PoliticsPA, on Friday (emphasis mine):
Asked who was behind it, Buckley scratched his head. Nobody really knows, he said. Click on " About Us " on the home page of the site, and you get this: " Our editor is Josiah Bartlett, a pseudonym for the people who are working on this site. We have chosen to remain anonymous, much like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay when they wrote the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym Publius. " [in PA its another pseudonym: Sy Snyder](...)
A check through the Networks Solutions search site reveals that PoliticsNH is registered to NameSecure.com. Wally Edge is listed as the site's " administrative contact. " Edge did not return a call from the Phoenix. On the PoliticsNJ site, though, the " About Us " link says, " PoliticsNJ.com is operated by The Publius Group and our editor is Wally Edge, a pseudonym for the people who are working on this site. "
Last February, Roll Call columnist Stuart Rothenberg did a piece on anonymous political Web sites. When he called the Publius Group, Lieberman called him back but wouldn't provide additional details on who was backing the venture. Rather than identifying himself as the president of the Publius Group, as he's now listed on PoliticsNH.com, Lieberman told Rothenberg that he handled marketing for the company.
Now, in the spirit of their "retraction," I suppose it is possible that a lying, sneaking, anonymous shadow group that has set up websites around the country (more on that below) is simply being caught in the middle of a coincidental timeline concerning the Claremont Institute, which is undeniably a branch of the Republican Noise Machine. They could, of course, clarify this by telling us who they were, but they will never do that. Further, I am pretty certain that many of their writers are in fact Democrats, but I don't really care. Even if some of their people were Democrats, and even if they are critical of Republicans sometimes, that does not free them from being part of the Republican Noise Machine. Tim Roemer was still part of the Republican Noise Machine because he worked for the Mercatus Center. Alan Colmes of Hannity and Colmes is still part of the Republican Noise Machine, even though he is ostensibly a Democrat. Being a Democrat does not mean you cannot be part of the Republican Noise Machine by any means. However, the types of Democrats who would take funding from the Republican Noise Machine are the absolute worst types of unreformed Democrats: non-partisan Democrats, Democrats who fail to realize what we are up against, Democrats who are mostly protective of their own power and "insider" Democrats who hold nothing but disdain for the grassroots, the netroots, and the rank and file.
That, I believe, is really what is going on here. What Harrisburg is to Pennsylvania, D.C. is to the nation. On a smaller scale, we have our own bubble, our own chattering classes, our own struggles over power for the sake of power (rather than ideas or people). I'm sure every other state has the same. It is no secret that many Republicans and Democrats in D.C. hate our guts (and for many in the netroots, the feeling is obviously mutual). It is the same thing here in Pennsylvania. When they don't hate us, they do sometimes see dollar signs, and feel that the only thing the blogs and the netroots are good for is money and a punchline at a cocktail party. We are outside, they are inside. It's just a variation on that old joke about an incoming Democratic congressman in the late fifties:
Freshman Dem Representative (talking to old Democratic Rep): Was that a Republican that just passed by?
Old Dem Rep: Why? Do you want to meet him?
Freshman Dem Rep: Yeah. I want to know the face of the enemy.
Old Dem Rep (shakes head, takes hold of freshman's arm): No no no no. The Republicans are the opposition, not the enemy. The Senate--that's the enemy.
Now, for many insider Democrats (and Republicans, I'm sure), the culprit in the punchline could simply be changed from "Senate" to "grassroots."
We are living in an era of rising grassroots power. This is clearly a threat to insiders. Ginny Schrader certainly has not locked up the netroots endorsement for PA-08, but her support last year on Blogosphere Day took the power of the decision as to who would replace Greenwood out of the hands of the insiders. Already in that sense, she is a threat to the power of the Democratic insider elite. Last Wednesday, five local Democrats who are challenging Republicans for Republican-held suburban congressional seats met a group of 200 or so local netroots and grassroots activists, and through the blogs it received more national coverage than any other political rally in Pennsylvania this year. That also takes power away from insiders.
And so we have PoliticsPA, PoliticsNH, PoliticsNJ, or whatever. They say they will criticize candidates of both parties. They say they will criticize bad candidates. What they are really criticizing are the grassroots, the netroots, and the other outsiders who are now a rising threat to their power. Anyone who attempts to criticize, circumvent, or otherwise challenge their power will face their wrath. Here in Philly, combined the local progressive blogs now have a higher readership than any local newspaper, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. Even more so, we have by far a more politically active readership than any news outlet in the state. Even worse, we are now holding meetings directly with local candidates, and not inviting the insiders. Of course they are going to try to find a way onto a conference call they weren't invited to, and then lie about it to all of their friends at a Harrisburg cocktail party.
Whatever or whoever is funding the Publius Group, I have no doubt that it is in some way a joint effort of Unreformed Democrats and the Republican Noise Machine to try and stop the rising power of the grassroots and netroots progressive outsiders. Unreformed Democrats don't see the Republican Noise Machine as the problem--they see us as the problem, just like Republican see us as the problem. They have the same motivation--to maintain their own power. I've stopped noticing when people say they don't want to talk with bloggers because they are crazy. I've stopping noticing when people say they don't want to schedule bloggers in interviews or as speakers because they are devisive. I've stopped noticing when people refuse to even meet bloggers because they would rather have some sort of violent physical ailment that even look at our faces. This just happens so often I don't even notice it anymore. In fact, I have almost come to the point when I assume insiders will act this way.
Of course, there are a lot of Democrats who are also willing to listen to us, to work with us, and to help us, even though we are not always as receptive to these people as we should be. We need to work with these people, and be open to them. We are working with some of them right now. Everyone else, well, we will go both around and through them. No one is so powerful that they can't be brought down or replaced. Their time is ending, and our time is now.
Which brings me back to my basic point. I don't care if PoliticsPA and the Publius Group say from now on, and neither should the local progressive blogosphere. We can build our own sites like this. In fact, we are in the midst of doing so as we speak. If our alternative progressive media works with institutions like this rather than building our own alternatives, we will never achieve the sort of independent media that conservatives have used as a means to shift the national political discourse to the right. And it's not just what they did to Ginny Schrader either. They did the same thing to Joe Hoeffel repeatedly in 2004, and would probably do so to Paul Hackett or any other blog-supported candidate if s/he were from PA. I could sit here all day and pick apart their coverage of local politics as a means to change it, but I am not a Thune blogger receiving $35K in order to fulfill such a task. I am not a one-man Media Matters for Pennsylvania, and local grassroots and netroots just don't have the resources to do something like that full-time anyway. For that reason, I think our only option is to abandon it and build our own alternative. Seriously--no one in the local netroots and grassroots should touch PoliticsPA with a ten-foot pole, considering the red flags they raise. Conservative politicians go on conservative media all the time, and that is the same way we need to connect to progressive politicians, rather than insider intermediaries like PoliticsPA.
And it's not just PoliticsPA either--it's all the PoliticsXX state sites. From the research line that started with our original discovery about PoliticsPA, we now know all of the following:
Everyone in the progressive netroots, everywhere in the country, needs to stay away from PoliticsXX sites. If you link them, stop. If you read them, stop. If you know people who link and read them, tell them they should stop, and tell them why. Republicans dominate local blogospheres, and our unwitting progressive netroots participation in sites like PolitcsXX is part of the reason why. It is, at long last, time that we build our own local blogospheres. Fortunately, I can say that is a project that is finally underway. Let the power hungry insiders play by themselves--we will talk with those interested in reform. When the power hungry insiders are finally willing to be open and transparent, then we can talk with them, and do so within our own forums and institutions. So, until that day...
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