One of the coolest things about the DKos redesign is it placed more emphasis on community. A lot of us lefties have been standing around scratching our heads for the last ten years wondering why on earth anybody listens to people like DeLay, Ashcroft, Helms, Gingrich, Lott, and the rest. They're so obviously self-interested and their policies generally don't support anything
but their own transparent self-interest. So why do they continue to have influence?
It's because of people like Rush, Coulter, Hannity, and the rest of the Right-Wing News Mob, right? Not quite. I think it's because the right is simply more organized. They move methodically from one issue to the next.
Leftwing groups have a tendency to snipe at each other. They also have a tendency to focus on several very narrow issues. The "spotted owl" is still a byword in conservative circles for whatever the cause celebre of the week is.
What we need to do is determine a way to coalesce our strength. MoveOn.org is a step in the right direction, I think. Instead of promoting orthodoxy and conformity of thought (the downside to the conservative style of "staying on-message"), MoveOn has demonstrated it's got the ability to bring together disparate segments of the Left and influence the political landscape from the bottom up.
The reason I bring this all up is that I want the Democratic Party to learn from its mistakes, and one of the biggest in 2000 was allowing the Nader candidacy to draw votes away from Gore. Immediately, I'll bet there are some of you who are already going to go into circular firing squad mode. Hear me out.
The thing that Nader did that hurt the most in 2000 was spreading the message that the two parties are the same. (Full disclosure: I bought this hook line sinker; obviously, Bush and his crew have demonstrated quite vividly that's not the case.) What we need to do is figure out a way to unify and organize the Left without resorting to the autocratic, plutocratic, and frankly non-American methods the Right has used since roughly 1994.
So what are your thoughts? I'm mostly thinking out loud here and I don't have any magical solutions. How do we keep a future Nader from pulling another Perot-job on us? How do we present a unified front without selling out the things we're fighting for? The bigger the idea, the better.