Houston Chronicle on Netroots in Texas Senate Race

Just a brief FYI: the Houston Chronicle today discusses the impact of the netroots on the battle between Rick Noriega and Mikal Watts for the Democratic nomination for Texas Senator.  

Texas netroots take hold in battle for Senate seat

This is not the friendliest report ever.  Frankly, it's loaded with innuendo, suggestion, and contempt.

It starts be ignoring any past organizing by the netroots:

Their primary battle has become the first real test of the organizing ability of the netroots in Texas.

Anybody every heard of that guy Lampson?  

Then there is the hint that blogs are illegally coordinating with the Noriega campaign:

Texas' progressive bloggers in June launched a Draft Noriega movement on the Internet...The draft movement was so closely timed to Noriega's announcement of the formation of a Senate exploratory committee that it appeared to be a coordinated effort — something the bloggers deny.

The article then notes that blogs are ineffective:

Watts announced that 800 donors had given him $1.1 million in June to supplement the $3.8 million of his own money that he had put into the primary race.

As a counter move, the pro-Noriega bloggers in July publicly set a goal of raising money for him from 800 donors in a month. When that did not occur, they moved the goal post to the end of the quarter on Sept. 30. As of Thursday, they had raised $53,897 from 692 supporters.

Finally, we learn that even their beneficiaries hate the netroots:

Early last month, Noriega traveled to Chicago to rub elbows with liberal bloggers nationally at the YearlyKos Convention and received the endorsement of Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zúniga.

But then Noriega returned home and told the Texas Broadcasters Association that the blogs are as destructive a force in democracy as talk radio.

This piece is a borderline hatchet-job.  It's odd from R.G. Ratcliffe, who is one of the better political reporters in the state.  

Why the attack?  One possible reason is dropped in near the end of the article.  Bloggers could be a threat to other journalists:

But when San Antonio Current Editor Elaine Wolff revealed in a Watts interview that her husband had donated to the Watts campaign, the blog community blasted her and one staff member quit saying she should check her journalistic ethics with the Poynter Institute.

I don't know if that event played any role in Radtcliffe's thinking, but it is interesting to note.  And one should remember that whatever else this article means, it is one more testament to the importance of the netroots in this race.

•  Houston Chronicle is almost always anti-Democrati

  The Houston Chronicle is almost always pro-gevernment, pro-Bush, pro-Republican. Since 2000 the bias has been almost overwhelming. Discount most of what you read in it. Very rarely does it takr an honest, objective view.

  by ivcrdavid on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 08:29:55 AM PDT

  •  Really, It's no longer the Houston Pravda?

    That's how it's affectionally known in Brazoria.

    Wonder if Kos is gonna front page this like the other Houston Chronicle piece.

    by pinche tejano on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 08:33:09 AM PDT

    •  Why would he front page an article

      undermining the netroots?

      C'mon, you know better than that, PT.

      by boadicea on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:32:07 AM PDT

      •  I know, it was rhetocial.

        I can't wait for the live blog justification!

        by pinche tejano on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:34:12 AM PDT

        •  lol.

          You do love a little shit stirring, doncha?

          by boadicea on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:36:06 AM PDT

          •  Come on, I'm from Brazoria.

            We relish that game in politics. Just be glad Brazoria and Matagorda are trending blue, conservative blue, but blue none the less.

            Except for our Ron Paul fetish, we're gonna make a great addition to the team.

            We know the Texas Republican's game, we invented it. They stole it, and bastardized by combining all that was wrong with Texas culture with what is wrong with American culture and created the unholy union called Neo-conservativism mascarading as compassionate conservatism.

            But we will take the box turtle down.

            by pinche tejano on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:39:52 AM PDT

  •  They endorsed Lampson, I believe

    but they also endorsed Strayhorn.

    And Bush.

    by brownsox on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 08:56:05 AM PDT

•  Tip Jar.

  Thoughts on the relevance (if any) of the article?

  by weasel on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 08:42:29 AM PDT

•  Did Noriega really make that comment...

  regarding blogs?

  by Morgan Sandlin on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 08:49:26 AM PDT

  •  Found the speech....

    Not his finest hour.

    I'm not really sure why Kos decided to endorse so early in the primary in this race. Its going to get interesting.

    by Morgan Sandlin on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 08:55:41 AM PDT

    •  If youre gonna play Texas, better have a fiddle

      in the band.

      Like I said, this primary is shaping up to be traditional grassroots vs netroots, and Noriega did himself no favors by dissing the netroots.

      by pinche tejano on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 08:57:00 AM PDT

      •  I was a little amused about Noriega's

        spokesman saying that Noriega was only speaking about those blogs who practice the "politics of division".

        One person's "division" is another's advocacy.

        by Morgan Sandlin on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:26:38 AM PDT

        •  Ask Rick Yourself....

          ....at the Firedog Lake Chat about it. Also, I've had extensive correspondence with the spokesman you mention, Morgan, he understands where we are coming from, and the Texas Netroots still has full confidence in Rick and Team Noriega.  The whole Ratcliffe article was a hatchet job.

          by vpltz on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:37:55 AM PDT

          •  No..it wasn't a "hatchet job"...

            Nor was the article regarding Watts.

            Noriega made a mistake in overplaying to his audience, period. He'll make more, as will Watts.

            What I do find of interest and concern is the Texas netroots scorched earth policy regarding this race (and I know I'm sweeping with a broad brush with that statement).

            If, and its a big if, Noriega is successful, he is going to need the grassroots network and establishment network of Watts to be victorious in the general. Nothing like a total smear of other good Democratic candidates to turn supporters off.

            Under normal circumstances I would have already donated to Noriega (and I'm the sort of person who will drop $500 + here in an evening for an online fundraiser because the "hosts" are amusing me) but the tone of many Noriega supporters has kept me simply observing.

            by Morgan Sandlin on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:54:43 AM PDT

    •  Kos loves Noriega

      I'm personally against taking sides in primaries outside of states where I've lived, but to each his own.

      I'd frankly send money to a soft-shell crab if it was running against John Cornyn.

      Because I prefer soft shell crabs to box turtles.

      by brownsox on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 08:58:42 AM PDT

    •  Look at the other option...

      The other option, Watts, has a litany of negatives from being decidedly anti-choice plus more. There is only one opportunity to defeat John Cornyn, and I think Kos knows that is Rick Noriega. Mikal Watts cannot defeat John Cornyn, plain and simple. Number one, he's really just Cornyn Lite and number two, he has a ton of negatives the Republicans can throw at him.

      The Texas netroots realized early on that if we were going to have a real chance at unseating Cornyn, Watts was not the candidate to do it. We believe Rick Noriega is.

      by vpltz on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:43:13 AM PDT

  •  Yes, but he says he didn't mean it.

    He'll be on Firedoglake today to supposedly retriangluate that statement:

    http://www.offthekuff.com/...

     Narrow-casting has also crept into our politics. We've seen talk radio become an organizing tool for the diehard right, while liberals are credited with turning the blogosphere into a political weapon. Each of those media has its target demographic groups, and works them into an ideological lather while ignoring or belittling others. This, I believe, is damaging the political culture of this country. Let me give some examples of how narrow-casting poisons our public life.

    We see it in the dominance of wedge issues in political campaigns. Instead of public conversations about the large issues that are really important - the war on terror, the future of Social Security, education and health care for working families - we get vitriolic tirades over wedge issues designed to inflame a political base and create divisions among people. Whole political campaigns are crafted around the trifecta of "gays, guns and God." For example, when John Cornyn went to the United States Senate occupy the seat once held Lyndon Johnson and John Tower, he promptly held hearings on flag burning. That's right, flag burning. Now, I hate to see our flag burned as much as the next guy, but does anyone here think there's an epidemic of flag-burning sweeping our land?

    We see it in the increasing, and frustrating, partisanship in the Congress and our legislative bodies. I was first elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1998. In the time that I have served, I have seen a complete transformation of how that body works. Former Speaker Pete Laney built consensus by starting in the center and reaching out across the political spectrum to get 76 votes. Now, current Speaker Tom Craddick starts on the extreme right and works toward the center until he finds the magic number. Under Laney's approach, 530,000 Texas children got health insurance through the CHIP program; under Craddick's approach, 160,000 of them lost it.

    We see it in the micro-targeting of voters and constituencies. Instead of appealing to what Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature†- our common values and ideals as a people - modern political campaigns collect marketing data and run statistical analyses to determine whether that Field and Stream subscriber next door is likely to vote for Fred Thompson, or whether that NPR-listening woman across the street is voting for Hillary Clinton.

    We do all this slicing and dicing of our issues, our politics, and our constituents, and then we wonder why voters are turned off and disillusioned by the state of our democracy. Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. And while we cannot make a better form of government than our democracy, we can make our democracy better.

    by pinche tejano on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 08:55:55 AM PDT

  •  Yes he did, but he knows it was a mistake

    His campaign has been in very close contact with his local netroots supporters since the story broke.
    We've made it very clear to them where they fucked up. Rick is admitting fault and coming clean.
    He'll be liveblogging on Firedoglake today if you want to ask him a question.
    I blame his staff, they're pretty green but open to improving.

    by Texas Nate on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:34:09 AM PDT

  •  Just got off the phone with Rick....

    ....from a conference call with some Texas bloggers. We know Rick Noriega and we know that Rick Noriega's beliefs aren't adequately reflected in that comment. We continue to stand behind Rick Noriega.

    by vpltz on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:34:38 AM PDT

    •  Love your blog, btw.

      But you have to admit, that's what we call "bulletin board" material. Fire the speech writer.

      by pinche tejano on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:36:43 AM PDT

      •  Everybody makes mistakes....

        ....and the person who wrote that speech is a good speech writer who just had a moment of "unclarity," I guess. If you read the entire speech, which you can find at Offthekuff.com, you'll see that there was some very good stuff in there as well.

        This is just another battle in a long war against the non-Progressive candidate, Mikal Watts. Their camp leaked this story in the hopes of separating Rep. Noriega from his Netroots supporters. They're not going to win that battle, because we continue to fight right along in the trenches with Rick Noriega, and are proud to do so.

        by vpltz on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:40:45 AM PDT

•  Hatchet Job

  My take on this article is here.

  Rick will be liveblogging at FDL this afternoon.  I encourage you to go and ask questions yourself if you can.

  Some of the Texas bloggers have had a conference call with Rick this morning.  R.G.s out of context quote built on some very clumsy wording in Rick's speech.

  by boadicea on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 09:23:52 AM PDT

•  R.G. Ratcliffe

  It is no surprise to me that a reporter for the Houston Chronicle (who would hardly give a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in 2006, Barbara Ann Radnofsky, the time of day) would do a hatchet job on Mr. Noriega and the netroots community.  

  Later, in 2006, the Houston Chronicle endorsed Bush rubber stamp and right wing neocon suck up Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, too.  That should tell folks how some at the Houston Chronicle and R.G. Ratcliffe feel about Democratic candidates here.

  by Libby Shaw on Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 11:54:39 AM PDT