Kucinichmemtum

by Henry Farrell on February 2, 2008

This “bit”:http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/speaking-truth-without-power/ in the NYT made me wonder whether the writer had any clue what he was talking about.

But notwithstanding this stunning success, this week’s withdrawal by John Edwards, coming a week after the departure of Dennis Kucinich, means that both of the preferred presidential candidates of the liberal blogosphere are now out of the race.

followed by some speculations as to whether

like all outsider movements, [the blogosphere] identifies with the underdog. This year that meant support for Mr. Kucinich and Mr. Edwards in the Democratic race, and Ron Paul in the Republican contest.

It could be that there was some massive, pro-Kucinich netroots movement out there, but I at least was unaware of it (and given my academic interests in this topic, I do try to keep on top of this sort of thing). Furthermore, while the Daily Kos “straw poll”:http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/18/12758/4538/634/438720 is at best an imperfect indicator of what the left blogosphere thinks, at no point in time did support for Kucinich reach 10% among its respondents, and most of the time it was much lower than that. This was certainly higher than Kucinich’s support among the general population, but it provides no evidence that Kucinich was in any substantial sense one of the two favoured candidates of the left blogosphere.

Finally, the claim that Ron Paul was the favored candidate of (one presumes) right-of-center bloggers, is perhaps more defensible than the Kucinich argument, but still seems a bit of a stretch. Certainly, he had some real support from a reasonable number of libertarian bloggers (though many of them were equivocal for what turned out to be quite good reasons), but he also encountered virulent hostility from many of the most important Republican blogs. Redstate, for example effectively banned Ron Paul supporters from its community. Ron Paul’s candidacy was in large part an _Internet_ phenomenon, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was a _blogospheric_ phenomenon. There are lots of important political things happening on the Internet that are only indirectly connected to blogging.

This stuff isn’t rocket science to report – you don’t even have to pick up the phone to get a good sense of what is going on – so there aren’t really any excuses for making silly claims about Kucinich’s importance to left-of-center bloggers.

{ 27 comments }

1

Lee Sigelman 02.02.08 at 8:27 pm

I wondered about the level of political awareness and the political orientation of the author of the piece that Henry refers to, so I clicked and found: “Ron Klain was a member of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign policy and debate preparation staff; was the chief of staff for Vice President Al Gore during the 1996 election; ran Mr. Gore’s “war room” in 2000; and led debate preparation for Senator John Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid.” Go figure.

2

derek 02.02.08 at 8:35 pm

If all I had to do to research a story I was writing was read blogs, I’d think I had landed the easiest job I’d get all week. A reporter that can’t even get that right, well…

3

Henry 02.02.08 at 8:41 pm

well, there goes my shot at a high-profile job in the 2012 Gore administration ;)

It’s all the more ironic because my sense is that if prominent lefty bloggers had a preferred candidate, it was less Edwards than Gore or Feingold if either had announced.

4

Miracle Max 02.02.08 at 9:02 pm

Kos was an anti-Kucinich site. The grand mook himself repeatedly inveighed against DK, making shit up along the way. DK did punch somewhat above his weight on the Internets, however, as in:

http://www.moveon.org/press/pr/release071107.html

5

Rob 02.02.08 at 9:12 pm

Kucinich was certainly more visible in the Digg/Reddit corner of the Internet than he was in any serious political discussion. Like Paul that was probably down to activism and gaming of the voting systems on those sites.

6

Seth Finkelstein 02.02.08 at 9:32 pm

His error about John Edwards is a bit more understandable – the Edwards campaign had many “name” political consultants who sell Internet services and blogging to politicians, e.g. the infamous Joe Tr-pp-. That’s not the same as the big liberal blogs themselves, so I’m not excusing his error, but it’s possible his confusion arose there.

By the way, Ron Paul’s candidacy is NOT an Internet phenomena – it just looks that way, because his supporters are very, very loud and obnoxious on the Internet. But that’s confusing correlation and causation. There’s always been people pushing him/Libertarianism, you just didn’t hear them (sadly, I did :-(). What happened this time around is that lunatic fringe met anti-war, for a marriage made in someplace other than heaven (I think purgatory).

7

Americaneocon 02.02.08 at 9:43 pm

Thompson was the favorite of the right blogosphere, before he dropped out. Now the whole controversy is the anti-McCainiac movement.

Paul’s been off the radar for awhile. What support he had was from online Birchers, neo-fascists, and a few libertarians who didn’t know better than to support him.

8

Sean Carroll 02.02.08 at 9:44 pm

It might be a matter of conflating “blogosphere” with “internet,” and “noisy” with “popular.” There are a lot of vocal Kucinich supporters who populate various message boards throughout the tubes — not to the extent of Paul supporters, but they are definitely there.

9

Barry 02.02.08 at 10:50 pm

“If all I had to do to research a story I was writing was read blogs, I’d think I had landed the easiest job I’d get all week. A reporter that can’t even get that right, well…”
Posted by derek

I disagree – I think that you (or I) would not have that job after a week, because you’re seeing the first half of the job. The second half is to come up with tidbits pleasing to the powers-that-be at the NYT. That’s where the BS comes from.

10

George 02.02.08 at 11:26 pm

kos on Kucinich recently:

“Kucinich has been bitching about ABC’s decision to pull its producer from his campaign. However, I see no compelling reason why ABC should’ve even had one to begin with. Kucinich is a vanity candidate. He has no support anywhere. His “find me a girlfriend” thing is embarrassing and pathetic. He doesn’t even give you Sharpton-style comic relief.”

Not exactly supportive. The left blogosphere has a very conservative, conformist side, I guess.

11

Michael Bérubé 02.02.08 at 11:48 pm

It might be a matter of conflating “blogosphere” with “internet,” and “noisy” with “popular.”

Sean, I sent you a blogosphere last week about how Kucinich is our only hope. You haven’t replied — did it get stuck in the tube?

12

John Emerson 02.03.08 at 12:31 am

10: At one time or another many of the big liberal bloggers have made a point of saying that their message was not “Move Left!” Drum, Josh M.M., Kos, Atrios, Digby, and Somerby come immediately to mind. They’re all left of the DLC and the Blue Dogs, by now at least, but to begin with the mostly want a more effective Democratic Party.

Even Dodd, a party regular without K’s eccentricities, got only moderate support for his presidential campaign.

13

stm177 02.03.08 at 12:49 am

I frequently read threads on Fark.com, and Kucinich’s support there came from people ogling his wife.

14

novakant 02.03.08 at 12:51 am

While the author didn’t do his research, there is actually a grain of truth in his assessment: if you evaluated liberal bloggers based on their actual positions on policy, rather than on their choice of preferred candidate, I think Kucinich would score a lot higher.

Let’s face it: Obama and Clinton are lame compromises.

15

Colin Danby 02.03.08 at 3:04 am

So why are the bloggotubes still ignoring Mike Gravel, he of the excellent web ads?

16

Colin Danby 02.03.08 at 3:11 am

speaking of which you can now add the Grateful Dead, or what’s left of them, to the Obamasphere.

Edge of the American West has an entertaining discussion of an Obama video,

http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/what-do-you-think-of-this/

now featuring the long-awaited Bitch Ph.D. endorsement.

17

matt mckeon 02.03.08 at 3:30 am

Ron Paul said exactly what a lot of people wanted to hear: the war was a mistake, and the government is overintrusive. The left and right think there is too much government for different reasons, and Paul appealed to both. He was saying, at first glance, what people believed to be true. He also had a lunatic fringe element in his beliefs and associations that would doom him without the awkward attempts by the party leadership to pretend he wasn’t there.

Kucinich was an underfunded liberal in a large field of progressives with better name recognition, like Edwards. He does have a wife so beautiful it hurts to look directly at her, but her looks are one of those stupid things people comment on when the real issues are too hard.

18

praisegod barebones 02.03.08 at 11:44 am

I think that the author of the NYT article might have been committing the following fallacy:

Most Kucinich supporters I’m aware of are posting on the internet

THEREFORE

Most people posting on the internet are Kucinich supporters.

Incidentally, one reason for Kos’s vitriol against Kucinich (other than conservatism, which I think is a factor) is that in 2004 he was seen to have undermined Dean in Iowa by getting supporters in precincts where he wasn’t viable to vote against Dean. This is something which someone who was well-in formed about the political blogosphere might well have known, and could probably have found out quite easily…

19

praisegod barebones 02.03.08 at 12:00 pm

‘if you evaluated liberal bloggers based on their actual positions on policy, rather than on their choice of preferred candidate, I think Kucinich would score a lot higher’

Arguably,that’s true of registered Democrats as a whole, not just blogospheric ones. But why support someone whose going to attract such unfavourable media coverage that he just won’t be able to win?

(cf – Edwards,J.)

20

Matt Weiner 02.03.08 at 1:44 pm

This bit from the article also seems dubious:

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the two candidates who have drawn some of the sharpest criticism on progressive blogs

First, I’m not sure “the two candidates who have drawn some of the sharpest criticism” is meaningful. Second, the reason they draw sharp criticism is that there’s a chance they might win the nomination. Biden is not a blogospheric favorite, but I don’t think you saw much criticism of him in the primary season because why bother?

21

rea 02.03.08 at 1:58 pm

“Ron Klain was a member of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign policy and debate preparation staff; was the chief of staff for Vice President Al Gore during the 1996 election; ran Mr. Gore’s “war room” in 2000; and led debate preparation for Senator John Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid.”

Mow, there’s a resume that maeks him sound comjpletely clueless . . .

22

Mudge 02.03.08 at 5:11 pm

kos has always stated that his objective is to elect progressive candidates. Kuchinich, regardless of his positions, was never electable and kos would, on that basis alone, personally reject him. Commenters at his site seem to be independent thinkers, not robots, so I’d expect a wide range of opinions at the site about Kuchinich.

My personal opinion is that his name was too dificult to spell, so he was mentioned less often.

23

Michael Bérubé 02.03.08 at 7:27 pm

Gore had a “war room” in 2000? Dang, I’d almost forgotten. It was in Alaska, right? Did it operate out of Fairbanks or Nome?

24

Matt Weiner 02.04.08 at 2:15 am

Let me stick up for Kerry’s 2004 debate prep team. Kerry crushed Bush in the debates.

25

greensmile 02.04.08 at 3:30 am

I am fond of generalizations. But of all the ways you can put your foot in your mouth, the generalization is the size 13 with hobnails, fresh from treading the pig sty.

26

JJ 02.04.08 at 4:40 am

Well, part of the problem here is that “liberal” doesn’t mean “left” or “progressive.” So, while “liberals” like the fellow who wrote the piece (as well as many of the bloggers named in this thread) essentially support DLC or DLC-lite positions, it is no surprise that they liked neither DK or JE. And, in any case, it doesn’t matter since we now are stuck with two “liberals” HIlary and Barak.

27

Matt McIrvin 02.05.08 at 1:05 pm

I knew some bloggers who are liberals (not liberal bloggers in the sense of being big political junkies) who lamented that nobody was supporting Kucinich even though he was right about all the big issues; and some people who were impressed by him after he scored high on a “which candidate do you match?” Internet quiz, though they may not have become actual supporters. They weren’t netroots types, who are more into strategic partisanship. The Ron Paul phenomenon was far more impressive, though the Internet acts as a magnifier for this sort of thing.

Comments on this entry are closed.