Why Is The Grass-Roots So Green?

Make no mistake, there are hundreds of thousands, if not now millions of dollars changing hands within the so-called Netroots movement. And I don't mean dollars flowing up from contributors to political campaigns, though obviously that's happening, too.

While some, see Mickey Kaus here and Rogers Cadenhead here, continue to focus on the concept of Kosola (unproven allegations that some quid pro quo involving Dailykos, Jerome Armstrong and politicians) might exist, the bigger story may be the financial connections that suggest there is no reason for a Kosola of the type alleged to have taken place. There's more than enough money floating around the Liberal blogosphere for everyone, though it seems a few may be getting more than their fair share, while others are starting to complain.

The paper trail documents how the so-called people powered movement isn't so much people powered at all. It's fueled by big money with a big agenda being funneled into the Liberal blogosphere and to Liberal bloggers on a regular basis. Without that support, the grass-roots movement and Dailykos probably wouldn't amount to much of anything and Yearlykos couldn't have taken place on the scale it did.

To understand the financial connections that can now be documented, you'll also want to understand the Phoenix Group (PG), as reported on here in The Hill, and in depth through the New York Times, Wiring the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, July 2004. Wealthy associates of the group have been propping up the Netroots movement, enjoying the cachet of a ground up grass roots movement that's actually financed and, I'd argue, controlled from the top down by big money, just as is most all contemporary politics. The Times piece is an absolute must read.

The Hill: One source at the DNC with direct knowledge of the agenda said that the Phoenix Group had three specific goals at the outset. It wants to create liberal think tanks, training camps for young progressives and media centers.

Despite the general recognition that progressives are several years behind conservatives, liberal activists are confident that technology will help them close the gap. “Technology may allow us to do in a few years what it took the other side 40 years,” the DNC source said.

Some of the key PG players, though far from all, are Howard Dean, George Soros, Simon Rosenberg, Andy Rappaport, and SEIU President Andy Stern. All of them, and others, have channeled serious money and support to the Netroots movement, including to Moulitsas and Armstrong, since it began. In fact, it likely wouldn't have taken off or even survived without that financial support.

Armstrong and Dailykos are simply mimicking the talking points of well to do Liberals documented in articles and speeches as talking about fifty state campaigning and the need for a new Democratic Party. Here's an excerpt from a speech by Alan Broadbent in 2004 in which he lays out some rules Kos and Armstrong also seem to embrace by shouting down dissension, or expelling dissidents from their ranks.

What are these rules? ... First, create the institutions that can do the research and analysis that can underpin progressive causes. Second, meet on a regular basis. Third, support each other, and celebrate successes of others. Fourth, don’t criticize each other. Fifth, stay on message. Sixth, reward those politicians who act progressively, as opposed to those who only talk progressively.

Howard Dean introduced pay for play into the Liberal blogosphere. And while Moulitsas and Armstrong are still somewhat tight lipped when it comes to clients, past or present, here's a look at what is known.

After the Dean campaign stood down, along came Andy Stern of the SEUI with $162,000 dollars to Political Technologies, LLC. Those payments came while they were writing Crashing The Gate - a work that even some Liberals complained was too labor friendly? Coincidence? You be the judge.

I've read the 1st half of "crashing the gate", and I think Jerome's and Markos's treatment of the "issue groups" is, in some places, spot-on. However, their pro-labor bias is apparent

When Kos and Armstrong wanted to start BlogPac, who stepped up? According to FEC documents, it was Andy Rappaport with $4,000 - and later Simon Rosenberg's (New Democratic Network) NDN with another $4,000 and David Lee, a Paramount Director, with $2,000 - and the donor list includes several other well-off Liberal benefactors contributing 1k, or so. Unfortunately FEC archives don't link direct, but you can search the FEC.

There's nothing at all wrong with that, but even with that type of money, the BlogPac still found itself mostly strapped. The so-called grass roots these bloggers allegedly lead may donate to campaigns through their respective sites, but they are not supporting their sites and direct efforts, so big money types are stepping in.

Now try and comprehend this. TheHill reported a $2,000 loan to BlogPac from Matt Stoller.

BlogPAC also repaid a $2,000 loan from Stoller to set up a website, enjoythedraft.com, a site that satirized the possibility that the government would bring back the draft if Bush were reelected.

Yet, according to the FEC Stoller loaned BlogPac $1,000 and $5,000, for a total of $6,000 - without that and the big money players they wouldn't have been able to do much of anything at all. So, where are all these grass roots supporters of particular bloggers when it matters? It appears as though they aren't really there when it counts.

As an aside, I spoke with the FEC last week and BlogPac is engaging in at least two practices that present significant potential for fraud. Again from TheHill:

It will no longer operate as a traditional PAC, raising money to support candidates and participate in elections, Bowers said in a statement on the website.

That's somewhat disingenuous because BlogPac has never given a dime to a candidate. What they've done is invest in on line advertising, mostly negative against Republicans. Again, nothing wrong with that. But if those on line ads start finding their way onto certain blogs, it's a perfect mechanism to put political donations right back into the pockets of the bloggers who are constantly ginning up the crowd. And if they are BlogPac ads, you continue to replenish the pump.

Additionally, given current FEC filing regulations, it is possible for a PAC to accumulate small contributions and report them as one large loan. By repaying that non-loan, one would in effect be paying a blogger with political donations. And that practice would go undetected unless someone filed a complaint, or the FEC decided for some other reason to launch a full investigation.

When I spoke to the FEC it was very general and no PACs or individuals were mentioned. And I certainly didn't file a complaint.

As for Daily and Yearly Kos, one need only look at his sidebar at different times and the sponsor list for YearlyKos to see how wealthy liberal groups and organizations channel money directly to him. One might think MoveOn, or NARAL, or whatever other groups controlled by wealthy Liberals aligned with the Phoenix Group aren't really reaching out much by preaching to the choir. There's absolutely nothing wrong with their running ads, or providing sponsorship, of course. But with the grass roots not supporting the direct efforts of the bloggers, Armstrong and Moulitsas would have to do what their history shows they've never really accomplished - go out and get and hold real jobs. At $2,000 a pop, it doesn't take MoveOn and others much effort to keep Dailykos in business and even well heeled.

Most every blogger knows time is the main constraint when blogging. With big money rolling in from wealthy Liberals, some Liberal bloggers don't appear to have that worry. The sponsors for YearlyKos include Air America, People For The American Way, MoveOn and Rosenberg's NDN and MyDD - which indicates Armstrong certainly has come a long way.

Not all that long ago, Armstrong was pleading poverty to the court:

In answer to case number ()3 CV 326 with Judge Holschuh and Magistrate Judge Able, I humbly submit this document ... Over 3 months ago, without sufficient funds to defend myself through a lawyer...

Now, according to the Washington Post, he just closed on a $440,000 home. (Correction: The purchase was in October 2005, which is even less time after he was allegedly too broke to afford a lawyer) Is there money in Liberal blogging? You bet there is. But apparently Reagan's trickle down economics isn't working at MyDD. As Rogers Cadenhead recently pointed out, it sounds as though someone else is now looking for their just dues.

A critical mistake some Liberal Blogger benefactors may have made is picking bloggers too far out of the norm. As stated, neither Armstrong nor Moulitsas have any experience or accomplishment in the real world. Both claim to have been expats for a significant period of time, were perpetual graduate students well into their thirties and forties, apparently either on the government or Daddy's dime. One is so cliche he still admires Che as a hero and the other can't seem to get his head out of the stars.

Now Hillary and the adults at the DLC have decided to start to play. Many genuine Liberals feel cut off from the grass roots because Armstrong and Moulitsas have been as heavy-handed as they both have been erratic. And it's possible they too will start to moderate their message lest they lose the financial support of their masters. That could leave the real, or perhaps more dedicated Liberals of the blogosphere with nowhere to go. It basically depends on who wins the war in messaging between the old DNC and those who would hope for something new. Only now, the same elitists who have always taken a back seat to the politicians after giving them money, hope to more directly be pulling the strings.

Those strings look to be worth plenty of green for the grass roots movement and appear to be mostly attached to Moulitsis and Armstrong for now. But that, like everything else in the world, could change while remaining much the same as far as who gets to call the shots. It's American politics, and you always wind up following the money in the end.

Comments

[Gabriel Sutherland]

You should note the cross connects between money given to BlogPAC and money given to Yearly KOS sponsors. Andy Rappaport is rich. He threw around a million dollars of his own money in the 2004 election. He's a max contributor to Simon Rosenberg's NDN. Simon is buddy buddy with Markos. Markos mentions Simon every opportunity he gets when asked about Daily Kos allies.

You'll recall that Armstrong and Kos were both employed by the Dean campaign. Were they or were they not employed by the Dean campaign just prior to it unraveling?

The timeline match to suggest that tanking the Dean campaign may have been part of a larger strategy to build up the netroots financing to better manage the message. Trippi received a lot of Dean's money through commissions earned on Dean ad buys. Trippi wasn't around for much longer. He was let go and Dean brought in Al Gore's former chief of staff Roy Neel. Dean lets go of a netroots legend and hires someone from the DLC roster? That doesn't fit the storyline. Unless the story is to throw the 2004 election to boost the netroots with another 4 years of critique of the Bush White House, the Republican House and the Republican Senate. Is the critique the same with a Democrat in the White House?

The netroots is an effort to construct it into a major political force. Shuffling money may rise to the surface occasionally in FEC filings, but Andy Rappaport is supporting the "New Progressive Coalition". This is a for profit outfit designed to channel money to progressive causes. It is essentially a clearing house for left wing money. It's hired a number of former left wing foundation officials such as Tides and Ford to act as investment consultants.

Kos is merely the NY Times of the netroots. Behind the scenes is a developing network of stovepiped talking points and growing money supplies.

Byron York writes about the "Shadow Party". That's just what the netroots is at this point. It doesn't affect the Democrat Party, only in assisting it in guaranteeing permanent minority status. It exists to build momentum to either take control of the Democrat Party or become a third party.

[Peter]

Can anybody explain how this differs from the practice of Lobbiests purchasing thousands of copies of ghostwritten books of congressmen (remember Jim Wright?) in the past?

The plan looks pretty smart, buy the adds to generate the revenue and you are paying people to support you without giving a direct handout.

This sounds like people on the Gravy Train to me, now where have I heard that theory before? I quote a post from Right Wing Nuthouse in the comments:

" Position C is where the action is. Many people will make a living (or a fortune) selling snake oil to...make their boodle while they can (Kos & Oliver). They will be come a cult of belief where their followers wiat for delivererence from the Bush-Hitler and the leaders like KOS will laugh to the bank."

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2005/08/05/moonbat-blog-taxonomy/

Sounds like the dough isn't just coming from the faithful. Either way none of it is a big shock but it is very american.

[Mister Snitch!]

Reynolds is right – this IS just politics as usual. However, Kos et al claim to be the very anithesis of politics as usual. So there you have it. Meet the new (party) boss.

[Dan]

"Reynolds is right – this IS just politics as usual. However, Kos et al claim to be the very anithesis of politics as usual."

Precisely the point. And as per the above references to the FEC Loan item - I'm not saying it is legit, or permitted, I am saying that the opportunity to exploit that loophole while risking being caught, if an investigation takes place, exists given my understanding of the current BlogPac set up.

I'm not sure running a media op and a PAC can be done without presenting the appearance of potential conflict. If the NYTimes had a PAC and bought ads in other NYTimes publications, it'd be the same thing as if a blog were to do it.

[Tsk]

I'm not one to defend Armstrong, but his purchase of the $435,900 home is with a person named Shashikala Rao. When I googled "Shashikala Rao" I pretty much only came up with one person who is (was) a medical doctor in Phoenix, AZ (where I believe Armstrong once lived). Is this the same person and is she a partner (unmarried or married) to him? My guess is a doctor can afford a $435,900 home.

[Dan]

When I googled "Shashikala Rao" I pretty much only came up with one person

There is possibly another having something to do with stocks for Indian companies, I believe.

[Sgt. York]

RE: "to channel money to progressive causes"

What are 'progressive causes' and how are they different than Dem Party causes? As briefly mentioned in the article above it certainly isn't your average Joe worker issues. The Dem Party ceased being the Worker party back in the '60 when big money took over. The only serious person who has been championing Worker issues is Pat Buchanan who was calling for a secure border ten years ago (along with stoping employers from hiring illegal workers). Likewise, Buchanan correctly points out that the HEALTH-CARE CRISIS is a result of the decimation of American's industrial base. Guys who were once working good manufacturing jobs with full benefits are now flipping burgers. The Dem Party wants mommy-state to simply fund it when the best answer is Buchanan's plan to rebuild America's manufacturing sector. And yes, that means slapping tarifs on imports. It certainly worked for Harley when Reagan did it.

----------------------

[Linus]

I stopped reading at the anti-issue-group-but-too-pro-union part.

You don't have to entirely trust Kos's motives (everyone has to make a living, and this is how he makes his) to understand that the netroots isn't just a fundraising machine but (contrary to what Kos has himself said in the past) an ideologically-based movement with a particular vision of politics and policy.

Labor doesn't get much love (or attention) in left-blogistan, but there is a recognition in the new libertarian left (that is, the netroots) that the unionization of the service sector is probably the best hope for securing middle class livelihoods for millions of people now employed in it, and that this is a good even vital thing.

The fact of the matter is that an ever increasing percentage of private sector workers are employed in the service sector, and that any number of these jobs are still treated as temporary, and not worthy of a living wage. But the fact of the matter is that these jobs - cashiers, clerks, salespeople, as well as programmers and biotech researchers - are the jobs of the future, and ought to be treated as "good jobs." In the early decades of the industrial revolution, factory and textiles jobs were the lowest rung of the economic food chain, dirty, dangerous, and low wage. Populists (like William Jennings Bryan) still glamorized the old agrarian economy. The labor movement transformed first the image of industrial jobs, and eventually the economic value of these jobs by helping to enact labor and workplace regulation.

Today we have a similiar situation with the service sector. Virtually no one regards retail jobs as "good jobs" but almost any job not easily offshored or automated today must be regarded as a good job, and properly compensated. This is probably the only way that America will retard its slide toward a two-tiered economy, with a small and richly compensated elite, and a vast service caste (which includes, increasingly, many well-educated people) struggling to be middle class. The netroots movement implicitly recognizes this fact.

[AST]

Everybody should read Byron York's book, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy. It tells you all you need to know, without even mentioning Kos.

I think that no matter how much they raise, they're pouring it down a rat hole with their insistence on defending the NYTimes' perfidy, seriously claiming that the Religious Right is trying to establish a theocracy based on Leviticus, and making all kinds of other assertions against Bush et al. born of paranoia and an itch to govern that they can't scratch. What they don't get are a few basics of politics: You have to win over the swing voters, not just your own base. You don't trust your own hype. Avoid looking so angry that you're too dangerous to be trusted with power. (These people sound like the first thing they'd want to do is nuke Crawford, Texas.)

The Democrats have some very savvy old pols, but they've frozen them out and turned the party over to the likes of Kos, Soros, Dean, Nan Aron and Ralph Neas. They haven't got the slightest idea how to talk to people who aren't in the throes of Bush Derangement Syndrome.

Still, they have money sloshing around like Scrooge McDuck's money bin and they don't care if they comply with the campaign finance laws. That makes them dangerous. Conservatives have to start pointing this out and pounding it home.

[Brian Dirks]

The question that comes back to me all the time is 'If Air America and thereby left wing talk shows cannot find enough people to listen and thereby support their advertisers, then who are these people.' How big are they? Who exactly is the vast left wing conspiricy? How many troops do they have? Is it just the press, school teachers and other government labor people? Are they equally numbered with right wingers? I keep noticing that the press wins everything but elections. They win all the polls, they win all the Sunday talk shows, they win minutes of airtime with all their lefties, they bluff Arlen Spector and John McCain into their lefty camp, they keep Republicans from speaking their mind for fear of getting Newted or Tripped or McCarthyed, they keep righties depressed, but in the end where are their voters? Is their bluff disipating faster than global cooling? Power of the press. Any decent coup takes over the press first and the government buildings second. I believe the Democrats/left have survived on bluff/press for 50 years and think they can get it back. Excuse me for enjoying the schadenfraude of the whole lefty fizzliment thing but I can't stop grinning each day as the curtain gets pulled back further and further.
Brian Dirks

[Pixy Misa]

Virtually no one regards retail jobs as "good jobs" but almost any job not easily offshored or automated today must be regarded as a good job, and properly compensated.

Why?

[The Ugly American]

As I am no spring chicken I have worked a union factory job, in construction, and in retail. The factory job paid the most, had the best benefits, and the least was expected of me. In construction the money was good, but the work was hard and the benefits were not so great. In retail the pay was lower to start, but the benefits were decent and there was a lot of opportunity to grow.

For people who choose such a career as I eventually did. Retail is just the first step on the ladder. You learn basic principals of merchandising, marketing, customer service, etc. If you are good and motivated you move on to management, or B2B sales (which is what I did).

If you raise salaries and benefits on retail jobs which are entry level jobs (there are exceptions ie. big ticket retail items)thereby raising the cost of goods at the retail level you are going to force more businesses to sell over the web, and offer less service.

There are tons of careers for individuals who start in retail that pay very very well. No one is "stuck" in retail job.

[rhodeymark]

Without clerks, where would we employ our slackers? They are doing the laziness that Mexican's won't do!

[M. Simon]

Sgt. York,

The manufacturing jobs are not coming back with or without Pitchfork Pat.

Automation has hit manufacturing, just as it once hit farm labor.

[Kyda Sylvester]

Follow the money? You betcha. Armstrong and Moulitsas are the Marjoe Gortner and L Ron Hubbard of netroots politics.