You see folks, it's always about the money.
This was all spelled out in Crashing The Gate; Netroots, Grassroots And The Rise Of People Powered Politics, a chewy little book penned by The Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas and MyDD founder Jerome Armstrong. They set out to discover why Democrats keep losing elections. What they found were consultants, pollsters and pundits that were all chummy with the DC heads of the Democratic party resulting in placing themselves as a conduit between local candidates and large donors controlled by the DC power structure. As a result, the money came with a team of folks to tell the local candidates how to spend the money, usually on them.
The loyalty of these consultants lay with their paymasters and the continuation of the gravy train, not the winning of campaigns. They would urge candidates to not take strong positions, in fear of being labelled "extremists." It makes it sorta tough to get excited about a candidate who is excited about nothing. When the candidate lost, the consultants would go back to DC and wait for the next poor ideological sap they could shape into their mold.
To be fair, these pundits don't like us bloggers either. From DownWithTyranny:
The thing all these successful candidates share in common is backing by the same dirty-necked bloggers and netroots activists that pundits have been calling the political kiss of death.
(emphasis added) I wonder whose death it is they're talking about?
Of course, their were many other reasons Dems would lose, but this is main one.
Now, back to Dean, Rahm and James.
In an article in the New York Times, Ad Nag says this:
Mr. Emanuel warred with Mr. Dean over his refusal to provide as much money as Mr. Emanuel said he needed.
He said Wednesday that a favored candidate, Tammy Duckworth, the severely injured Iraq war veteran running for an open Republican seat in Illinois, had lost because the Republicans had spent $1 million on negative advertisements against her in the final weekend and that he did not have the money to respond.
Now Tammy Duckworth served our country in Iraq, and left both of her legs over there. She was also for a stay-the-course policy in Iraq, and Rahm continually counseled his picks to not talk about the war. See what I'm sayin'? Rahm broke the rules by getting involved in the primary to support Duckworth, winning the primary by like 200 votes or something. Overall, Rahm spent $3 million dollars to lose this race.
And now they're whining that Dean didn't give them a couple million more to waste.
I get emails from the DNC, the DCCC, and the DSCC (Chuck Schumers committee) all asking for contributions as do legions of other people as well. Those who donated to Dean could have chosen to donate to Rahm so he could flush it down the shitter of yesterday. If Dean would have given donations that he received to enrich the beltway consultant class of running milquetoast campaigns, the system would be difficult to repair.
Dean is trying to build a national party. For too long, the Dems in control have focused on the coasts and Chicago. Those days are in the past, and those of us in the netroots are determined to throw this country on our shoulders and drag it forward.
As far as the rajin Cajin is concerned, I find it interesting that, being close to Hillary and all, he is outraged at the influence Dean holds at the local and state level. These are the people who will nominate the Democratic candidate for President. Sorta makes you wonder, huh.
