Netroots on the rise

AUSTIN, Texas — Thousands of progressive bloggers and other online activists descended upon the Lone Star State last weekend for the Netroots Nation conference, the largest such annual gathering in the country.

The title refers to the “netroots,” or the name given to the left side of the blogosphere, which has increasingly become an important and influential part of politics.

“The netroots are bloggers and activists that are trying to change this country and return it to the province of the voters,” Jim Dean, head of Democracy for America, told the Independent. “It’s about getting citizens to take responsibility for the political process and bring us back in charge.”

Many Democratic politicians from around the nation considered the conference important enough to attend. Locals included New Mexico Democratic candidates Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan. Other Democratic congressional candidates were in attendance, including Dan Seals from Illinois; Darcy Burner from Washington; and Rick Noriega, Senate candidate from Texas. The biggest scheduled names were Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

And former Vice President Al Gore made a surprise appearance. The “worst-kept secret at Netroots Nation” according to Square State writer johne was that Gore was going to make a special appearance. Gore spoke after a sometimes-contentious “Ask the Speaker” session with Pelosi.

Perhaps an even bigger surprise appearance was a presidential candidate: Libertarian Bob Barr stopped by for Saturday’s session. Barr also attended the smaller RightOnline conference, a conference for conservatives and Democrats also held in Austin. The headliners for that event were controversial conservative blogger Michelle Malkin and conservative columnist Bob Novak. 

As evidenced by the guest list, the Netroots are a growing force in American politics capable of drawing top names and to raise vast amounts of campaign cash. To that, many Netroots would add a goal of organizing people for elections. 

The most common analogy drawn in political circles these days is that the Netroots are to the Democratic party what Talk Radio was to the Republican party two decades ago. Except instead of exhorting conservative activists to become the infantry in a battle to take over the Republican party, it’s progressives who are flexing their muscles against what some of them some view as the moderate — and predominant faction — in the Democratic party.

That tension was occasionally on display during the weekend. As in when many in attendance showed their pocket-sized U.S. Constitutions when Pelosi answered a question about FISA.  Anti-war protesters Code Pink stood directly in Pelosi’s line of sight for much of her appearance.

Kos v. DLC

 

The Netroots Nation session featuring Daily Kos founder Moulitas and Democratic Leadership Council Chairman Harold Ford Jr. also teased out the tension between more progressive Democrats like Moulitas and more centrist ones like Ford. Many netroots activists dismiss the DLC and its preferred candidates as "Republican-lite."

 

"The people are ready for a progressive America,” Moulitas said to big applause. He added, “You’ve got to give people a clear distinction. What we really don’t like is Democrats who are afraid to be Democrats!"

 

While Ford didn’t back down from his contention that in some parts of the country Democrats need to be more pragmatic, less ideological, and even content with less-than-pure progressive candidates, he often embraced a more diplomatic tone.

 

"I think our differences are far more overstated,” he said citing common ground on issues like the push for universal health care, energy and education policy. “And we can’t win without the other," he said. He later added his play-to-the-crowd trump card: “I want to see Barack Obama elected president of the United States.” Enthusiastic applause ensued.

 

At the end of their session together, Moulitas put the netroots-DLC divide in more relaxed, even comic terms.

 

“We’re a big tent party. I think it’s more creepy when a married couple doesn’t fight,” he said to a spattering of laughter.

Fundraising Capabilities

Many media stories on the netroots include the amount of money candidates are able to raise online. The Democratic fundraising site ActBlue has raised more than $55 million for Democratic candidates over the past four years.

According to its website, ActBlue is “a federal PAC that enables anyone — individuals, local groups, and national organizations — to fundraise for the Democratic candidates of their choice.” The site has fundraising pages for Democrats in every state in nearly every race.

The site rated Heinrich one of the top politicians for online fundraising at the end of the second quarter. Heinrich raised nearly $100,000 in less than two weeks all through ActBlue. This represented about one-fifth of the total money he raised in the quarter from all other sources at other times.

Others were even more successful.

The Independent spoke with David Goldstein, the blogger in chief at Horse’s Ass, about a recent fundraiser for Darcy Burner after her house burned down. The netroots, local and national alike, sought to raise $150,000 for Burner’s campaign after Burner’s house burned down so she would be able to “get her house in order” without needing to raise money for the campaign.

“It’s an entire community. Maybe I raised eight, nine thousand dollars for Darcy, after the fire. That’s great. But it’s Markos (Moulitas, or Kos, from Daily Kos, pictured above) who raised a bulk of the money,” Goldstein told the Independent. “As a local blogger, maybe I’ll have two, three thousand readers a day … he’s reaching half a million to a million people a day.”

Goldstein said the fundraiser is around $5,000 short of the goal with 10 days to go.

Organizing

But, according to Adam Green, Civic Communications Director of MoveOn.org, the influence of the netroots is not just related to padding campaign war chests.

“Fundraising is just the beginning,” Green told the Independent.

The great ability of the Internet and the netroots, Green says, is to be able to organize people to effect change.

“Modern online tools empower regular people to hold events in their community, to write letters to the editor in mass quantities online and to actually just get in touch with each other in ways that were not possible before,” Green said.

A great example of being able to get in touch is Twitter. Twitter describes itself as follows on its Frequently Asked Questions page:

 

 

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool. Developers can use the API to make Twitter tools of their own. Possibilities are endless!

 

One blogger looked at the Twitter difference between Netroots Nation and RightOnline to see which conference used the Twitter tags for their respective conventions more than the other.
 

Twitter was used to spread the word that Gore and Barr were in attendance. Within minutes of Barr’s appearance, Netroots Nation attendees spread the word of where Barr was and what sessions he was attending.

When rumors of a special guest appearance swept through the convention center, questions and confirmation spread through Twitter more quickly than spoken word could.

In one session, Barr received sarcastic applause as he was leaving.

The panel on stage in the Exhibit Hall 4, the largest area in the Austin Convention Center, included Moulitas from Daily Kos, James L and DavidNYC from Swing State Project, Jonathon Singer from MyDD and brownsox from Daily Kos.

Brownsox mentioned Barr, and the crowd cheered and applauded the Libertarian Party candidate as he left the exhibit hall.

Much of the talk didn’t focus on Barack Obama at the event. The feeling on the ground seemed that Obama is looking like the favorite.

Nate Silver of the polling analysis website FiveThirtyEight.com wrote, “Everyone I spoke with this weekend expects Obama to win, to a degree that somewhat exceeds the relatively tight standing in the polling.”

Instead, much of the talk was about how to spread the netroots as well as get “more and better Democrats” elected to Congress and the Senate. The presidential race was almost secondary to many attendees.

"All of the things that are going into this convention in particular," Jim Dean said, "the training that we’re doing, all of the other seminars and everything is all geared towards getting people not to just play a role in getting somebody elected, but to be able to move that beyond so that we can actually get something done and change this country."

 

Moving Beyond the Past

The power of the netroots was demonstrated in 2004 with the presidential candidacy of Howard Dean. Dean, the former Vermont governor, began the campaign well behind better-known candidates. But armed with the support of what Dean called the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party” and the newly emerging netroots, Dean rocketed to frontrunner status. Though his campaign eventually cratered after his infamous “Dean scream,” many saw the power of the netroots in Dean’s meteoric rise.

In 2006, the netroots scored what was their biggest victory to date in Connecticut, with the defeat of Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary. Just six years earlier, Lieberman had the support of the Democratic Party as the vice presidential candidate underneath then-Democratic candidate Gore. The two lost in an historically close and controversial election.

But by 2006, the netroots had expanded, refined their positions and become a political factor. They turned their sights toward the Lieberman seat.

The netroots galvanized behind anti-war candidate Ned Lamont in the primary and pulled off the unthinkable. With a huge and consistent amount of support from the netroots, Lamont defeated a three-term Senator. But the victory proved to by a pyrrhic one for the netroots candidate, as Lamont lost in the general election to Lieberman, who ran as an independent on the "Connecticut for Lieberman" ticket.

Other victories in the 2006 general election paved the way for the current strength of the netroots. Jerry McNerney, born in Albuquerque, defeated Richard Pombo in the general election in California’s 11th Congressional District. Pombo was a seven-term congressman and the chairman of the powerful House Resources Committee. Other close races tilted toward Democratic candidates with netroots backing in 2006, paving the way for the current strength in 2008.

With 2,500 netroots activists, bloggers and readers going deep in the heart of George W. Bush’s home state, and netroots candidates looking poised to take seats in November, the growing influence of the netroots is unmistakable.