Nathan Newman wrote:
>And his skill in pulling together that broad, diverse community who, from
>radicals to more mainstream Democrats, almost all oppose the war-- that's a
>significant organizing success. That's not mere media savvy but organizing
>savvy.
-I'm confused. Several hundred posters to a blog are a greater social -force than over a hundred thousand people gathered in the nation's -capital in a demonstration that received sympathetic coverage in all -the major media?
No, Doug-- nearly a MILLION visitors a day, hundreds of thousands of dollars raised for antiwar candidates, and a range of organizing on local antiwar initiatives-- that's what I mean by serious organizing force. Antiwar candidate and Iraq War veteran Paul Hackett, who is now looking to run for Senator in Ohio, raised $400,000 from online support, much of it generated off of Kos, and the fact that Hackett came within a few votes of knocking out a pro-war GOPer in a heavily Republican district not only got "sympathetic coverage" in the media but actually scared the hell out of a lot of politicians who fear losing election next year because of that campaign.
[And I didn't say that it didn't take organizing to get people to DC-- I was just disputing Max's simple dichotomy between organizing versus Kos's media savvy.]
To take the Hackett campaign as an example of organizing that directly effected the national debate on the Iraq War:
Gingrich Says Ohio Race Holds Lesson for GOP http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/03/AR2005080301899.html "Republican apathy, dissatisfaction with Bush and congressional Republicans, a GOP scandal in Ohio, and Hackett's energetic, anti-Iraq campaign all may have contributed to keep the race closer than expected, according to strategists in both parties."
Novak: Iraq Poses 'Problem' for GOP in 2006 http://www.cnsnews.com/viewpolitics.asp?Page=\Politics\archive\200508\POL20050804a.html "The narrow Republican victory in Tuesday's special congressional election in Ohio spells trouble for the GOP in 2006, according to nationally syndicated conservative columnist Robert Novak. He cited the Bush administration's prosecution of the war in Iraq as the main reason."
I know folks think big marches are somehow threatening to the pro-war crowd, but the most threatening thing to them is losing power. And local organizing is one of the ways to do it. Part of the denigation of Kos is the denigration of electoral organizing, but the fact remains that Daily Kos is now one of the national centers for electoral political strategy, which is a form of organizing that many people think is effective, and frankly more effective than just one more DC march.
I don't think electoral work is the be all and end all of politics, but I do think it matters and Kos and the Daily Kos site has been playing a key role in remaking how Democratic politics operates -- the national Dems ignored the Hackett race until the online activists donated money and raised its profile -- and recruiting many activists for it.
A bunch of folks may not like that Kos is succeeding in such organizing, which is a tactical debate, but it's still organizing.
Nathan Newman