IP Democracy: Did Netroots Succeed or Lose?

One of the more interesting parts of this landmark mid-term election season is the role of “netroots” bloggers, the progressive and aggressive bloggers who tried to push the Democratic party farther to the left and bucked the party’s establishment positions. Outspoken critics of mainstream Democrats, netroots blogs such as MyDD, FireDogLake, ActBlue (a fundraising site) and DailyKos, among others, laid claim to Connecticut’s Ned Lamont’s upset victory in the Democratic primary, which forced Joe Lieberman to run as an independent.

The netroots bloggers also organized themselves around a group of progressive Democratic candidates to wield their influence in getting these mostly non-mainstream campaigners elected.

Lamont lost to Lieberman on Tuesday but Netroots darling Jim Webb bested Republican star George Allen in Virginia to hand control of the Senate to the Democrats. Before Webb’s win became clear, the pundits were already weighing in with their views about whether these blogs were as powerful as many Democratic party officials had feared.

The National Journal’s Danny Glover compiled a tally and determined that the Netroots have earned bragging rights, particularly when compared to the rival “rightroots” bloggers that attempted to sway the elections in favor of right-leaning Republican candidates.

The Nation’s Ari Melber arrived at the opposite conclusion. Given that the netroots bloggers stood in opposition to the established Democratic party apparatus, the party succeeded and the bloggers failed.

Yet regardless of the remaining results and recounts, the fact is the netroots’ favorite candidates did not perform as well as the Democrats targeted by party leaders. And they were never supposed to. Many of the bloggers’ picks were aggressive Democrats in long-shot districts who were neglected by the Beltway establishment. There is no doubt that bloggers leveraged money and political buzz to make races more competitive and put Republicans on the defensive, but it was simply not the decisive factor in the elections.

The netroots bloggers themselves don’t seem to be taking much of a position on whether they succeeded or lost in influencing the elections. Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos had this to say yesterday regarding the scattershot sniping at the netroots lack of influence:

Dear know-nothings,

I know most of you are stupid, and proud to remain that way.

But the Netroots backed more than just Ned Lamont.

For example, Jim Webb and Jon Tester in the Senate, and dozens more in the House.

Jim Webb, for example, said this about the netroots:

The netroots have been a tremendous help to my campaign and a huge inspiration to me personally.

I am where I am in large part because of their support.

So Lieberman won. Lots of our candidates lost. Lots of them won. It’s called elections.

Hugs and kisses.

kos

The real question is whether the netroots are relevant now that the mainstream Democratic party is in control of Congress and what kind of influence they can have going forward. There’s no doubt that some of these bloggers need to tone it down if they are going to have influence. But then they wouldn’t be the netroots anymore - they’d just be run-of-the-mill political bloggers targeting as wide an audience as possible.

As Lieberman campaign advisor Lanny Davis told The Nation:

“If the blogosphere is to have an impact on changing the country as opposed to talking to each other, the Lamont campaign is a lesson in exactly what not to do. They came out of a primary and they continued to wage a primary,” he said, “but they weren’t talking to unaffiliated voters and moderate Republicans.”

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on November 10, 2006 7:43 AM to IP Democracy