Common Sense

Crashing the Blog

I'm trying as hard as I can to run this blog into the ground, but you people keep coming back.

Because I was late with turning in my review of Crashing the Gate, I don't know if it will run in the Trib. So, I'll just run it here. This is what I turned in to be edited, so you can imagine that it is, in actuality, very crappy. Enjoy.

Kos I can

By Nate Nance

I lead a double life.

My day job is as a mild-mannered newspaper clerk. My only editorial decision is whether to put the Maverick's boxscore above the Spurs. By night, though, I'm a political blogger. I reach thousands of people a week with my very liberal voice and, on a good day, I influence Democratic politics in the state of Texas.

Picture me times a thousand and you get Markos Moulitsas Zuniga and Jerome Armstrong, the authors of Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots and the rise of People-Powered Politics. Markos founded DailyKos, the largest left-leaning political blog in the world, regularly reaching a million readers a day. Armstrong's MyDD.com is one of the first blogger communities, with traffic in the hundreds of thousands daily.

Crashing is their critical look at the Democratic Party and its shortcomings; the failure in leadership and the uncanny ability in this century to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at the polls. It is also a look at the future of a political party that has lost touch with the people it represents because of fealty to single-issue interest groups and big money donors. A hopeful look because things are changing.

I got a chance to sit down with both of them while they were visiting Texas on their book promotion tour to talk about the netroots and the influence bloggers have had on recent elections. There has been a lot of press focus on the failure of the large national blogs to win some of those. Paul Hackett's congressional race last year and the primary race between Rep. Henry Cuellar and Ciro Rodriguez in Texas this month. In the last six weeks of that campaign, those high-traffic blogs funneled nearly half a million dollars into Rodriguez's campaign which led to a surge in turnout for him. It was ultimately a losing campaign, however.

It shows what power we polibloggers have and is a case study in what we're trying to accomplish on the Democratic side of the aisle. Not an ideological cleaning, but one in which regular citizens are trying to take back their party from people more worried about PAC money and pleasing the Republican majority than meeting their constituents' needs. Blogs can turn national media attention to a struggling campaign and raise large sums of money for long-shot candidates. People informing and energizing other people to make much-needed changes.

And for every loss like the Rodriguez campaign, there are success stories like the Democratic primary in the 19th Senate District of Texas. Challenger Carlos Uresti upset incumbent Sen. Frank Madla by a wide margin after state and local blogs, like San Antonio-based The Agonist and Just Another Blog and Austin-based Pink Dome, posted on a radio interview Madla gave where he said "When I get to the State Capitol, I lock the Democratic Party in my trunk." Downloadable clips of the soundbite were available on these blogs and others around the state. Later stories about his extravagant spending in one of Texas' poorest districts sealed the deal. Money and support flowed to the Uresti campaign, so much so that he acknowledged the help bloggers gave him during his victory speech on election night.

One thing Markos and Jerome make very clear is that blogging isn't the end all be all of this sea change within one party. It is the need for the average person to speak out. As they preface in the book, blogging is simply a tool; it is the medium through which that person's voice is amplified so that it has a palpable impact. The size and scope, are simply unprecedented. Technorati.com is perhaps the best place to track the latest in the blog world. According to the Web site, there are over 30 million blogs worldwide, with an estimated 75,000 new blogs created every day.

With that kind of scale, blogs are sure to have even more impact in the 2006 elections and beyond. If I have anything to say about it, especially in Texas.

Why wasn't I told about this?

It appears that Wonkette's book is finally out. I'll have to get myself a copy to review for you nice folks.

Buy Dog Days by Ana Marie Cox at Amazon.com

Thanks Atrios.

Sometimes a children's book is just a children's book

I can't believe that someone would think that C.S. Lewis' book series, the Chronicles of Narnia, are racist. But, somehow they get that impression.

blogHouston thinks it is because people who are re-reading the books or are reviewing them are bringing their own presuppositions to the table and not taking away what Lewis meant. I think I agree.

I remember very vividly the world painted by Lewis and how much I loved his books as a child. To this day, they are still the only books I have ever read that made me visualize what I was reading. He managed to get a stuffy kid with no imagination to close his eyes and feel the splash of ocean and the smell of the sea aboard the Dawn Treader. That's not something easily accomplished.

That has little to do with what an adult might consider ethnocentric in the writings. But you really have to ask yourself, 'is that what my child is taking away from this, or is it something I'm reading in it?'

To put it another way, let's look at black and white westerns. The people who were bad wore black hats while the good guys wore white hats. And certainly at that period in time, black people were considered inferior and treated horribly and inhumanely. But does that mean that the black hats symbolize black people as bad and white people as good, or just that the people wearing black hats are bad?

After all, you have to have a way to easily distinguish between bad and good, especially for a child. People with beards, funny smells like garlic and unwashed clothes are things that make it easier for kids to understand who the villains are.

Besides all of this, any actual scholarly look into the world and life of C.S. Lewis shows that he was an amazing man who rejected God and religion until he had his own revelation (thanks to the prodding of his contempraries, like Tolkien). He's someone I think more people should get to know better so that they can understand his work more completely.

Also, I think more children should read the Chronicles of Narnia. But that's just me.

Silly argument

I've been having a silly argument all night long with my editor Kim Gorum. He says that Mark Twain is the funniest writer in American history.

I say that Twain is a shitty writer who is boring and overwritten. I would rather read Stephen King because that takes less time and is more funny. And anyone who has known me for any length of time knows how facetious I'm being when I write that. Because I absolutely hate Stephen King. But not as much as Mark Twain.

I guess I should invite comments from you nice people on what you think of Twain.

Banned Books Week

Not as cool as Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, but important nonetheless.

A lot of people have mentioned so far this week the 100 most challenged books of the past decade list and they talk about how important these books are. And I'm with them on that.

But, I can't honestly say I've read any of them, other than the Scary Stories series.

I have a very hard time reading fiction books. I just don't really like them. It just always seemed like a waste of time when I was a kid to read about something that didn't actually happen. So I never read books that a lot of people consider great literature. Instead, I read about politics, biographies, autobiographies, just general non-fiction stuff. And that's why I kill at Trivial Pursuit.

I did get around to trying fiction when I was in high school, but it was mostly Paradise Lost and extracurricular Shakespeare. The only fiction I can think of from the 20th Century would be the Nero Wolfe mystery series. But I don't like any other mystery novels. I'm kind of weird that way.

But, if I can get through the two non-fiction books I have left to read this week (and the movies I just got from Netflix) I will try to read something on that list.

Buy my book. Buy my book.

Every Democrat and his yellow dog is recommending that I buy Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science. So I will.

Ezra and Kevin say it is worth a read, and who am I to disagree.

I will travel to the local Books A Million today and grab a copy to review for you. I'm just guess, though, that I will agree with most of what is said in it. Just a feeling. I can't imagine why.

Summer reading

Thanks to e, I have a good idea that the president isn't actually "reading" the three books on his summer list. Although, I really want to get at Salt: A World History. I hear great things about it and it is on a fascinating subject. Salt has played a major role in the development of the Western world so a comprehensive book about that would be a fun history read.

Anyway, this Alternet story pushes the theory that Bush isn't a strong reader and that this is all part of the "Big Lie." Nothing extraordinary since Michael Moore has wondered in print whether President Bush is a functioning illiterate.

All the clever headlines are taken

Everybody seems to already have read and vomited over The Truth About Hillary, Ed Klein's new tell-all book.

I say tell-all, but it is mostly a bunch of specious claims without sources. Things like: Chelsea was conceived when Bill raped Hillary on a trip to Bermuda. Hillary was fascinated by lesbians and went Wellesley because of its history of lesbianism. Plus that old chestnut, she was having an affair with Vince Foster. Slate has a long, laundry list of complaints for you to pour over.

I know what some of you are thinking. 'Nate, you didn't call the claims in Kitty Kelley's book specious.' No, I didn't decry her book. I'll give you two reasons. The first is that Kelley's book was sourced. If the claims made in it were bullshit, we would at least know who was spreading the bullshit around like so much liquid and/or paste like bullshit. And two, saying Laura was the pot connection at SMU is a long way from saying that Bill Clinton raped his wife.

So, there is my rationale.

If I was going to make a pollitical analysis, cynical as it may be, I would say that this is a great thing for HRC. The book is so over the top and so wingnut Right, that she's going to get sympathy to the more "persuadable" voters in her re-election bid (and possible White House run). Every time Ed Klein talks about her being a lesbian, it just points out to most sane people that the Rightwing is intimidated by a woman with power.

So women voters and independents and possibly the entire Democratic base if she wins the nomination. That's not bad. The price she pays is that she has to suffer through this kind of mudslinging. But I think she's tough enough to handle it.

Imparting my wisdom

I finished reading Boy Genius: Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush's political triuimphs, the book about Karl Rove's political career, sometime last week.

All I can say is it should be required reading for all Democratic activists.

One thing it served to do was to humanize Rove. Far too often people attribute preternatural abilities to him, giving him too much credit and too much power. He definitely has a hand in several pies, but he's not some superhuman, super-evil super genius. He's just a guy who's really good at organizing and focusing his energies where they matter most.

By humanizing him, you destroy the myth and take a look at the man. A very flawed man who has spent of his life living in other people's shadow.

The book, while written with an editorialized style, is a good textbook on the nitty-gritty of Texas politics since 1970. All you could possibly need to know about how Karl Rove engineered the Republican takeover of Texas is within its pages. It's written like an objective review of the history of the Republican party at some moments, and at others, it offers harsh criticisms of Rove and his involvement in learning dirty tricks from guys like Lee Atwater. It also explores some of the feelings Rove must have had being around men like Atwater, a womanizer, while he himself was more prudish.

You walk away from this book half admiring Rove for having pulled off his goal of making Texas a Republican state in just 20 years, and half angered that he was able to do it with little or no effort.

The paperback second edition (which I bought) also covers the results of the 2004 election and into the second term, including references to the "bold" strategy to revamp Social Security fitting right in with Rove and Bush's personalities.

This is the first book that has also mentioned the nickname "turd blossom" is not a term of endearment, but one of condescension. Every other book about Rove and Bush has made rhetorical loops trying to show that when Bush says it, he means it in a good way. Not so. Bush comes of in this book like the cool friend who was a total asshole that everyone secretly hates, while Karl is the nerdy friend that everyone likes.

So, long story short, Rove is not Darth Vader with glasses and a receding hairline. He's not Machiavelli, though there is no doubt he has read The Prince, all three of the floors of his house near Washington DC have floor to ceiling bookshelves for the 148 boxes of books the Roves brought from Texas. He's just a very clever guy who has spent his life doing what he loves and what he thinks has been necessary; he just so happens to have come along when the country was realigning politically and he was able to help that along. He is someone who is at least worth knowing and possibly considering a friend; I know I would mind having a hamburger with him the next time he is in Waco.

Must read book, at least three stars

If I'm not writing, then I'm probably reading. And that's what I did this weekend; I read Election 2004 from the good people at Newsweek.

It was an incredible book. The kind of access that the Newsweek reporters got was amazing. The book really takes you inside the heart of each campaign. There are interviews and commentary from people like Mark McKinnon in BC04's war room and Mark Mellman, the Democratic pollster and consultant where they explain exactly what happened during the campaign at specific times.

Like for instance, we learn that Karl Rove was still banking on Gov. Dean getting the nomination, even after Kerry won Iowa and New Hampshire. Everyone else had already hopped on the Kerry bandwagon, which doesn't make Rove look too much like a super genius. Or we learn that both Kerry and Edwards wanted to hit the Swift Vets for Bullshit as soon as they aired their first commercial, but the consultants, like Shrum, didn't want them going after this nothing group of liars. They wanted to save the campaign money for later in the stretch when it mattered, thus losing the air war in August and having to come back during the debates.

And the story about the debates is actually really funny, too. The BC04 guys who sat watching the first debate backstage didn't think Bush looked that bad. Only Karen Hughes thought his posture or facial expressions might affect the way people perceived him. Everyone else didn't realize that Bush never looked that way in public before, they were just so used to him acting pissed off. And Shrum, apparently was the key to victory in the debates for Kerry. And to get Kerry's responses under two minutes they had a timer with a super loud buzzer in debate prep.

But, by far, the most interesting thing about this book is that you see the two totally different campaigning styles of each party. You see the totally inept managing of the Democrats, who have so much energy poured in so many directions as to diffuse it so that they couldn't move the polls in their favor, even in the middle of Abu Ghraib. And you see the batshit-insane Republicans, who only had positive press coverage reviewed for negative press and where "King Karl" demanded that everybody be upbeat and happy.

Living in the "bubble" at its worst.

But, Election 2004 is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand where modern American politics is and where it is going. I highly recommend it to any aspiring professional political operatives so that they can see what not to do to win an election.