The first is from MyDD blogger Chris Bowers who waged a successful write-in campaign yesterday to become a member of the Pennsylvania State Democratic Party.
We won, and we won huge. We accomplished exactly what I had hoped...I honestly cannot believe this happened. I accepted Kevin's offer to run less than eight days ago. I will now serve on the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee. The city, the state, and the nation will change as a result. I promise everyone that.
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Let this also be a lesson to any Democratic establishment that does not care about making every vote count.
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And let me close by saying this: we will all win, eventually. With few exceptions, all of the challengers who ran against the party establishment today will prove victorious in the long run. While victories such as mine were rare, all of the progressive and reform defeats will eventually succeed as long as the people who participated in those losses keep trying. If there is one thing the establishment is not prepared for, it is a dedicated group of people who will keep trying to win even after temporary setbacks. Even if our victories are few, our victories will keep multiplying as long as we keep running. Hell, that is probably how the establishment came to power in the first place. As soon as it is clear that you will win sometimes, and that you will not be deterred even when you do not win, eventually those in power have no choice but to accept that you have a role in determining the future of the party. Give up easily, and be defeated easily. Never give up, and eventually you will govern.
More on the flip-side.
The second story is from Zack Exley rebutting Paul Begala's comments on the Howard Dean lead 50-state strategy of the Democratic National Committee.
Yes, Paul, we have to win elections. But a myopic obsession with squeaking through in a few high-profile races is not party building, it's suicide.
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You should be up there on TV celebrating that we finally have a DNC who understands that winning means building real power and standing for something.
Howard Dean has brought forth a 50-state strategy that has thus far:
...trained more than 190 organizers from 40 states, in areas such as:- Building strong precinct programs.
- Voter contact.
- Targeting and using voter files.
- Communicating a unified Democratic message, tailored to states and local communities.
- Internet organizing and communications and use of other new technologies to expand the base.
- Reaching out to all constituencies, including seniors, veterans, rural voters and faith-based voters.
- Leadership skills, leadership development and organization building.
I'll tell you what this onslaught by Clinton '92ers looks like. It looks like you guys are stuck forever thinking about that one big election you won. And it looks like you haven't noticed that, ever since then, your way of approaching elections has kept Democrats in a tailspin. I know the way you see it: candidates aren't getting exactly the right spin, aren't making exactly the right ads. But it's time to take a deeper look and understand the consequences of your generations' total neglect of the grassroots.
These two news items bring to mind another certain Virginia Senate candidate leading a grassroots revolution...but we'll save that for another day. The revolution is on. Lead, learn, listen, adapt, follow or get out of the way.
Demonstrating the disconnect between party establishment and bloggers once again, lefty bloggers bemoaned state Treas. Bob Casey's easy victory over history professor Chuck Pennacchio while righty bloggers celebrated the ousting of the top two state Senate GOPers.K-blog summed up the feelings of most lefty bloggers: "I know this isn't the right attitude ... but I can't believe the scope of these results: Chuck lost. Valerie lost. Georgia lost. Kovach lost. Susan lost. All the people that were worth a damn lost. Is there any GOOD news?" LeftIndependent was also unhappy: "There is only one political party in America, the right wing hegemony over the two phony parties, Democrats and Republicans. America is proof that democracy does not work. The only hope now is that a third Party or Independent mounts a campaign against both Casey and Santorum."
Pennacchio thanked his supporters and claimed: "Our 2006 Senate campaign was a critically important step in a larger citizen movement to restore Pennsylvania's politics to Pennsylvanians." Over at MyDD commenter dblhelix thought the insurgents at least put in a good effort: "The two challengers had no money and no ads -- perhaps one ad for sandals? 10-20% of the votes for pure grassroots is pretty impressive (not in a winning way, of course). Fellow commenter Rafe Noboa wasn't impressed: "At some point, you have to win. Moral victories are still defeats."
By the way, I completely disagree about running a third party against Bob Casey. I also disagree that he's a bad candidate, although I don't agree with him on abortion. However, the "disconnect" between the "netroots" and the party establishment does appear to be there. Also, the liberal netroots didn't show much power yesterday in Pennsylvania, as far as I can tell.