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Democrats Seek Netroots to Strengthen Campaigns

By Zachary A. Goldfarb
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, April 19, 2007; 2:14 PM

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, signed on to Daily Kos on a recent Wednesday and at 12:37 p.m. made an appeal to the liberal blog’s roughly 500,000 daily visitors.

This was one of the better articles I have read on liberal activism commonly referred to as ‘netroots’. I must add that the author’s use of the term ‘rightroots’ is a term I rarely see used. Saying conservative views dominate talk radio and liberal views dominate the net may be fair in numbers of sources but I reserve judgment on which side of the political spectrum represents more of the population. Of the voting public, one could argue that registered voters are a 60-40 split between registered Democrats and Republicans. But if you add the independents and review national elections over many years and factor in independent voters, it appears to be more of a 50/50 split. That may indicate why there is so much talk of the nation being polarized. Perhaps not so much by issues as by conservative or liberal philosophy. It is doubtful that every voter is in total agreement with the political party that matches their voter registration.

Schumer openly addressing netroots at the Daily Kos may prove as dangerous to his party as John Edwards enlisting the support of Marcotte and McEwan. As the author of the WaPo piece suggests, netroots tends to represent the more liberal wing of the left with its often out of control members and rhetoric. Which may be the reason for conservatives referring to them as nutroots while the far left fringe calls rightroots, wingnuts. Good examples of why labels detract from the discussion, if there is one between left and right.

The one reference to Schumer addressing the Kos crowd that seems funny is the author’s mention of the reaction as significant. If a site generates a half a million visits a day and your post generates 725 comments in a few days, that is nothing. Most comments are posted with little attention to other ones made. I have frequented liberal sites and viewed or posted comments. The array seems to be one continuous stream of unrelated posts or back and forth responses insulting someone or something. An activity that seems pointless.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Public Affairs, wordpress, Politics, campaign, Democrats, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.