Blogging In Bad Company

This column was written by Dean Barnett.

Alas, Busby's gaffe is unlikely to enter the annals of Greatest American Political Blunders. Most of the nation's citizenry let the special election for Cunningham's seat come and go without ever allowing it to invade their conscious thoughts. But America does have a small class of political obsessives, and the invention of blogging has given them a public platform. For the left-wing blogosphere, the quest for Cunningham's seat was a months-long passion and their writings surrounding the race provide a nice snapshot of where this virtual community stands today.

Depending on how you count, the progressive blogosphere's won/loss record in competitive races between the parties hovers somewhere around 0-20. But when Republican incumbent Duke Cunningham was frog-marched from the House, the left-wing blogs sensed a real opportunity. John Kerry had carried 43 percent of the vote in the district; surely, they thought, the combination of President Bush's unpopularity and an imprisoned incumbent personifying the Republican "culture of corruption" would be enough to add 7 percentage points to the Democrats' side.

The left was jubilant when the April 12 runoff to determine the finalists for Cunningham's seat gave the Democrat, Busby, 45 percent of the vote and second place finisher, Republican Brian Bilbray, roughly 15 percent. While Busby bested Bilbray by 30 points, the Republican candidates combined for 53 percent. Nevertheless, Chris Bowers, of the MyDD blog, considered Busby's victory inevitable. On the night of the primary, he wrote:

"This is a district with a Republican performance of around 56 percent, but even giving voters fourteen different Republicans options and throwing $5M into the race has only secured Republicans 53 percent of the vote, and dropping. They are only going to be able to give voters one option in June, and they will be able to spend less than one million on the race then. And yet they still need to cobble together 85 percent of the "other" vote for Bilbray, who isn't especially liked among local conservative activists. Gooooood luck."

Not everyone shared Bowers' assessment. One MyDD commenter wrote, "Forgive me for being realistic, but it seems to me that we're talking about primary results that work out to Republicans — 55.32 percent, Democrats — 44.68 percent . . . Sorry, but I see these results as a clear indication that CA-50 remains a solid Republican district."

A couple weeks later, Democratic pollsters Lake Research Partners released a poll showing Bilbray holding a 45-43 lead over Busby, leading them to conclude that:

"These data reflect the strength of Busby's candidacy for a number of reasons. First, the election is tied despite the significant Republican registration advantage reflected in our sample of 50 percent Republican to 32 percent Democrat. Secondly, Busby is able to maintain her competitive level of support despite hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by the National Republican Congressional Committee in anti-Busby attack advertising on television immediately after Busby's primary win. These ads were unanswered by either the Busby Campaign or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the survey period."

Much of the liberal blogosphere eagerly drank this Kool-Aid. Bowers happily linked to it and Daily Kos front-pager "McJoan" declared the results encouraging.

There was, however, one prominent voice of reason on the left: Markos Moulitsas, the proprietor of the Daily Kos. He wrote of the Lake poll's results:

"This is a district in which the former Congressman is in prison for corruption far beyond the usual "culture of corruption" craziness, and our candidate's own internal poll doesn't have her above the Kerry line for the district? I don't think this poll looks all that hot for us, frankly. In fact, I think it looks terrible."

"If voters were ready to punish Republicans for their culture of corruption, what better place for that to manifest itself than in the district of one of the most corrupt of the lot?"

The election's results bore out Moulitsas' pessimism. As he modestly observed, "It seems everything I've been saying for the last few months came to happen." Bilbray received roughly 50 percent of the vote, while Busby received 45.46 percent, exceeding John Kerry's percentage by two points and change. Brian Bilbray was supposed to be the croaking canary in the coal mine whose defeat would prove the existence of the oncoming Republican cataclysm. Instead, as Moulitsas concluded, all we've learned is that "Democrats are not motivated to turn out."

Other post-mortems from the blogosphere reached different conclusions. For instance, MyDD's Matt Stoller believed that Busby lost because she did not show enough progressive passion in the very conservative district.

While the rest of the liberal/progressive blogosphere spent last week tut-tutting "the murder" of Zarqawi, Moulitsas began an effort to redefine the Democratic Party so as to attract more voters.

Moulitsas now wants to label Democrats as being distinct from either liberals or progressives. In a lengthy essay following Busby's defeat, he sought to identify a new breed of political animal — the "Libertarian Democrat."

By Moulitsas' telling, the "Libertarian Democrat" is a strange duck. It wants big government, but defends its libertarian bona fides by arguing that:

". . . we should have the freedom to enjoy the outdoor without getting poisoned; that corporate polluters infringe on our rights and should be checked. A Libertarian Dem believes that people should have the freedom to make a living without being unduly exploited by employers. A Libertarian Dem understands that no one enjoys true liberty if they constantly fear for their lives, so strong crime and poverty prevention programs can create a safe environment for the pursuit of happiness. A Libertarian Dem gets that no one is truly free if they fear for their health, so social net programs are important to allow individuals to continue to live happily into their old age. Same with health care. And so on."

As a governing philosophy, there is little here beyond the amusing incoherence. The Cato Institute and the Daily Kos will not be crashing gates together any time soon.

So what does the liberal blogosphere do now? Perhaps alone among lefty bloggers, Moulitsas is aware that for the blogosphere to be more effective on behalf of Democrats, it will have to provide something that it's "for" instead of a laundry list of what it's against (e.g. George Bush, conservative pundits, Joe Lieberman). In spite of its passion and singularity of purpose, the progressive blogosphere has shown no ability to make the Democratic Party more electorally popular. But while Moulitsas' first crack at defining a new philosophy is flawed, at least he understands that the blogosphere has a problem.

But real-world political types continue to view the blogosphere with a combination of confusion and awe. The conventional wisdom is that blogs are a growing force with unlimited potential. But there is a dirty little secret: The blogosphere's growth has flat-lined, and in many cases shrunk. Last October, the Daily Kos had approximately 23 million visitors. By last month, the number had sunk to 16 million. The decline was gradual and sustained. Kos' virtual progressive ranks, at least, are not growing.

The same trend is in evidence nearly everywhere else in the blogosphere, too. The second-most influential left-wing Web site, Atrios, now averages fewer visitors than it did eight months ago and there is no data indicating the readership of conservative blogs is growing, either.

This suggests that the blogosphere is already a mature medium and that its rapid growth phase is now past. And there is nothing to indicate that this relatively young dog is about to learn any new tricks.

Certainly, the blogosphere is adept at many things. It can ignite a campaign; it can elevate obscure figures (such as Howard Dean or Cindy Sheehan) or overlooked issues (such as the Swift Boat veterans or the 60 Minutes scandal) to national prominence. It can also be a force in intra-party skirmishes; the smaller the skirmish, the greater the relative power of the blogosphere. But the blogosphere developed these abilities years ago. The notion that its power is still nascent is grounded in media hype, not reality.

So why do some people — and Democratic politicians in particular — feel an increasingly powerful urge to genuflect before bloggers? After all, the full extent of their demonstrated power has been the ability to propel a candidate to a fourth place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

The only logical answer is that politicians still believe the blogs are an emerging and increasingly powerful force. Take John Kerry, for example.

In an off-the-record meeting with several California bloggers, Kerry made some remarks that he probably didn't want repeated. Nonetheless, blogger "Hollywood Liberal" repeated them:

"Kerry agreed completely with someone's assessment that everything that Bush does is solely for the purpose of looting the country. He basically said that Bush and his cohorts are criminals and that history will judge them so . . . At some other point he referred to Supreme Court Justices Alito, Scalia, and Roberts as Idiots."

Clearly, Kerry hadn't done a rational risk versus reward calculation before attempting to court bloggers. If Democratic politicians were rational, they would realize that blogs are a factor in the political culture, but are a limited force with little growth potential. And it is certainly not worth risking one's credibility with mainstream America in order to win the affection of bloggers, especially relatively obscure ones.

But Kerry is not the first prominent politician to decide that playing to the progressive blogosphere is a winning strategy. A year ago, Sen. Richard Durbin took to the Senate floor to compare American soldiers to Nazis and the Khmer Rouge. While most Americans found his comparison despicable, Durbin's "courage" made him an instant hero to the left-wing blogosphere.

As the heat around the senator increased, Durbin looked to the blogs for succor, arranging an off-the-record phone conference with several bloggers. As was the case with Kerry's off-the-record meet-up, Durbin's comments during the conference call were dutifully live-blogged. The blogosphere anointed Durbin its cause célèbre for a few news cycles. But when he recanted his slur on the troops, he incurred the full rhetorical wrath of his one-time virtual supporters. His attempt to play to the blogosphere's passions was a disaster. His reputation will likely never recover.

There's another risk regarding the blogosphere that politicians in future political cycles will likely have to navigate: guilt by association.

The progressive blogosphere is noted for its "passionate" means of expression, typified by Moulitsas who, after the murder of four American military contractors in Falujah, wrote, "I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them."

At some point, politicians who flock to bloggers who talk this way will be asked if they're aware of the kind of company they're keeping. And, if so, how they justify keeping it.

Dean Barnettwrites on politics at SoxBlog.com.

By Dean Barnett
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