Joe Klein's recent column is a subject of much discussion. I agree with parts of the column, and disagree with others. I want to home in on one part of it though:
The denizens of the left blogosphere consider themselves the Democratic Party's base. But they are not. For Democrats, as opposed to Republicans, the wing is not the base; the legions of loyal African Americans, union members, Jews, women and Latinos are.
This and the recent Ron Brownstein piece have ruffled the feathers of many in the netroots.
Here's the thing: They're more right than wrong when it comes to the makeup of the Dem base.
The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."
Here's a fact: The left blogosphere is not THE base. It's part of the base.
I don't think the lefty blogosphere will ever fully understand Democratic politics until it acknowledges where they differ from the rest of the base. And the first step is acknowledging that lefty bloggers are not THE base, but a part of the base.
When campaigns do targeting, demographics and other criteria are used to model the electorate, and while there are overlaps demographically among the different parts of the base, by and large, lefty bloggers are whiter, wealthier, and more likely to have undergraduate and graduate degrees than the Democratic base as a whole. (I remember after the first Kos Convention, now Netroots Nation, that some were taken aback by the lack of racial diversity among attendees.)
So "the legions of loyal African Americans, union members, Jews, [pro-choice] women and Latinos" are significant parts of the base and some of these parts are underrepresented in the blogosphere. I added the pro-choice there, because it's a more accurate description. I assume Klein didn't delve further in qualifying his statements b/c of space issues in the magazine, but his statement should be further refined in any number of ways. Here are a few:
- Latinos is too broad. Older Latino men can't be counted as part of the base and neither can Cubans.)
- Geographical differences are key. See Obama's performance in much of the South, and the upper Midwest like MN & WI, where he was much stronger across the board w/ whites than the rest of the Midwest.
- Single women are more likely to vote Democratic than married women.
This kind of targeting isn't unsimilar to what Nate Silver did in predicting election results last year.
Anecdotally, when I conducted interviews for field organizers last year on a campaign, I asked interviewees what were the three issues that were most important to them. I don't know the exact number of people I interviewed (at least 200), but by the end, based on race, age and education levels, I could usually guess what issues were going to be mentioned in the interview and just as important, how. Now, some topics like the economy and Iraq were mentioned by demographics across the board, but there were some key differences. For example, young college students regardless of race were more likely to say "climate change," while African Americans, Latinos, and working-class whites were more likely to say "gas prices" or "energy." Now gas prices, energy and climate change are related, but the language used is important. Climate change is more abstract, while gas prices and energy is easier to grasp and hits closer to home. (It's why climate change legislation should be referred to as the Energy Bill not the Climate Change Bill.) It wasn't surprising for me to read in David Plouffe's book the following on page 328:
The messaging was consistent throughout our ads, but the emphasis and focus of issues discussed could be tailored closely to individual demographics. Our spots for those under thirty were very aspirational, a call to action, focusing on issues like Iraq and the environment, and calling on younger voters to get involved in shaping the future. A senior spot might focus on making sure we had economic, tax, and health care policies that would lift lower- and middle-income seniors.
So demographics do affect how someone views issues (and how important an issue is to someone), and the general point that Klein and Brownstein (however offensive it may be to you and however silly some of Brownstein's wine track and beer track terminology is) were making -- that the demographics of the lefty blogosphere affects how lefty bloggers view issues -- is correct.
Update [2009-12-30 23:51:26 by Newsie8200]: A related point: The netroots weren't the biggest source of volunteers in 08. Netroots types tended to support Dean in 04 and Edwards in 08, and how'd they do? In volunteering and staffing campaigns in 08, I think I can count on my hands the number of times I ran into people who knew what DailyKos even was. I'm blanking on the exact percentage, but IIRC, over half of Obama volunteers had never volunteered on a campaign before.