Miracle of Kos
During the 2004 election cycle, I relied a great deal on Daily Kos to get my information about the campaign as well as to gauge the feelings of the online Democratic community. The site is populated by the left wing of the Democratic party. . none of who were in love with John Kerry but all of whom wanted him to win. Some knew what they were talking about, and some were complete morons. . .but that is too be expected. Kos used his website to raise money for candidates that he had strong feelings for . . . especially those not getting attention from the national party. These included Jan Schnieder (running in FL 13 against Katherine Harris), Jim Morrison (running against Tom Delay . . . need I say more?) as well as a slew of other underdog. I truly believe Kos can take credit for injecting a spirit of energy and strength to those campaigns by nationalizing their support.
Perhaps the greatest online fundraising accomplishment occurred not during the campaign, but days after the election. With the high likelihood of illegal activity on the Republican side in Ohio (lets face it. . That's how republicans win close elections b/c Democrats will always own their asses in the field) , of course John Kerry did not have the balls to request a recount. Therefore the libertarian and Green candidates who had nothing to lose took up the torch. They needed to raise over $100k within a few days to pay for the recount. Within several days with the activism shown through Kos, over $300k was raised.
However, with all my respect for Kos, had all those bloggers been knocking doors in Ohio instead of scratching their balls in front of a computer. . . we wouldn't have needed a recount and John Kerry would be president.
Perhaps the greatest online fundraising accomplishment occurred not during the campaign, but days after the election. With the high likelihood of illegal activity on the Republican side in Ohio (lets face it. . That's how republicans win close elections b/c Democrats will always own their asses in the field) , of course John Kerry did not have the balls to request a recount. Therefore the libertarian and Green candidates who had nothing to lose took up the torch. They needed to raise over $100k within a few days to pay for the recount. Within several days with the activism shown through Kos, over $300k was raised.
However, with all my respect for Kos, had all those bloggers been knocking doors in Ohio instead of scratching their balls in front of a computer. . . we wouldn't have needed a recount and John Kerry would be president.
6 Comments:
Democrats will always own their asses in the field
I think you're mistaken, Dimmy. The 2002 and 2004 elections both proved that Republicans have far surpassed Democrats in the field.
The numbers don't lie. Dems have been sitting around while the GOP has organized massively successful grassroots efforts under their noses. I worked for the RNC during the 2004 election and can tell you that the staff worked a ton of long hours to turn out our base and register new GOP voters. Along with thousands of hard-working volunteers under fabulous leadership we've been able to pull off historic, legitimate victories.
Check your facts before making this assertion again.
The 2002 and 2004 elections were the REpublicans first ventures into field work. Before then, they had only token field operations. IN 2002 and 2004, the Repulbicans only mimicked what Dems have been doing for years. . and yes it got them more votes. However, even in 2004, the Republican field operation was nowhere near the level of ACT and the Unions
I think you're misinformed. If the unions and ACT were more organized, they would have turned out more voters. They failed to do this, therefore their grassroots effort cannot be considered superior to that of GOP groups.
Blusher is right on this one...there was a massive Republican get out the vote field operation going from July of last year on. Meanwhile, the Democrats were hardly heard from, although a handful of paid workers came in to do some "voter registration", which usually involved reregistering people who were already registered, registering those in nursing homes, and just plain making up registrations, since they were paid by the form.
This time, the GOP beat the Dems like crazy in the field, and this was in the heavily Democratic Cleveland area.
What about those "black box" voting machines? What about the aggressive attempt to weed out minority voters, and the uneven distribution of voting machines, and the repeat of the ridiculous situation of having campaign officials also be election officials? Bottom line: I don't think Bush won fair and square in either election.
I also think that Democrats have too much of a 'I'm a genius' vibe happening with them. They volunteer on a campaign and think they're going to be James Carville instead of someone knocking on doors.
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