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Shadow Party: Daily Kos Wants to Googlebomb Republicans into Electoral Oblivion
Pajamas Media ^ | October 9, 2010 | Bryan Preston

Posted on 10/09/2010 6:35:43 AM PDT by Kaslin

Markos Moulitsas, aka Daily Kos, denies being part of the Shadow Party, but his blog's latest game gives him away.

They’re not calling it Googlebombing, of course. Chris Bowers at Daily Kos has given their new effort a happier name: “Grassroots SEO.” The SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It’s actually search engine manipulation:

The goal of Grassroots SEO is to get as many undecided voters as possible to read the most damaging news article about the Republican candidate for Congress in their district. It is based on two simple premises:

  1. One of the most common political activities people take online is to use search engines, mainly Google, to find information on candidates. (For more information, see the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s report on 2008 online political engagement.)
  1. These results of these searches are always in flux based upon hyperlinks anyone posts anywhere on the Internet, including message board comments and social networking sites (but not email).

As a result of this, not only is it possible for us to use our hyperlinks to impact what people find when they search for information on candidates, but we would be foolish not to do so in a way that benefited our preferred candidates. We are already impacting search engine rankings whenever we post any hyperlink anywhere, so we need to make sure the way we use hyperlinks helps result in our preferred political outcomes.

The comments that DKossacks have attached to the post are revealing. Several complain that it’s ethically questionable. Others complain that once the other side learns about it, we’ll either mock it or emulate it, or both.

I’m here to expose it and point out that it’s another manifestation of the Shadow Party.

The Shadow Party exists, remember, to destroy Republicans by generating complaints against them which generate negative press for them. To that end, the Shadow Party sets up front groups to pose as non-partisan watchdogs or as non-partisan media outlets, and deploys those groups and outlets to build up an echo chamber that generates so much noise that the so-called mainstream press reports on it. The game is to ruin the Republican’s reputation, drive up their negatives, and then have the Democrat in the race win by default. In some cases that I know of in Texas, the actual Democrat being proffered is just a cutout for big money Democrats to control once they’re elected. The whole enterprise is the very “politics of personal destruction” that Democrats busily and dishonestly decry, even while they seek to benefit from it.

And here comes the Daily Kos on the back end of that. They are, by their own admission, searching out the most damaging stories on Republicans and then going to work to drive them higher in Google search rankings so that unsuspecting voters will stumble upon them when seeking out information about their local candidates. This makes DKos and its readers activists, as opposed to bloggers or blog readers. And they are engaging directly in the politics of personal destruction.

Kos will undoubtedly deny any connection to Soros or any other Shadow Party operator or funder. That’s what he did when I debated him. But Chris Bowers’ post is proof positive that he and his blog are part of the left’s Shadow Party (not that there was any doubt before). Their “Grassroots SEO” wouldn’t work as well if the Shadow Party hadn’t already laid the necessary groundwork of manipulating a willing press into hounding Republicans on these mostly bogus complaints.

Blogs and, more importantly, candidates on the right should take note of the DKos “Grassroots SEO” effort and see it for what it is: an attempt to fool unsuspecting voters into pulling the lever based not on issues, but on manipulation and lies. Of course, this isn’t new, it’s just a new version of what these folks have been doing for years.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: dailykos; google; kos; shadowparty
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1 posted on 10/09/2010 6:35:45 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Across America, millions suffer the effects of living without ethics. For just pennies a day, you can help.


2 posted on 10/09/2010 6:40:18 AM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: Kaslin

More proof that they lose on issues.


3 posted on 10/09/2010 6:40:41 AM PDT by ez ("Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is." - Milton, Paradise Lost)
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To: Kaslin

So we need to create an aggregator where we frame the news we want and create the appropriate headlines. Free Republic works that way a bit with Vanity posts.

Two can play that game.


4 posted on 10/09/2010 6:42:25 AM PDT by nhwingut (Palin/Bachmann '12)
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To: Kaslin

See also, different headline, different link:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2604282/posts


5 posted on 10/09/2010 6:44:31 AM PDT by La Lydia
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To: Kaslin

Google has been pro socialism since it’s inception. Recently, they’ve supported cap and trade, obama care, and net neutrality just to name a few.


6 posted on 10/09/2010 6:46:38 AM PDT by o2bfree
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To: Kaslin

Promoting groupthink through deception is something “progressives” specialize in.


7 posted on 10/09/2010 6:47:07 AM PDT by spodefly (This is my tag line. There are many like it, but this one is mine.)
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To: nhwingut
So we need to create an aggregator where we frame the news we want and create the appropriate headlines.

The other side did that years ago. It was called ABCNBCCBSNYTimesWashingtonPostLATimes.

8 posted on 10/09/2010 6:49:06 AM PDT by abb ("What ISN'T in the news is often more important than what IS." Ed Biersmith, 1942 -)
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To: o2bfree

With most tech companies based on the Left Coast, you’re going to have a hard time searching for “conservative” competition. It sure isn’t Bill Gates.


9 posted on 10/09/2010 6:57:31 AM PDT by Dan Nunn (Support the NRA!)
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To: o2bfree

You have to wade through 50 environmentalist wacko posts if you search for DDT to finally find one that tells the truth.


10 posted on 10/09/2010 7:22:39 AM PDT by altura
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To: nhwingut

Here’s what’s going on ~ just a few days ago I added a post to this thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2603597/posts which used the words COONS and GERBILS. Right now that’s the #8 listed post with both those words. It’s # 6 listed post with COONS and GUINEA. American Spectator, though, is the winner with a very high #3 for a board that has a guy asking if it’s still true that Coons has a homosexual lover ~ I think I just beat that one though...............Did I say “still”? Hmm. This may make NUMERO UNO. ............... Hey, guys, it’s a game, and I wouldn’t be playing except it’s pretty obvious Coons has friends who’ve EXCISED all meaningful pictures from Google.com


11 posted on 10/09/2010 7:24:17 AM PDT by muawiyah ("GIT OUT THE WAY" The Republicans are coming)
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To: Kaslin

This is how they destroyed Sarah Palin. The “MSM” all too willing to help.


12 posted on 10/09/2010 7:28:58 AM PDT by KansasGirl
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To: Kaslin
Two can play that game. Here ,for example , is a link for Coons where he calls himself the Breaded Marxist. I think that whenever I do post from now on there will be a dirty link for some RAT.
13 posted on 10/09/2010 7:51:46 AM PDT by Nateman (If liberals are not screaming you are doing it wrong!)
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To: Nateman
I made a spelling error! That should be "Bearded" Marxist for Coons! Oh well, guess that's just another link to tag on!
14 posted on 10/09/2010 7:55:49 AM PDT by Nateman (If liberals are not screaming you are doing it wrong!)
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To: KansasGirl
This is how they destroyed Sarah Palin.

There's an infamous Freeper who's been posting articles critical of Sarah Palin at FR for a long time. It never occurred to me that he's been helping to raise the ranking of those negative articles, but apparently, he has.

By the way, Sarah Palin hasn't been "destroyed". The left has tried to destroy her, but they've only succeeded in making her more popular and influential than she already was.

15 posted on 10/09/2010 7:56:42 AM PDT by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Kaslin

We FReepers have been mocking the Kos-Kiddies for years.


16 posted on 10/09/2010 8:04:05 AM PDT by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country! What else needs said?)
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To: Kaslin
As a result of this, not only is it possible for us to use our hyperlinks to impact what people find when they search for information on candidates, but we would be foolish not to do so in a way that benefited our preferred candidates.

An of course Google would NEVER see this activity as a campaign contribution in kind because Democrats don't engage in corporate corruption...

17 posted on 10/09/2010 8:04:46 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (Grovelnator Schwarzenkaiser, fashionable fascism one charade at a time.)
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To: SandRat
Photobucket
18 posted on 10/09/2010 8:28:51 AM PDT by mikrofon (Someone set us up da' Googlebomb...)
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To: Nateman
Here's an example of a "Breaded Marxist"-

image

19 posted on 10/09/2010 8:32:13 AM PDT by mikrofon (He's toast, actually.)
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To: Kaslin

Example #11,394 in a nearly infinite list of why politics today is no longer about the philosophy of conservative versus liberal, but rather about the philosophy of good versus evil.


20 posted on 10/09/2010 3:51:57 PM PDT by snowrip (Liberal? You are a socialist idiot with no rational argument.)
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