"But what do I know, I'm just an elitist blogger."

...and don't forget you're a dangerous partisan radical too!

Yeah, exactly.  Rattner will stand up for any Dem who vows to protect the principal on his balance sheet.  

It's the Dems with principles rooted in "things like that" U.S. Constitution that make him nervous.  

It's possible that "on balance" Lieberman has been good.  But most the bad that's balanced the good has come recently...

Can someone please tell the Lamont campaign to start running ads reminding the voters in CT that Joe Lieberman's version of bipartisianship is taking the same money from the same corpo interests the Republicans do.

And someone needs to call the AFL CIO out on why they would back Lieberman. Lieberman voted for all sorts of free trade agreements that screwed over the  working class.

I don't want "Lieberdem" to be widely used, as it still associates Lieberman with the Democratic Party. I honestly believe that the egotistical namesake of Lieberman's party "Connecticut for Lieberman" should be pushed.

Steven Ratner supports Joe Lieberman of the Connecticut for Lieberman party. He is not a Lieberdem.

That said, I do hope we get the press to stop referring to Lieberman's third party bid as and independent run.  He chose not to run as an independent, but instead to set up his own third party.  I also hope that people start referring to the party in abbreviations:

Sen. Lieberman (CT-LIE)

I've got a great idea:

How about government by and for the people?

This is why I read blogs in the morning, late morning, afternoon, late afternoon, early evening, evening, and before going to bed.  Fantastic post!  The concept of "We the People" has always frightened  the rulers.  Watch out America, everyday more and more Americans are actaully going to start participating in making this a democracy.

Ferrer takes liberal stances on issues but he is not a "people powered politician."  He comes out of and ran the Bronx County political machine and participated actively with his buddy and former party chair Roberto Ramirez in

1 - Working to deny ballot access to non-party endorsed candidates at all costs and thereby eliminating the need for primaries for many local offices.

2 - Placing political cronies on the payroll of local politicians.

3 - Picking judges, which are largely elected in NY, without primaries.

4 - Ensuring that only party chosen lawyers had access to handling estates of people without wills.  This is very lucrative business.

5 - Putting pressure on local unions, who still have a lot of clout in NYC, to only support party endorsed candidates.

Get the idea.  This is a Daley-esque patronage machine designed to keep all out but the insiders.  This is why I would have supported any Dem against Bloomberg but Ferrer and why I voted for a 3rd party candidate.

Sorry for the civics lession but Freddy Ferrer is not what the netroots is about and using him as an example makes little sense.

With regards to Steve Rattner, I don't know the guy and don't really care much about him.  Frankly we worry far too much about what the other side is doing which we can't control.  Concentrate on what we can control like winning primaries as we have done with Lamont, Tester, etc.  That's how you put these guys out of business.

at least half congressional dems would rather keep things the way they are instead of winning because of uppity citizens.

Stoller, it's actually two-fold: not only do we need to find revenue streams for our new structure's candidates (i don't think small dollar donations via pay pal will suffice, call me crazy) but we need to hone our uber-narrative.

the right has honed its narrative and it's brand identity and consumer loyalty to the point where they can produce 9 thousand names to get somebody like cornyn or frist on the ballot, somebody with negative charisma, and these clowns win.

they win because the new GOP narrative is so engrained in the local media landscape that anybody with the R next to their name just gets swept along in the wake and swept right into a senate seat.

for us to build a movement and a structure that produces as big a wake will take a tighter message and a wider audience.  

Frankly we worry far too much about what the other side is doing which we can't control.  

Part of the problem is that these guys are supposed to be on our side, i.e. The Democratic Party.

Concentrate on what we can control like winning primaries as we have done with Lamont, Tester, etc.  That's how you put these guys out of business.

This "is" what the post is about, to wit:

Finding a competitive financial stream is the key task for progressives, since it's not that easy to find principled, progressive, charismatic, tough, and gifted multi-millionaires like Ned Lamont

Matt Taibbi alluded to this same problem when he spoke with Marshall Wittman before the CT primary.

Wittman lectured Taibbi like he was a naive child, that (paraphrased) "All the money in politics comes from the same source, this small group of companies and rich people."

This group Wittman describes will never support candidates which they see as inimical to their interests. They will always support DLC types over real progressives, as we saw when they poured 1.3 million into the Lieberman campaign in the last two weeks.

Hence the need to find new revenue streams, in order to give progressives the resources to fund their candidates.

Now, what would such a revenue stream look like? Would it be "people-powered" like the Dean model?
Or would it rely in part on companies that have a progressive core, like Google, or Ben & Jerry's?

thanks for this behind the scenes look. i'm looking forward to your post on the origins of the machine and tony coehlo. i recently read an essay marjorie williams wrote about him titled, The Hack, in her collection Women at the Washington Zoo. it was an eye opener.

the book is a wonderful collection of her essays. more than just political profiles. there's a good one on Clinton/Gore and Gore's 2000 campaign strategy.

Matt, you're going off the deep end again.

And your comment about Dukakis plus 4 billion and Judiasm equalling Bloomberg is just dumb and crude.

Not that I disagree with you much on political substance, but your style is bad for you, this blog, and blogs in general.

You are hell bent on branding yourself as a hothead generalizer who speculates on events and motivations beyond your vision.   Someday you'll regret a lot of this crap, regardless of whatever else you do that is good.

Matt, take a day or two off. You need a break.

Why are is Rattner a bad guy?

Sure you're angry he's supporting Lieberman and yeah that's a dumb move. And Bloomberg was a bad move too. But what exactly is the problem? He doesn't feel the urgency to win? Is he being spiteful somehow because he doesn't get to play enough in the blog world?

He's a donor like any other. This cycle you didn't get his money. Maybe next cycle you will. Unless he's actively attacking your support stream, or making moves to deny you support from others then he's not really a problem. It seems counterproductive to bad mouth dem donors who could potentially be progressive donors in future races, unless of course they are actively fighting the progressive movement, which is part of your implication.

It doesn't make sense to have dems fighting dems donor or otherwise. Discussion yes. Disagreement yes. I think the contrast in approach between Josh Marshall and Mickey Kaus is illustrative of the differences in mindset and approach that modern progressives have vs the traditional single issue donors have in previous dem politics.

See the latest on http://bloggingheads.tv/, particularly toward then end when Kaus advocates selling out social security for an as yet undefined Medical Safety net and Josh illustrates how that would be a total fallacy, while slicing out room for Mickey to come around.

Seems like its time for some open and honest off camera discussion rather than warmongering. Is Rattner as inflexible in his support for Joe, as Joe seems to be in running? I am not so sure. Perhaps presented with the new realities there might be some advnatages that he has not yet had presented to him...

I just put down my copy of Nanny, Caterer 'n Spa Weekly to respond to this comment...

Seriously...spas and caterers?  MyDD readers?  

Just a modest suggestion that at the moment of victory we could be a bit more polite to Mr. Rattner.

One thing is that we are making compromises with Rattners of this world anyway.  Lamont himself is a part of that milieu.  Many fat cats are actually not all that arrogant, and not all that stupid.  And doggone, I hope that most of them will see that giving money to Lieberman NOW is not smart, while giving to Lamont is actually cool.

On the second thought, too polite a description would be just at variance with plain truth.  So: elitist: check, authoritarian streak: check, arrogant: check, starfucker: make it cult of celebrity, regardless of policy or ideology --- sigh, unfortunately, not quite;  "while pretending they know what sells in the heartland": lets face it, you do not become a "schmata mogul" without knowing what sells ("schmata mogul" was a description of one of Lamont's neighbors).

Perhaps someone should make a PowerPoint presentation on the topic: what sells in the hearland this year.  A lot of old schmatas can't be sold even at 90% discount.

What all these "prominent national donors" have in common, beyond their vulgarity, is an overweening, arrogant assurance that with their money they can make anything happen.  In this case, they are determined to have their very own Senator, Joe Lieberman.

1 - FOCUS - We haven't won shit yet.  We won the primaries in some important races but if we don't win on Nov 7 none of it matters.  Keep focused on election day.

2 - MONEY TO DEMS=SEX TO REPUBS - A lot of Dems have a problem with people with money like Repubs have problems with sex.  I frankly don't care if you have money, a house in the Hamptons or want to hang with sceevey Paris Hilton as long as you pay your taxes (preferably more than today) and don't break the law.  There will always be people with money, the key is to make them pay their fair share which they don't today.

3 - INSIDER V OUTSIDER - This whole thing is about who is in and who is out.  That is largely determined by whether or not you back the winner so the Clinton people displaced the pre-1992 IN crowd and since their is no dominant Dem in DC right now they remain IN.  If the netroots continues to succeed in primaries and reshape the party, the netroots leaders will be the new IN crowd.  It is the way of the world.

STAY FOCUSED ON NOV 7!!  WE HAVE TO ELECT OUR CANDIDATES.  THE REST OF IT IS IRRELEVANT.

Another great post, Matt.  You've nailed the rot at the center of the Democratic Party, and why it's so easy and resonates so well when the Republicans and Media claim the Democrats don't stand for anything.

We saw it in Connecticut where the entire Democratic leadership to say nothing of the media try to rescue their good buddy Joe.  Of course, no one's around to ask Clinton, Schumer, Dodd and all the rest about how they've screwed us by narrowing Lamont's margin of victory.  Their own problems vis-a-vis control of the Senate are now worse than ever through their lack of forsight (can we say stupidity) and loyalty to a very disloyal insider vs loyalty to the party.

By standing up for Lieberman, when if they had any integrity they would have at best helped him out by just keeping quiet and letting CT play out, they showed that principles stand for nothing -- Iraq, no big deal; Cheney energy bill; no big deal; Schiavo, no big deal; Alito, no big deal; multiple appearances on Fox to denounce other Dems, no big deal; editorials denouncing Dems in the Wall St Journal, no big deal.  

And now Lieberman is unleashed with all the Rovian talking points that his media buddies will allow him to spew ad nauseum without stop until November in no small part thanks to the actions of the entire party leadership.

And they say we don't stand for anything.

"Many of them are just arrogant elitists who might have been activists in their college days, but send their kids to competitive nursery schools on the upper East side while pretending to know what sells 'in the heartland'."

No offense Matt, but aren't you a rich elite prep school, Ivy league kid cum "activist" yourself? Hardly in a position to lecture others about "competitive nursery schools".

Blasting rich people when your own candidate is a self-funding multi-millionaire. Interesting.

I really can't imagine (Tawana Brawley) why anyone (Tawana Brawley) would feel uncomfortable (Tawana Brawley) or ill at ease (Tawana Brawley) around Al Sharpton.

I'm not even bothered by that. We've all trusted someone and got burned before.  To me, Sharpton's demagogic protest against Jewish Businesses in black neighborhoods, which led to a race riot resulting in the Death of a Jewish business owner was probably his blackest mark.  

[quote]But Rattner's attitude is one that we need to understand if we are to going to crush the incompetent social-climbing morons in charge of our country and our culture.[/quote]

I think you might be taking too harsh a situation.

People like Rattner might not be donating from principle, but that doesn't mean they can't be wooed away from the Dark Side.  Starfucker might be an apt way of putting it, although it's a contemptible way to describe people with money that we would prefer was giving to OUR candidates rather than THEIR candidates.  You gotta be a little more respectful, even if it sticks in your craw.

We must create our own stars for the starfuckers to lust for.  Make Ned the cool guy of the hour!  Who wouldn't want to have their picture taken with the liberator of the Connecticut masses, the new face of the Democratic Party?  Giving to dinosaurs like Hillary...  what a big waste.  She's not cool at all.

The Clinton's have a nice positive feedback machine going for them.  1) Hillary is the media's presumptive front-runner.  2) Presumptive media front-runners get lots of donations from the starfucker-donors.  3) Political figures that get lots of donations must be presumed by the media to be the front-runner... which is all self-reinforcing.  

What we want to do is interrupt that positive feedback loop.  We want to take the Rattner's (well, maybe not him personally, but his peers) away from the DLC guys.

I'm reminded of what Steve Elmendorf said about the net-roots months ago: that we were a "resource" to be "harnessed."  Well, we need to turn that around.

What a great post.  Thanks for reminding me of Tony Cohelo.  When you're writing about him, don't forget to include Howard Berman.

Since I just came across your site, I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on Gore. Is there a search function somewhere on this site?

Thanks.

absolutely brilliant analysis..........

BUT we do have the money......hundreds of thousands of us ponying up $50-$1000 a year beats there millionaires every time.

the dean candidacy was the financial template for doing this....

Steve and Maureen have been some of the most generous donors to Democrats in the last couple of decades, and have done a lot more for our cause than most of us ever will.  You don't have to agree with them on every candidate - show some respect.