MoveOn to Democratic Party: 'We Own It'

AP via Yahoo News. ^ | 12/9/04 | By SAM HANANEL, Associated Press Writer

[RBroadfoot]

"MoveOn to Democratic Party: 'We Own It'"

As far as I'm concerned, they can have it!

I left a long time ago.

But these children are going to have to fight Hillary for it, and it won't be pretty.

[DennisR]

I think they are already - this just makes it official!

[mainepatsfan]

Could this be the first shots of a Democratic civil war? Now that would be entertaining!!

[Zack Nguyen]

Yes - a little reported fact is that Democrats have always been far more dependent on the mega-donation than Republicans. While both parties raise it, Republicans have always had a huge advantage in the mid-level donations of $1000 or less.

Who is the party of the elite here?

The fact is, though the media likes to pretend it isn't so, the Republican Party has been the party of Main Street America for a long time now - the small business owner, families with children, etc. The Democrat Party is the party of power - a loose collection of disparate interest groups that come together to feed at the trough and pay off their own narrow interests to stay in power. Teacher unions, AFL-CIO, poverty pimps, university grant-hustlers, etc.

[Sofa King]

I came up with a plot a while ago that involved starting an anti-Bush group, taking anrgy liberal's money, then using it against them (and pocketing some of it).

I'm starting to wonder if somebody has beaten me to it.

[Sofa King]

Don't forget lawyers.

IIRC, the biggest single source of their cash.

[LowOiL]

LOL, and I got a nice Christmas card from President and Mrs. Bush for my donation to the GOP.

All they have is sour grapes.

[mainepatsfan]

The majority party FDR formed has lost two of it's main pillars. One of course is the south and the other was union households. Not that union members vote mostly Republican but a lot more do now than in years past and there's simply not as many union households as there were half a century ago.

[Mo1]

Oh boy howdy! I'd better make a whole lot more popcorn...this is going to be a very funny 4 years.

Yep ... I was reading the Daily Kos the other day and they are mad a Joe Lieberman and were talking about having Martha Stewart run against him in 2006 .. LOL!!

[Carry_Okie]

Soros versus Hillary.

One can only hope.

[Fledermaus]

You bought it alright...a creeky old clunker that's so rusted it's an environmental hazard and should be buried.

Suckers!

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

Information about Eli Pariser....

Virtual Peacenik

How did 22-year-old Eli Pariser find himself rubbing elbows with Nobel Prize winners and leading the MoveOn anti-war campaign? Simple. He learned quickly.

Eli Pariser wanted his speech to the hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in New York City last February to appeal to the highest common denominator -- "ordinary, patriotic, mainstream Americans" who were against an invasion of Iraq. So before drafting his address, the 22-year-old director of the MoveOn anti-war campaign appealed to the collective wisdom of his group's 750,000 members.

"What's the message we should send to the folks in New York City and the news media?" Pariser asked in a mass email, which included a link to an online discussion forum. Rifling through the nearly 1,000 responses, Pariser found his inspiration. Many of our citizens, he would declare at the protest, "deeply believe that a war against Iraq will not make this country safer." Then, in his steady baritone, he quoted one contributor directly: "We recognize that the American spirit is not always represented by the American government."

You wouldn't expect such measured rhetoric from a scruffy indie-rock fan who not long ago was chanting anti-globalization slogans and confronting riot police at World Bank meetings. Yet Pariser is nothing if not a fast learner. The son of two 1960s activists who founded an alternative high school in Camden, Maine, Pariser graduated from college at 19. His stint as an in-your-face radical ended early, too, after kibitzing for a few hours with D.C. cops at an anti-IMF rally in April 2000. "All of a sudden, I realized that the scripted confrontation of attacking and antagonizing them wasn't going to get us anywhere," Pariser says. "It changed the way I was thinking, tactically."

So in the immediate aftermath of September 11, when he wanted to protest the president's demand for vengeance, Pariser created an online petition, 9-11peace.org, which urged "moderation and restraint." In what would prove a powerful lesson in online organizing, Pariser emailed the link to 30 friends. They did likewise, and so did their friends. "A few days later I got a call saying the site was crashing because too many people were logging on," Pariser recalls. Within two weeks, more than half a million people had signed the petition, and Pariser was fielding calls from the BBC and the South China Morning Post.

He also heard from Wes Boyd, the founder of MoveOn. Boyd's Internet activist group had gotten its start during the Monica Lewinsky scandal -- calling on Congress to censure the president and "move on" -- and had since thrown its weight behind progressive candidates. A former software exec who made a small fortune off flying-toaster screensavers, Boyd offered Pariser both tactical and financial support. "Eli was in the same place as we were when we got started," he says. "We got in touch and said, 'Can we help?'"

The two soon merged their websites. And as the showdown with Iraq started heating up, Boyd hired Pariser to direct MoveOn's international campaigns. Working 18-hour days, Pariser organized 9,000 activists to meet with their representatives in Congress last November. He also helped raise more than $400,000 for anti-war advertising. The lanky, 6-foot-3-inch Pariser has since found himself in the company of some of the world's leading peaceniks. At February's rally he shared the podium with Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu and Martin Luther King III. His speech lacked the fiery idealism you'd expect from the youngest man onstage. "I don't want to be part of the Great Left Martyrdom story," Pariser explains, "where we simply say, 'We fought the good fight and we lost.' I don't want to be on the losing side."

His tactics have had a powerful influence, especially among his peers in the anti-war movement. "I write books and spray paint the sidewalk and get arrested," says renowned hip-hop activist and author William Upski Wimsatt. "But because of Eli and MoveOn, a whole group of us in the progressive community are changing our strategy and looking seriously at electoral politics and Internet organizing."

A visit to MoveOn's New York office really got Wimsatt thinking. Upon arriving at the door, he was ushered into the 8-by-10-foot room where Pariser sleeps. "There was a little desk, a little bookshelf, a chair, and a laptop," says Wimsatt. "I'm like, 'Okay, let's go see your office.' But he's like, 'This is it.' I was stunned -- the most effective progressive political force today is coming out of this 22-year-old kid's bedroom."

[mainepatsfan]

It's hard to beleive Liebermann was the Dem's VP choice just four years ago and today the left treats him like he's Benedict Arnold.

[Chi-townChief]

Man, it just keeps getting better!

[nopardons]

Martha Stewart? Martha,CONVICTED FELON Stewart run against LIEberman in '06? ROTFLMAOPIMP

[mainepatsfan]

Moderation and Restraint? I think Hitler and Tojo are looking up from hell and wondering where these MoveOn.org guys were when they needed them!

[visualops]

I like MoveOn claiming they are just "grassroots". I guess they think Soros is one of the little people.

[mainepatsfan]

The Dems can't resist a self-proclaimed victim.

[Minus_The_Bear]

do you think Soros is putting the screws to MOVEON for squandering all his capital?

[Mo1]

I thought you might like that .. LOL