We've all heard the old saw "All politics are local." But Republican pollster David Winston has recently argued that in an Internet age of Web blogs, talk radio and cable news, all politics henceforth are national, not local. You don't have to look far to find evidence that the 2006 midterms are shaping up to turn on national issues rather than local ones.
Netroots endorsed candidate and Fighting Dem Eric Massa is using the internet to help nationalize midterm elections in NY-29. Michael Winship, a Writers Guild of America Award winner and former writer with Bill Moyers, recently wrote about Eric in a piece that was published on Buzzflash here. Here are some key grafs:
[Massa] has made the Internet a campaign tool, become a weekly blogger on such sites as Daily Kos, TPM Cafe and My DD, and has even hired Sanford Dickert, former Kerry/Edwards chief technology officer, as his campaign manager.
Massa's counting on voters' discontent with the state of the nation overriding both their concern about more local issues and the body politic's inclination to vote for the incumbent.
...Massa insists that not he but Rep. Kuhl "has decided to make this a national referendum about George Bush by supergluing himself to the president... Now if you want to run on George Bush's coattails, I think you just signed up to be the navigator on the Titanic because I happen to disagree with the direction the president is taking this country.
Winship's relatively short piece is well worth the read. There are lots of other great facts and juicy quotes. He also explains that Eric is not ignoring local issues but is rather putting them in a national context.
Eric also recently wrote an op-ed for the Messenger Post Newpapers in Upstate New York. (sorry no link available) Here are some applicable snippets:
By early this month, the percentage of Americans describing our nation as on the wrong track reached a high of 73 percent, with six in 10 self-described conservatives saying America is headed in the wrong direction. Even more astounding, "fewer voters today than in 2004 describe themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning," the Associated Press reported.
Americans nationwide blame the White House and Congress for problems such as out-of-control deficits, high gas prices and illegal immigration. Here in upstate New York the story is no different, although we are far more likely to blame the GOP-led Congress for these problems. In the 29th Congressional District, Congress has a breathtakingly low 17 percent job approval, according to a Cooper & Secrest Associates poll.
...As we approach this important election in November, I ask you to ask yourselves not only "Am I better off than I was four years ago?" but "Will my children and grandchildren be better off than me 10 years or 20 years from now?" It is our collective responsibility to make sure they are.
The 2006 midterms are shaping up to focus on national issues. Using the internet as a political tool, it is much easier to draw national attention to local races and to get one's message out to a national audience. Eric Massa gets that.
In addition to all this, Eric has a blog team that works independently of the Massa campaign to help organize the Fighting Dems (both vets and non-vets) around National Issues. Fighting-Dems.com, a central part of that effort, is owned by Noel Schutz, who also serves as captain of the Massa blog team.