Comments on: What the “Left’s New Machine” has to teach the right http://www.eyeon08.com/2007/05/07/what-the-lefts-new-machine-has-to-teach-the-right/ Covering the 2008 election Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:43:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.5 by: Matt Browner Hamlin http://www.eyeon08.com/2007/05/07/what-the-lefts-new-machine-has-to-teach-the-right/#comment-28599 Thu, 10 May 2007 13:12:15 +0000 http://www.eyeon08.com/2007/05/07/what-the-lefts-new-machine-has-to-teach-the-right/#comment-28599 <i>Third, because they are more interested in the Democratic Party than some interest, they can focus their energy on elections and the big defining issues, like the war, rather than petty infighting.</i> I think is an incredibly important point. The only thing that I'd add is that people in the netroots act in large part on the assumption that by operating under the progressive/electoral banner of activism an environment will be eventually created through electoral politics where the concerns of particular Democratic coalition interest groups can be addressed, without the in-fighting. It's not that the traditional interests (labor, civil rights groups, environmental issues, etc) aren't important to the netroots, but that there is an empirically based distrust of relying on interest groups to achieve movement-wide success. This distrust is perfectly exemplified by groups like NARAL, Planned Parenthood or the Sierra Club endorsing people like Chris Shays, Lincoln Chafee and Joe Lieberman over Democrats who held similar or more liberal positions on abortion rights and the environment. Any politically-savvy person knows that who a person caucuses with cannot be separated from what the vote when a vote is finally called. That is, it's never <i>just</i> the vote that matters. All that said, I wouldn't say the netroots is completely lacking in petty infighting, it just isn't as prominent and occurring at levels where it impacts success. Third, because they are more interested in the Democratic Party than some interest, they can focus their energy on elections and the big defining issues, like the war, rather than petty infighting.

I think is an incredibly important point. The only thing that I’d add is that people in the netroots act in large part on the assumption that by operating under the progressive/electoral banner of activism an environment will be eventually created through electoral politics where the concerns of particular Democratic coalition interest groups can be addressed, without the in-fighting. It’s not that the traditional interests (labor, civil rights groups, environmental issues, etc) aren’t important to the netroots, but that there is an empirically based distrust of relying on interest groups to achieve movement-wide success.

This distrust is perfectly exemplified by groups like NARAL, Planned Parenthood or the Sierra Club endorsing people like Chris Shays, Lincoln Chafee and Joe Lieberman over Democrats who held similar or more liberal positions on abortion rights and the environment. Any politically-savvy person knows that who a person caucuses with cannot be separated from what the vote when a vote is finally called. That is, it’s never just the vote that matters.

All that said, I wouldn’t say the netroots is completely lacking in petty infighting, it just isn’t as prominent and occurring at levels where it impacts success.

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