Real-Time Politics
Page 2 of 2
|
|
While some individual House and Senate Democrats have reached out to the blogging community, Brigham says the Congressional leadership has been slow to grasp the potential contribution of the netroots. Not waiting for an invitation, bloggers have taken their own initiative. After House Majority Leader House Tom Delay was indicted on a conspiracy charge, Brigham, as chair of blogPAC—a nascent organization which to date has run three online-driven messaging campaigns—arranged a get-to-know-each-other conference call for 30 bloggers, half from Texas, with Nick Lampson, the former Texas congressman who will be challenging Delay in his home district in the 2006 mid-terms.
Brigham believes that the Democratic Party leadership operates on an outdated set of political assumptions, which include a misguided faith in the 30-second television campaign ad. Campaigns traditionally save money—packing their “war chests”—for a final TV ad blitz. But in the “post-broadcast world,” he argues, campaigns that invest in “scalable models”—namely, by developing distributive and open-source methods for raising money and organizing volunteers online—stand to make better use of their financial and human resources. By investing in the netroots, campaigns can get more bang for their buck, pumping out messages throughout the duration of a campaign—or, for that matter, all year long—and everywhere, not just in targeted media markets.
From his part-time post at Skyline Public Works, a Rappaport family corporation that funds progressive political organizations, Brigham is working to roll out the Leave No District Behind PAC, which was set up after the Hackett election to provide tools and financial assistance in local races that are not traditionally seen by the Democratic establishment as “competitive” and put them in play. The PAC, Brigham says, “will give candidates who are courageous enough to run in far-right districts the initial financial support necessary to put in place a team that can build a real campaign.”
The story of elections going forward, Brigham predicts, will be one of "localization": candidates will decide to run, not merely be recruited to do so by the leadership; grassroots movements will organize locally, not in response to infusions of cash from the DCCC. And the local netroots, working to influence local media, raise money, and build a volunteer base, will be an integral part of the apparatus.
Since the close of the 2005 election cycle in early November, Brigham has moved on from Swing State Project to make way for up-and-coming bloggers, and to keep evolving the blogosphere’s reach. He has registered the domain name “Scalito.com” – a derisive nickname for Bush’s Supreme Court pick Samuel Alito reflecting the nominee’s assumed ideological kinship with conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. With the site he hopes to create a kind of way station for liberal blogging about the nomination, with the goal, naturally, of “embarrassing” Alito while blocking his nomination (Senate hearings begin January 9). Tagaris, too, has left SSP and Ohio politics to take up a new post as Internet outreach coordinator at the DNC Headquarters in Washington.
As for his next electoral battle, besides supporting Hackett in his new bid for Ohio Senator, Brigham is primed for the Democratic primary in Montana, a “marquee” race that he says offers the starkest choice of the competing directions for the party. John Morrison—“as typical of a Democratic Leadership Council candidate as Joe Lieberman”—is squaring off for a shot at a winnable red-state senate seat against Jon Tester, a state Senator. Tester, Bingham argues, also represents the past “but further back—the type of populist farmer who built this country. He’s also the future of the Democratic Party, which to a large degree [lies] out west.”
The liberal blogosphere is rallying solidly behind Jon Tester. MyDD and DailyKos bloggers Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsa flew out to Montana to meet the candidate and gave their blessings. Tester’s campaign has hired Montana blogger Matt Singer, who runs the blog Left in the West “Left in the West,” to do its online outreach.
Brigham plans to return to his home state with laptop packed. “I fully intend to raise serious hell before the primary,” he says, eyes lit up. “I have no problem going negative on John Morrison, as a member of the DLC, to the point where he has to change his name and leave the state after the election. The future of the party is decided in the primary. And he’s the past.”
Andy Isaacson is a writer and photographer in the San Francisco Bay area. His work is at www.worldwebeyes.com.
