Fighting For Influence
Posted on April 29, 2008 by andrew
Barack Obama went on FOX News this past Sunday, and the bigshots of the netroots were none too pleased.
Matt Stoller admits the real problem:
All of us have endorsed Obama, and have criticized him over this, but the reality is that there was no communications with anyone about the decision-making or process that led to him being on Fox News. There is also no messaging around Wright or any other bubbling stories. There is basically no blogger communications going on as far as I can tell, the kind so critical to a good blog strategy like Tim Tagaris ran with the Lamont campaign. The Clinton campaign does a much better job, down to little details such as inviting bloggers on press calls. Even the McCain operation, with a much less significant blogosphere on the right, is having McCain out on blogger conference calls. I find it odd that John McCain is doing a better job than either Democrat in handling his allies, but that’s the case.
I agree with Stoller on the strategy involved. Heck, I’m also a liberal Obama-supporting blogger, albeit one without a large constituency. However, I think it only fair to say that a big reason for the outrage directed at Obama was the clear sign that he (correctly) doesn’t see his campaign as depending upon the netroots. The senator has built his own grassroots coalition that is large enough to take the White House and in no way dependent on DK, MyDD, Open Left, FDL, or any other progressive site known for influencing netroots money and activists.
In this whole FOX kerfluffle, the leaders of those sites have been fighting for their own influence as much as for any set of principles. In my opinion, they’d be better off sticking to what they do well: Getting progressive Democrats elected to Congress and helping on the national level by building a strong and committed party base. Fights like this one will only diminish the netroots’ influence.
Sphere: Related Content» Filed Under 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama, Netroots
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