The "Bold Progressives" are running a poll on whether or not there should be a Draft Sestak movement to take on Arlen Specter. The Bold Progressives are many of the A-List bloggers and a handful of Pennsylvania-based bloggers.
Pennsylvanians have every right to discuss and vote on this, and all of us have the right to talk about a Draft Sestak movement. But if you don't live in Pennsylvania, why should you get to vote on this?
It's the Netroots giving early support to Al Franken all over again. This is Pennsylvania's choice. I'm sure they'd like the netroots money, but I'm also pretty sure that most Pennsylvania Democrats don't really give a rat's ass what you or I think about this. If you can't vote in their primary, who cares you think?
I call bullshit on Kos and Digby and John and the rest of the non-PA Bold Progressives. This is not the Netroots' call yet here they are way out front of the actual primary by over a year — just like they did with Al Franken. Do they think no one else in Pennsylvania other than Sestak is thinking about challenging Specter? Who are these people to try to dictate what Pennsylvania's choices are or should be?
I am glad to see that the vote is being broken down by PA and non-PA. The non-PA vote should be seen as meaningless, but the PA vote is also suspect because all you have to do to make your vote count is to look up a PA zip code and voila — you're a Pennsylvanian for the purposes of this poll. Think Joe Sestak doesn't have any friends in the Navy looking up zip codes before they vote?
Actually, this poll is even worst than I first thought. I just voted for a second time using the same browser from the same IP address.
And yes, that's a PA zip code I used. And yes, the vote was counted.
This is arrogant and it is wrong. Non-PA blogs and netroots activists have every right to talk about this race but if you can't vote in the PA primary and general election you should stick to talk and leave the voting to folks whose votes will actually count. Come November 2010 non-Pennsylvanians won't get to vote so why should they care what the Netroots think?
If the Bold Progressives were ethical (and I'm betting they didn't invest as much as five seconds into thinking through the ethics of this one), they'd realize they should have done this with Pennsylvania blogs only, and that they should have kept it low profile until the polling was done to avoid freeping. Then they could have presented PA's poll results to the rest of the Netroots for comment. As it now stands you don't need PZ Myers to freep this poll — it's self-freeping.
I really don't understand why this doesn't anger people. What is the point of electing representatives and senators from the 50 states if EVERYONE gets to vote on them? Why not just elect everyone at large?
We don't do that because it would be stupid. Not even a hard core wonk could follow almost 500 races every two years. We trust the locals to pay more attention and pick good people. And if they have a history of doing poorly in that regard, then maybe the netroots have a place in that decision making process.
And if the locals are doing a bad job, it means democracy's getting gamed in that state. Instead of telling others what to do, the Netroots should be looking to empower local voters, especially in machine states where the will of the people is often thwarted.
When you let outsiders pick your candidates the will of the people will almost certainly be thwarted.
The A-List bloggers need to step back and take a deep breath. This is not what they should be doing, and their newfound insistence on butting into other people's business will backfire big time someday. This thing of ours is about sharing information. When did it also become about telling others what to do?
It's called respect. The Netroots should try showing some instead of trying to master plan/manipulate races where they don't even have a real vote, just an easily freeped online poll.
Note: an earlier, "saltier" version of this diary was posted at my blog, Norwegianity.