A Non-Snarky Post About Kos? Believe It
Pretty informative post from Markos about his trip to Austin for SXSW Interactive (the music festival kicked off today, and of course, there’s the film festival, too – it’s quite the big deal these days). Though the information is of the anecdotal sort, it still shows that there is growing support for Mark Warner as the anti-Hillary:
While just about all the 2008 contenders from both parties ignored Austin’s South By Southwest (did they even know it existed?), the Warner campaign was busy building support. Warner hails from the tech industry an thus has credibility in this field. And his tech people were working it, recruiting the smartest and brightest industry execs to serve on advisory panels or work the campaign.
While most of the other campaigns will hire the same ol’ consultants doing the same ol’ crappy websites (and thinking that “blogging” is cutting edge and hip), Warner’s people were scouring the conference for the interactive technologies of tomorrow, the stuff that will truly be cutting edge and hip in 2008. By then, blogging will be downright institutionalized.
…One of the attendees asked me, “Who do you want for 2008?” I answered that my fantasy ticket was Schweitzer/Obama[!!??!!], and that I wasn’t even close to deciding who I’d personally vote for out of the real candidates in 2008. Way too early for that.
But, I said, “If I had to guess, and I’m not very good at this, but if I had to predict who our nominee would be in 2008, I’d say it would be Mark Warner.”
And the room burst out in cheers and applause.
Now, take this with two grains of salt, one grain being that, as Kos freely admits, his Nutroots® co-author Jerome Armstrong is associated with the Warner campaign, and the second grain being that Kos has just told us that Warner associates were all over the place, so the applause is not surprising.
Nevertheless, I suspect the truth is that the Democratic race has two horses in it right now, and Warner’s is way behind, but gaining…
Schweitzer? Gov. Schwietzer of Montana? He was just elected in 2004, and I’m not sure if he’s had much of any political experience beyond that.
Ah well. No weirder than the people on the right supporting Ken Blackwell, who hasn’t even won the GOP nomination for Governor of Ohio yet.
Obama was just elected in 2004, so Kos is at least consistent in his fantasy ticket.
I watched some profile on Schweitzer a few weeks ago and he was really pushing hard an image of himself as a can-do guy, a pro-gun Democrat elected in red-state Montana, etc. In other words, he’s a Rocky Mountain version of Mark Warner. So that probably explains why Kos likes him.
Of course, Kos himself seems puzzled day to day on what he wants. Sometimes it’s all about winning, and a Warner or a Schweitzer who gets along with Republicans would do the trick. Sometimes it’s all about purity, and a Lieberman or a Cueller or any DLC member who doesn’t spit in fury at the very mention of President Bush’s name must be eliminated.
I think it’s safe to say that while Kos clearly has hit on a brilliant way to organize people, he really doesn’t have much of a clue on what he wants to organize them for.
I’ve noticed that split personality tendency on Kos’s part as well. On the one hand, he publicly claims he really just wants the Democrats to nominate a candidate who can appeal to red state voters, then he trashes specific candidates who actually advocate the kind of positions on foreign policy that really would sway red state voters.
And its not just Kos. A good chunk of the MooreOn crowd (led by the stupid white man himself) actively campaigned for Wesley Clark in 2004 on the theory that he was the most electable candidate in the 2004 pack. And he might have been, if he had avoided taking advise from Moore and his ilk. Warner seems electable now, but if he keeps playing footsie with the Kossacks he’s going to wind up looking about as flaky as Clark does now, and HILLARY will wind up looking like the electable one.