is run someone like McCain (not that I'm endorsing him) or anyone else who is visibly outside the influence of the Bushies and GOP machine. Or, they can just run a placeholder against the moonbat that will likely win the Democratic nomination and send sane people everywhere running for cover.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. Last week, Matt Drudge ran a piece showing that the Nielson bookscan reported that Moulitsas' book has only sold about 3,500 copies. Kos goes and posts a snarky, condescending piece showing how the numbers are artificially deflated and that the number of books sold is closer to 10,000 with another run of 50,000 in the works.
By comparison, both Ann Coulter and Michael Moore regularly move books in the mid-to-high 6-figure range, and the most recent Harry Potter book sold at least 4.1 million in it's first 48 hours, possibly as many as 6.9 million. Sales figures in the thousands, to me anyway, say that no one is buying this book, as thousands of books sold can probably be accomplished by libraries alone, many of them university libraries. Talk about preaching to the choir.
That's a real cultural phenomenon you've got going on there, Kos. The fact that he's so excited about moving mere thousands of books shows just how out of touch he is with the world as it is.
OK, just a few distinctions: moonbats aren't progressives. Progressives, in the best, most accurate sense of the term, are moderates (you know, like me), people who want to move beyond the silly and insular two party divide as it currently exists.
Posted by: JosiahQ at May 8, 2006 3:13 PMI'd like to be able to use the term "progressive" that way, but I'm afraid it has too much baggage. We certainly need a word for people like that, but when I hear "progressive", I hear "anti-business, pro-union, social-safety-netter". I don't hear "moderate".
But I do think that it's entirely possible to be a progressive without being crazy. Both Clintons are good examples.
Posted by: ryan at May 8, 2006 5:04 PMDaily Kos is one of the biggest blog sites. Just because his book is not getting the attention in the MSM does not prove he is out of touch with the world. I believe he has over 80k registered users on the Daily Kos and gets a half million or more hits a day. Seems to me lots of people are interested in what he & his writers have to say.
Kos is right about Hillary Clinton. Hillary is not taking any stand on issues of substance. She is playing it way too safe. For instance, last summer 14 Marines (mostly from Ohio) were killed in an IED explosion in Iraq, it was devastating news. Hillary gave a fundraiser speech and never mentioned it. She spoke about censoring video games and how violent they are, using the example of Grand Theft Auto. Arrgghh. She needs to take a stand on Iraq. She needs to call for Rumsfeld to resign, etc.. all of these things would give her leadership qualities.
Posted by: sandy at May 8, 2006 5:22 PMYes, the Internet certainly does function as an echo chamber. If there are really 80k registered users that means that approximately .03% of America is a registered Kos user. Whee. Half a million hits a day, you say? So does Slashdot. Penny Arcade gets about four times that, for crying out loud. Even if that were half a million unique visitors - which it isn't - we're still talking .2% of America.
Not exactly the core of a lefty majority. More like a niche Internet interest group. But if you can all talk to each other from all parts of the country at once, it can certainly seem pretty comfy.
About the book: "Getting attention in the MSM" is not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the number of books sold. By this standard, CTG is not a bestseller. Not even close. I'd bet that there are Ph.D. theses with a higher circulation volume than that.
Re: Hillary. In case you hadn't noticed, we're at war. This means that soldiers die. It's kind of what happens. Is it sad? Yes. Is it newsworthy? No. Does it pose any greater significance to our society or culture? No. Are our casualty rates in Iraq lower than in any previous military conflict? Last time I checked. She didn't mention it because it, not to sound callous, wasn't really worth mentioning. Soldiers dying in wartime is kind of like pilots losing contact with the ground. It's what they do.
Posted by: ryan at May 8, 2006 6:15 PM