Thoughts after two and a half months

Embittered dems (I’m looking at you, DU and DailyKos) looking to tell John Kerry – or anyone else, for that matter - whether he should or should not run for president in 2008 might cast a look at their own motivations and ask themselves whether anger is a good place from which to be attempting to dictate the future of the party.

Having spent some time wandering around the web since the election it seems to me that a large segment of the internet activist core is operating from a place as divorced from reality as that which they accuse the DLC of operating from.

A large part of this contingent was only marginally supportive of Kerry during the campaign. Remarks prefaced with “I intend to vote for Kerry, BUT…” are easily identifiable as emanating from this group. Excuse me for stating the obvious, but second-guessing every campaign decision and echoing RNC anti-Kerry talking points are not signs of support.

So flame away, but here are some ideas:

1. When tempted to use enemy fire against your own candidate, maybe you should resist the temptation. Instead, channel that anger towards, say, the opposition. If the DNC isn’t giving you any ammo, make up your own. It’s not like we are hurting for material. I don’t understand the propensity of people on the left to automatically believe the worst that is said (generally by republicans) about their own candidates. Given the track record of at minimum the past four years, why would you not assume everything they say is a lie?

2. Having a forum on the web in which one can opine freely does not necessarily confer credibility. The people running the campaign are the professionals. Right or wrong, they have been hired for their expertise. And the amount of energy channeled into second-guessing this past year, if redirected, might have been enough to turn around some local campaigns. And to those who were in fact working on other campaigns as well, congratulations and thank you, and maybe you should keep your negative thoughts to yourself, anyway.

3. A word about Kerry here. He is an excellent and moral man who tries very hard to do the right thing, but his actions are also informed by politics. This is what we have hired him to do. I happen to think Howard Dean is also an excellent man, but one who is highly impolitic, which was his largest failing as a candidate. Whining about a politician who does what a politician has to do in order to win is, to say the least, counterproductive.

4. I think the web has a place in national politics beyond just fundraising, but it’s an open question what its place should be. As an example, I offer this DU thread from several weeks ago in which Chris Heinz mentioned he was supporting Simon Rosenberg for DNC chair, and asked for DU opinions on the subject. He stated up front that it was his own support he was speaking of, and unrelated to anything Kerry might be thinking. In spite of this, he was flooded with mean-spirited attacks on Kerry and just plain rudeness, leaving a reader the impression that DU is populated with the underaged, immature, and vitriolic. There are a great many well-reasoned and grownup voices on DU, but as they are often shouted down by their opposites, the potential power of the forum is greatly diminished. I don’t know if Chris Heinz will ever seek an opinion there again, but if I were him I wouldn’t. And that is a loss for both the party and for DU.