Crashing the Gate

By Jules Siegel, Cafe Cancun. Posted February 2, 2006.

"Now it's our party: We bought it, we own it and we're going to take it back." -- Eli Pariser, MoveOn PAC, Dec. 9, 2004

"Crashing the Gate" is a manifesto aimed at fixing the structural defects that have caused the steady decline of Democratic power since Lyndon B. Johnson abdicated in 1968. Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga brilliantly exploited bleeding-edge technology to create a new kind of interactive political media that brought open source journalism to the ordinary internet user. They helped convert the netroots (the digital equivalent of grassroots) into a $40 million ATM for the Howard Dean campaign.

Their book is at once awesomely inspiring and profoundly depressing. Devoting themselves almost entirely to analysis of political technique rather than ideology, Armstrong and Moulitsas describe the massive superiority of the Republicans in creating and deploying political infrastructure, the greedy incompetence of the Democratic consultants who enrich themselves while losing again and again, the fanatic single-issue pressure groups that have made it impossible for the Democratic party to present a unified, disciplined public image.

"In April 2005, about a hundred progressive leaders descended on Monterey, California, to extract lessons from the 2004 election debacle while finding ways for progressives to move forward," they write. At the beginning of one session about collaboration, a participant complained, "This isn't speaking to my issue. When are we going to talk about my issue?" Armstrong and Moulitsas write, "That set off an avalanche of copy cat complaints -- 'What about my issue?' -- from all corners of the room."

The session then split into five subgroups, each discussing its own individual issue. When Rhode Island Democrats were choosing a Senate candidate, polls showed that Rep. Jim Langevin had a 41 percent to 27 percent lead over incumbent Republican Lincoln Chafee. Eminently progressive on most other issues, Langevin "opposed legislation that would have allowed women to obtain abortions at overseas military facilities using their own money, and voted for the criminalization of transportation of minors across state lines for abortions without parental consent," they write. Lincoln Chafee had a 100 percent pro-choice rating. Langevin withdrew under heavy fire from NARAL and the National Organization of Women. NARAL endorsed Chafee for senator.

Jules Siegel administers newsroom-l, a news and discussion list for journalists. His reporting has appeared in Playboy, Rolling Stone and many other publications.

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