Coming on the heels of the YouTube debate fight, YearlyKos has sparked a lively conversation on the right about what needs to be done to reinvigorate our movement online. The leading lights on this are Mark Tapscott, Soren Dayton, Amanda Carpenter, and Robert Bluey.
A common thread is that the other shoe won’t likely drop until we have Hillary to unite against. I’d like to pick apart that assumption.
The basic assumption is sound. The online right was ascendant in the Clinton years, just as the online left was in the Bush years. Opposition galvanizes political movements, and not just online.
My question is when does this kick in? When Hillary becomes the nominee? Or if she becomes President? A lot of people are hoping many of these issues will work themselves out on February 6th when the Hillary menace will start to stare conservatives in the face. I’ve expressed that hope too.
But a lot of folks also hoped that we’d be at least partly there by now. With Hillary looking good on the Democratic side, and Republicans in the opposition (and on offense) in Congress, have things gotten any better? Is there any evidence that the Stop Her Now stuff that was so effective in 2000 is working this time around? I haven’t gotten as many direct mail letters or fundraising e-mails with Hillary front and center as I would have expected by now.
A lot of people are also arguing that we are weighed down by President Bush and Iraq. But why should that be? Rudy, Fred, and Mitt aren’t President Bush, and are strong in many areas where the President is weak. The nominee will likely have something different to say about Iraq. You would think that Republicans would view this field as a vehicle for moving beyond the current poisoned political environment, and feel some measure of optimism and relief. After all, Mitt Romney reinvigorated Massachusetts Republicans after taking over from a weak caretaker, Jane Swift. In France, Sarko wrote the playbook on pivoting against an unpopular leader of your own party and winning. It can be done. So why aren’t they doing it? What do they need to do to do it? Or is it just too soon?
Or is the truth that we need Hillary to take office before we reap the benefits of a fired-up base? That may be. Remember, that in the campaign, Hillary will present herself in only the most favorable light. She won’t be accountable for what happens in Congress, or deep in the bowels of HHS when someone starts funding condoms and needle exchange, or for the fact that she’ll be forced by the exigencies of being Commander-in-Chief into a more Bush-like position on Iraq. Campaigns are a clean business next to governing. Not many people hated George W. Bush during the 2000 campaign, or for the first two years he was President, and the left was slack enough to allow for a fatal third party schism in the form of Ralph Nader.
So when does it start to happen for us? 2008? 2009? 2010? 2012?
I think it ideally should have started in January 2007, with campaigns starting anew, George Bush starting to fade into the background, passions on immigration running high, and the Democrat majority in Congress. It’s still early yet, but does anyone see any signs of a new conservative coalition starting to take shape, or anyone trying to engage it?
Even if Movement 2.0 is two or more years away, there are things we should be doing now to prepare. At this point in the Clinton years, MoveOn had already started. Perhaps the analog to that is the immigration issue, where the right kicked ass. But, again, what did we create with the immigration issue? Where is the million person email list of people who got involved because of immigration, and can now be activated on other issues? It sounds like people were thinking of the right techniques for radio, but not for online.
I think it will also require a shift in thinking of how the movement relates to the Republican Party. We are very much in the position the Democrats were in at the end of the 20th century where “the groups” did not think of themselves as part of the party. The netroots revitalized liberal interest in the Democratic Party not by selling out, by positioning themselves as the authentic Democrats, where the Joe Liebermans and pro-Iraq War Dems were outside the party. What that the phrase, again? Oh, yes… The Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.
Do conservatives today really think of themselves as the “Republican wing of the Republican Party” or removed from the Republican Party entirely? That’s a key difference, and one that will have to be reconciled if we are going to finally quit being pundits and start being activists.
And, finally, is there any way this gets started without Hillary Clinton? I’ve read the same history books, and I don’t think the New Right was built on personal animus towards JFK and LBJ — and it thrived in power in the ’80s.
Ideally, we would figure out a formula for this stuff that wouldn’t require us to lose in 2008.