PIRG was sucking all the oxygen out of the room.  As long as they were grabbing all the progressive dollars, they were keeping the rest of the progressive movement from doing any harm.  

In the days after the 2004 election, a bunch of us MoveOn Leave No Voter Behind survivors joked about how Doug Phelps might have been a conservative operative all along, and Grassroots Campaigns Inc was his master plan--he´d built a machine that would just suck up and shit out all the grassroots political energy it could, squander MoveOn and tarnish the DNC, right when liberals needed it most. And he´d do it on the backs of a bunch of kids who believed he was a Great Man. Maybe Phelps had been working at this since Goldwater. Maybe even Nader was in on it from way back.

I mean, we were joking as we said this, because how could you take it seriously... well.