Markos has defined the primary purpose of the site as electing more and better Democrats. I'm not sure anyone else would think so, but personally I believe we're getting pretty darn good at that assignment. God knows our record is far from perfect, but over the years we've become remarkably informed about how to find candidates worth supporting, how to organize, how to fund-raise, how to promote, how to win. There are people in this community that have not only helped surface names deserving of attention, there are people in this community that have become candidates -- and office holders.
This doesn't mean we're done here -- far from it. Every time we get better at this part of the process, it only means we can take on harder races, challenge ourselves more intensely, extend our reach to include more Democrats and embrace candidates who are stronger in their progressive values. With more experience comes the opportunity to take bigger risks.
In the upcoming midterms, we face a critical test of our commitment to this part of our mission: will we fold in the face of pressure and disappointment? It's a test coming up at us fast, and if we fail it this time we may surrender a great deal of the gains we've made.
But we all know that supporting candidates isn't all that we do here. With the news networks consistently cranking out sensationalism based on analysis thinner than the oil sheen on top of the Gulf, we've recognized for some time that refuting stories that are slanted, shallow or simply wrong is something that blogs are uniquely suited to tackle. As the space in both print sources and on the air that was once devoted to straight news is increasingly turned over to screaming pundits pulling their "facts" out of the their own bulbous posteriors, and the public is daily faced with a false equivalence between information and opinion, it's ever more vital that we keep racing to correct the lies as fast as they are published.
It would be nice to think that, like the elections, there was some way to measure our progress on this front. But we may never get the satisfaction of seeing the purveyors of disinformation booed off the stage. Honestly, in this case the answer to "have you no shame" has long been clear. Still, we have to work at revealing the lies and we desperately, desperately need to get better. Much better. Right now, even when we do our very best to refute (or even refudiate) some bit of right wing nonsense, even when we back it up with sources, even when we make a keen argument, even when we write our asses off, the spread of that information back to the realms of newspaper, radio and television tends to be low to nonexistent.
Waiting two weeks for John Stewart to come back from vacation in hopes that his writers will pick up a story and rake the liars over the coals is not a strategy. We can't moan about the fact that right wing bloggers, despite having far fewer readers, despite having the facts against them, have been much more effective in moving their ideas to traditional media. Yes, they have media outlets ready to swallow up their most obvious BS and repeat it as gospel -- the events of the last two weeks have only confirmed that. No, we're unlikely to duplicate that fact-free / money-rich infrastructure. However, that's not the biggest reason that a story from the right wing sites is more likely to end up being discussed on this Sunday's talk shows than one from this side. It's because the right is happy enough to dig down and provide the kind of salacious crap that the press eats up with a spoon. Look at the stories that get "elevated" into the media spotlight. Are they well researched, well written, well reasoned appeals? Hardly. They are pre-packaged scandal chow, ready to be relayed with an arched eyebrow and salacious smirk.
We could match them. There's enough mud in this world for everyone. However, I hope we resist.
Sixty years ago, science fiction editor John W. Campbell set a challenge for his authors, "Write me a creature that thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man." We have a similar challenge today. Give us a progressive movement that can catch the public eye, without the screaming lunacy of a Glenn Beck or the purposeful lying of an Andrew Breitbart. We say our ideas are better. Hell, we know they're better. We've got every fact, every number, all the evidence of history on our side. So go sell it.
It's not just the foolishness of the media that needs to be highlighted. There are things being said by politicians that deserve to be dragged out and ridiculed for prejudice, for greed, for plain old idiocy. Often those things are being said by politicians running against the candidates we support and pointing up their follies plays directly into that original goal -- getting our guys elected. Sometimes those things are said by the same politicians we worked so hard to put in place. Frankly, while I can sympathize with their staff, friends, and supporters who voice some version of "don't pick on our guys," that's not going to stop me from speaking up when I see what appears to be bad policy or silly actions originating from our side of the aisle. Sorry about that.
Fortunately, this is an issue that can be resolved. It can't be resolved by us sitting on our hands and shutting up. It can be resolved by one simple thing. This is a quick message to progressive politicians great and small -- talk to us. Don't send us a representative months after the fact to tell us that you're upset about the pounding you're taking in the blogs. Why should you be frustrated that the blogs are getting your intentions wrong, when you haven't taken one minute to explain those intentions? We have a few senators and representatives who are regular posters on the site. Why is it a few?
The days when anyone could "control the message" are gone. The message is going to get out before you're ready, it's going to be distorted when it arrives, and it's going to draw reactions from all sides. Rather than sitting back and fuming, talk to us. There's no guarantee you'll be handed a bouquet of support in return, but the odds are one heck of a lot better than if you practice mushroom management -- leaving us in the dark with a lot of bullshit -- and expect us to figure out your intentions by gestalt.
We may not want to replicate the right's screaming pundit express that runs through from web to AM radio to Fox News and back again. We are (I hope) unwilling to slather on the same mud they're slogging through each day. But holding ourselves to higher standards in no way means ceding one inch of turf.
Maybe it means working harder. Maybe it means making tactical changes. Whatever it means, let's show that we can do it better than them, but please, let's not do it like them.