Matt Bai writes:
MoveOn’s management team – led by Eli Pariser, a 25-year-old Internet whiz – runs a sophisticated political operation, and its main preoccupation, beyond ending the Iraq war, is to keep growing. To do that, MoveOn is always looking for what Mr. Pariser and his team call “the message object” – the controversy of the month that will viscerally attract more liberals to sign up and write checks.
An attack on MoveOn from the Bush White House is, of course, the mother of all message objects. Six months after Mr. Bush’s re-election, when opposition to the Iraq war suddenly seemed to be breaking out like a rash around the country, Karl Rove publicly accused MoveOn and its liberal sympathizers of offering “therapy and understanding for our attackers,” and membership soared. That probably explains why MoveOn was eager to run the provocative Petraeus ad in the first place.
In a sense, MoveOn is shrewdly gaming liberal politics in the way the National Rifle Association has long gamed conservative politics; the more controversy, the more members it attracts, and the more power it has to leverage on their behalf.
Seeing how Move On leverages its power, by selling out on Iraq this year, I truly oppose the effect of this controversy. Move On has used the Netroots and the anti-war movement for its own greater glory, to the detriment of the chances of ending the Iraq Debacle. Their conduct has been deplorable.
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your point of view on MoveOn. Unfortunately, I believe the same can be said for some other high profile (left-leaning) sites. In my opinion, self-promotion, self-aggrandizement, and/or self-enrichment are high on the list of some of chief and lesser-chief bloggers of the offending sites.
Of course, it is everyone’s privilege to promote one’s self. Readers and commenter’s should just be aware and act / re-act accordingly.
that Matt Bai is God, that 25 year old internet whizs are necessarily bad and that the message object even comes comparatively close to being as bad as what the neo-cons and our lame congress has done. Which is to say not at all.
Most of the people I know in Moveon are selling cookies on weekends to support what they see as a progressive movement. These are good hearted people and correct. Desperate times call for desperate (and wholly accurate) “message objects.” Nothing else seems to be getting thru.
…MoveOn or given them money or cared about them at all at some point for them to have duped us?
Or as with the Dems, change it from within?
I REALLY don’t expect any organization that deals with money to escape the traps of dealing with money.
But if there strategists suck….how do we change that?
But you’re right.
liberals give up their candy.
of any organization that strives for political clout in this money-driven climate. One goes after the cash as a means to an end and pretty soon it becomes the end in itself.
somebody at the “Big O” has called you out at high noon! 😉
Moveon is trying to shout over the msm’s deification of the bad general. No Dem has the balls to call him a liar, an abuser of servicemen, or a tool for the bushies. If moveon didn’t ruffle feathers, Petraeus wouldn’t have been challenged at all.
The Rs ranted silliness about Monica and it stuck. If dems would shut the fuck up and not dis their own, maybe the people would understand that the general is not a god. If the ad didn’t have a controversial header, it would have been ignored.
Give it up, you sound like Pelosi, and that aint good. With predictable dissension from here and on the Hill, more blood and money will be spent on this Iraq folly. Moveon should be applauded–and supported, and those that disagree should feel free to keep their wallets and the mouths shut. You are aiding and abetting the enemy.
Teamwork is never displayed by Dems–Rs use the Big Lie technique, Dems eat their young.
..and I’m not asking this cynically or facetiously but out of true curiosity:
If you ran Move On and/or had their resources and/or organizational structure how would you use it differently and why?
Again it seems to me that we all share the same goal – to make the ‘Pugs go away. I think the disagreement is the strategy and tactics used. Correct me if I’m wrong.
It’ll be a while ’til I can respond but should be back later this evening.