MoveOn.org's Losing Streak

Rolling Stone has a good article regarding the ineffectiveness of those arrogant jerks at MoveOn.org. Here are the highlights:

They signed up 500,000 supporters with an Internet petition -- but Bill Clinton still got impeached. They organized 6,000 candlelight vigils worldwide -- but the U.S. still invaded Iraq. They raised $60 million from 500,000 donors to air countless ads and get out the vote in the battle-ground states -- but George Bush still whupped John Kerry. A gambler with a string of bets this bad might call it a night. But MoveOn.org just keeps doubling down.

. . .

Moveon is guided by a tiny, tightknit group of leaders. There are only ten of them, still deeply committed to the Internet start-up ethos of working out of their homes and apartments in better-dead-than-red bastions such as Berkeley, California, Manhattan and Washington, D.C. For a political organization that likes to rail against 'the consulting class of professional election losers,' MoveOn seems remarkably unconcerned about its own win-loss record. Talk to the group's leadership and you won't hear much about the agony of defeat.

. . .

But some insiders worry that putting left-wing idealists in charge of speaking to the center seems about as likely to work as chewing gum with your feet. 'There's a built-in tension between the views of people who are part of MoveOn and contribute to it, and the people they're trying to reach,' says Ed Kilgore of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.

. . .

If speaking to the center was MoveOn's goal, 'they failed miserably,' says Greg Strimple, a media consultant who advised the Senate campaigns of three GOP moderates. 'None of their ads had an impact on the center electorate that needed to be swung.' If the group's leadership saw anything broken with its advertising during the campaign, though, it shows no signs of fixing it. In a rush to get its new Social Security ad on the air, MoveOn didn't even test it.

The ad, which depicts senior citizens performing manual labor, was not only paid for by MoveOn members but was also created by them. This kind of closed feedback loop is indicative of a larger problem: the group's almost hermetic left-wing insularity. 'We don't get around much,' acknowledges Boyd. 'We tend to all stay in front of our keyboards and do the work.'

. . .

So who is MoveOn? Consider this: Howard Dean finished first in the MoveOn primary. Number Two wasn't John Kerry or John Edwards -- it was Dennis Kucinich. Listing the issues that resonate most with their membership, Boyd and Blades cite the environment, the Iraq War, campaign-finance reform, media reform, voting reform and corporate reform. Somewhere after freedom, opportunity and responsibility comes 'the overlay of security concerns that everybody shares.' Terrorism as a specific concern is notably absent. As are jobs. As is health care. As is education.

There's nothing inherently good or bad in any of this. It's just that MoveOn's values aren't middle-American values. They're the values of an educated, steadily employed middle and upper-middle class with time to dedicate to politics -- and disposable income to leverage when they're agitated. That's fine, as long as the group sticks to mobilizing fellow travelers on the left. But the risks are greater when it presumes to speak for the entire party.
[emphasis added]

Far-left voices like MoveOn, in my opinion, will continue to influence the party until what will become known by Democrats as "the disastrous midterms of 2006." Then, hopefully some sanity will return to the party of FDR, and they'll kick these freakos to the curb.

Or not.

Update: Brittany weighs in with her own opinion of Rolling Stone:

I think the same guy who does Rolling Stone does Us Weekly. He's this big old fat man.

Brilliant.