Dave "Mudcat" Saunders is the "Rural Liaison" for the John Edwards campaign.
He is very much of a cultural conservative "who sleeps under a Confederate-flag bedspread" and who gives this advice to Democrats:
Lose "the wuss factor" and bone up on the culture of country people -- even if it means forgetting about the women's studies professors and the gay-rights activists. (They'll vote for Democrats regardless, the authors argue.)
Today over at Time's Swampland blog, he bashed (without naming names) Democratic bloggers, the Netroots, and big city liberal Democrats.
This is quite interesting for a campaign that had been cultivating a great deal of goodwill amongst the Netroots and the Democratic base.
One wonders whether there's a pre-general election tent big enough for Mudcat and the people he attacks.
The details below the fold.
To his credit, Mudcat doesn't mince words or try to avoid being judged for his piece entitled "Go Ahead and Shoot Me."
He spends two paragraphs about what he will talk about in the future before launching into his attack on other Democrats:
I have bitched and moaned for years about the lack of tolerance in the elitist wing of the Democratic Party, or what I refer to as the "Metropolitan Opera Wing". These are the people who talk of tolerance but the only true tolerance they ever exhibit is for their own pseudo-intellectual arrogance.
"Metropolitan Opera Wing" is code for big city liberals who believe in getting along with black people and gays. In other words, the most reliable of Democratic voters. The ones who get caricatured by people like Karl Rove and . . . Mudcat Saunders.
If you want a perfect example of how this "intolerance" is helping the Democrats lose national elections, check out the responses to Joe Klein's post on Paris and Libby. To be clear, I have no problem with incivility. After all, I'm in the political business. However, as a pilgrim in the blogosphere, I thought blogging was for exchange of ideas, not personal attacks. Like his post or not, Klein in no way compromised the integrity of the fourth estate. This was not a news story. He was simply stating his opinion. Unless fourth estate integrity has been compromised, there is no rationale for calling him a "jackass", "fool", or "elite white guy".
Hey Atrios! Congratulations, you're a member of the Elitist wing of the Democratic party. So are you, Kos! Tell me, though, how does one belong to the Metropolitan Opera (NYC) Wing of the Democratic party while living in California?
And aren't you a blogger? I thought you guys were always resisting the party elites or something. I guess all big-city liberals are the same or something.
I am certain I will get personally attacked for this next statement, but in all honesty, I don't care what the "Metropolitan Wing" of my party thinks. I don't like them. The damage the pseudo-intellectuals have done to my party by abandoning tolerance, combined with their erroneous stereotyping of my people and culture, is something that brings out my incivility. In his column, Joe said, "...the smart stuff is being drowned out by a fierce, bullying, often witless tone of intolerance that has overtaken the left-wing sector of the blogosphere." Amen. I must add that this same intellectual arrogance and intolerance overtook the party years ago, and for that very reason, my people in rural America left the tent.
Where have I heard this nonsense before? Oh yeah.
Mudcat apparently is the 2007 version of Zell Miller, author of "A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat."
Apparently, not sucking up to the NRA and James Dobson and adopting rightwing cultural values is liberal 'intolerance.'
Though I'm still struggling to see the connection between Joke Line and the rural populist wing of the Democratic party.
And you know what's coming up next: the dreaded civility lecture:
So to those bloggers who believe in a straight-forward dialogue and exchange of ideas, God bless you and thank you. Together, you're coming up with a lot of good stuff, and frankly, much of it has been helpful to me. At the same time, those Democratic bloggers, who have appointed themselves as intellectually superior and believe the only way to win an argument is to shot the loudest with personal attacks, you can go to Hell. Intellectually superior? The truth is these people remind me of the guy who told so many people he had a horse that he finally went and bought a saddle. The "incivility" in their tones tell me they would be much more happy following "pro rasslin" than the political blogs.
Understand me? I don't like you damn big city elitists, and y'all can go to hell with your incivility.
I'm really a little bit confused as to which wing of the party Mudcat belongs, the populist wing, the anti-blogger wing, or the Joe Klein wing.
But, we know he ain't one of them big city opera fans. They're to blame for everything, don't ya know.
UPDATE
Mudcat is still throwing bombs.
Nowhere in my first post did I say I was "anti-blogging". Quite to the contrary, I said to bloggers who want to take the Democratic Party back into the big tent, "God bless you and thank you." I was quoted saying after the Webb election that the "bloggers" led the way. As Casey Stengel said, "You can look it up." The problem I've got is I'm "anti-losing" and don't like a small group of intolerant, intellectually-elites continuously trying to shape the "Big Tent" into a "Pup Tent". The blogs are the Democratic Party's greatest source of power and unity. Why would I am be anti-blogging? In other words, I wasn't talking to all of you. Just some of you.
Yes, those of you big city elites who believe in tolerance as a social value.
Wtf does this have to do with Joe Klein again?
Where in my post did I say I was anti-urban? I was on Carlson with Sharpton before the SC Democratic debate and said clearly (Sharpton agreed) that the problems of Urban America and Rural America are mirror images of each other, and the problem is that few candidates will talk about our common ground of economic unfairness and disparity. I believe that if we articulate these similarities properly, it will not only drive votes but pull us together as a party and as a people. And all the votes will be "two-fors". We'll take one away from the Republicans and give one to us. And with margins so slim, simple arithmetic tells you that it doesn't take many. We don't need all the votes, just a few more.
I'm not anti-urban or racist--I agreed with Al Sharpton on something!
As far as being a "conservative" blogger, here is my answer to that. If you set aside the gun issue, I could hardly be called "right-wing".
I may be a conservative, but I ain't a rightwinger. And screw you liberals!
Thank you, Mudcat.