Is the Netroots Stalling Out?
by Patrick Ruffini :: June 14th, 2007 11:29 pmThe Democratic race has gotten a whole lot less interesting in the last few days. Obama has stalled, and the wave of publicity that kept Edwards in the game after a disappointing start has receded. Hillary is looking a lot more like the prohibitive frontrunner.
At the same time, the Republican race is more dynamic than ever, with four candidates with legitimate (and roughly equal) shots of getting the nomination.
Jerome Armstrong gives voice to the netroots’ frustration. He correctly perceives Barack Obama as an image candidate who talks the talk but won’t really engage the “movement.” Edwards, putatively the netroots frontrunner and riding on the wings of Joe Trippi, godfather to the online left, is stuck in the teens.
This is a teachable moment, and a significant one at that. Netroots power is at a high ebb. They are so much bigger than they were in 2003 when they propelled Dean to the top of the polls.
And where is their main candidate? Stuck a distant third in the polls, in Web traffic, and in online fundraising, getting about the support one would expect from a golden boy from the last Presidential ticket.
If the netroots is all it’s cracked up to be, shouldn’t Edwards be far ahead in the online metrics and be more competitive in the polls? Instead, Obama is ahead on those metrics, and he’s the one who HASN’T engaged the movement.
The netroots footprint on this primary is limited in scope and well defined. Lo and behold, they aren’t the largest constituency in the Democratic Party. They aren’t even the largest constituency online.
See, Barack Obama has mobilized people, even if he hasn’t mobilized the netroots. He’s brought in students, African Americans, and apparently, young females. These are groups that are relatively apolitical. That’s why when you loosen the likely voter screen just a little, Obama does a lot better.
But for all that they celebrate bringing new people into the process, the fact remains that Obama’s voters are not the netroots. Demographically, the netroots are older (45 is the median), whiter, and more academic. They are fairly conventional liberals and “supervoters” — turning up in every general and most primaries. Obama’s voters are not. Not only is Obama not talking to the netroots; like Hillary, he has made a calculation that he does not need the netroots.
The core reason for Jerome’s alienation is that the netroots are losing a battle for relevance to a bunch of Obama-supporting, Facebook-addled college kids. When the second quarter closes, it will probably be announced that Obama has raised at least $15 million online, three times what Dean did at this point last cycle, and about twice Edwards’ total. Obama has done it with some netroots support, but the not inconsiderable difference between him and Edwards is due to a cult of personality that matters far more than anyone’s support on the blogs.
For people like Kos and Jerome to be big, the space they’re operating in must be claustrophobic. But this race features larger than life personalities in Hillary and Obama, and the netroots kingmakers just can’t keep up. The smallness of the 2003-04 race, with its seven dwarves, none of whom could crack 15%, is what made that year such a fertile environment for the netroots.
Paradoxically, I wonder if this won’t be a better year for the rightroots after all, and for the same reason that 2003 was good for the netroots. People don’t much like the candidates and are generally pissed off. With the candidates so evenly bunched, won’t the small edge that the rightroots can provide matter more? The netroots may be larger in absolute terms, but their task — toppling Hillary — is many, many, many times larger.
Jerome’s exasperation shows they may not be up to it.
Tagged: barack obama 
jerome armstrong john edwards netroots
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You should fix the “nutroots” reference in your hyperlink. Freudian slip, I guess?
And you’re using the wrong metric here. The netroots impact in this cycle will be in the Senate. There’s no way that there will be significant movement away from a top down messaging style in the Presidential election. What we have seen is that the ability for grass roots expression and organizing through the internet is forcing Clinton, and to some degree Obama, to take positions that are less hawkish than they would prefer.
You are talking about the netroots “stalling” and you don’t mention Ron Paul’s huge success? No candidates move the netroots, the netroots move candidates, and they are moving Dr. Paul.
So, the Netroots are “bigger than ever,” but you set up an argument that because Obama will outraise Dean at the same stage of his campaign, that means the Netroots are failing. Of course, logic would dictate extrapolating the size of the netroots now and multiplying that by Dean’s take in 2003, to take a true measure of internet support of Dean v Obama. But, alas, this would take higher order thinking and would refute your straw man argument. Nice try.
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hank–
What I find interesting is that he says Obama will outraise Clinton in an internet-based social networking space that grows organically, and that this is somehow a setback for a movement that started in 2004 in an internet-based social networking space.
This is, I think, an attempt to segregate internet political activity into “netroots” and something else. I seriously doubt that Markos is feeling “claustrophobic” because young people, especially women, are becoming more active in Democratic politics via self-organizing web applications. It’s a very big tent.
The point Jerome is making,correctly, I think, is that Obama is not embracing this organic support system. This is not about creating facebook nation, but about creating Obama donors and voters. Dean’s campaign was more of a movement, as is his DNC leadership.
Another thing I find amusing is all this smearing of the netroots, just six months or so after it led to the clock cleaning of the entire Republican “governing” machine, top to bottom, Federal to State. An interesting time to belittle the power of Democrats online, me thinks…Not too surprising, however, since Republicans are enamored with “big man, tough-guy” Presidential politics and don’t realize that the netroots are as focused on state and local races to build on the success of 2006.
As I said, all the savvy netroots folks I know are talking about the Senate. However, I thought MoveOn’s town hall event moved all the candidates away from more hawkish positions that would not have happened in debates moderated by Wolf or Williams.
The ‘netroots’ is grieving the fact that Edwards is tanking. They had very high hopes for him as a populist candidate and now they are at a loss on how to spend the next 6-16 months.
Hank and Jay,
The point is that Obama’s not embracing the netroots hasn’t hurt him any. That’s because most of his support isn’t coming from the netroots.
The average person on the Bush or Kerry email lists in 2004 didn’t check blogs twelve times a day. They probably didn’t know what a blog was.
Zack Exley has made some excellent points about the distinction between the netroots (Kos readers) and the average person who will go and support a candidate online, and the danger of focusing on the former at the expense of the latter.
What amuses me is the notion that Armstrong has that the netroots has ever accomplished anything. Get this bit:
“The netroots doesn’t; he’s never aligned with the existing movement that began with Dean in ‘02, swelled for Wesley Clark in ‘03, led Dean to the DNC Chair and propelled the Hackett and Lamont candidacies, leading to the surge of activists voting for Democrats in ‘06.”
Dean and Wesley Clark won two primaries combined in 2004. Hackett and Lamont both lost. Yeah, they got Dean the DNC chair. And in 2006, they mostly concentrated on defeating a Democrat (and failed).
Brainster, how is Virginia Senator George Allen doing these days? He’s keeping a pretty low-profile, no? And Senate Judiciary Chairman Specter is doing a hell of job in keeping the lid on the DOJ scandals. Heck of a job, I might say..
Patrick, it isn’t nice of you to spoil Hank & Jay’s circle jerk with your, y’know, facts and logic.
The netroots had very little to do with 2006. It is plain that they represent a thin slice of the Democratic party that turns out to be completely ineffectual, as reflected in the list that Armstrong mentions. He mentions five specific candidates (counting Dean twice), four of whom lost, albeit gloriously. The only winner was Dean for the DNC chair.
“The netroots had very little to do with 2006.”
You won’t hear James Webb or Jon Tester saying that, Brainster.
And Webb and Tester gave us the Senate. And those are facts, mikeski.
The idea that the netfolks won any of the races for us is bull. I was out in campaign mode and I can tell you that this is untrue. Yes, in races that are won by only hundreds of votes, their help was helpful, but when they pretend that their folks won all these races is pure bull. In 06, kos had 150, 000 members nationwide…half of the number of people needed for one congressional district. They are an arrow in our electoral quiver, not the bow….
Plus, it seems that at least 25% of the people at kos and mydd dont even consider themselves democrats. That fool Stoller even recently wrote that maybe the netroots should run a candidate against the sitting dem president if we choose someone (hillary?) that they dont like.
Just because the political media has bought the myth that these are our party’s “base” doesnt mean that in actuality they are.
I know that Stoller dreams of power and Kos and Jerome, of contracts and cash, but that is not enough reason to give our party over to them. Not even close…
The campaign isn’t dead, but the message is confused.
What the campaign stands for needs to be easy to understand and explain, a single strong theme that has resonance throughout the county. Are we anti war or are we looking to make America a place less vulnerable to attack. Are we fighting terrorism or are we trying to rid ourselves of those things that invite terrorists to attack us. Are we fighting for human rights and American principles or sacrificing them to corporate interests?
Sounds like wishful thinking to me.
Patrick: $15 million for Q2 only, or Q1 + Q2? Either way it’s tough to have that and “Hillary is the prohibitive front-runner” in the same post, but somehow you managed.
Nice spin, Patrick. I love how, despite presenting it as a piece on netroots, the whole thing focuses on how Hillary Will Win. Really, well done.
Maybe she will win the nomination, but anyone living in the real world knows that it’s waaaaaaay too early to know. I realize that your focus is completely on the netroots, but if you fail to realize that the net isn’t going to engage until much later in the game (like everyone else), your thinking might be just the slightest bit too insular.
But I don’t think you’ve missed that. I think you’re just spinning. And you’ve done a great job of staying on the message that Hillary Will Win. Because you really have to cling to that, don’t you?
So, no. The netroots isn’t stalling out. And no, Hillary is not a shoe-in for the nomination. But way to stay on message.
Well spun, Patrick. Well spun.
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