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Very astute analysis, and quite readable Mar 2, 2006 (927 of 1037 found this helpful)
I flew through Crashing the Gate in one night. It's a fantastic book.
Here's what you need to know. Kos and Jerome are lefties who built two of the most interesting communities on the "Internets." Their book isn't about liberal policies; it's about how and why the Democrats and liberals, whose individual policies are preferred by most Americans, nevertheless keep losing elections. The compelling answer has to do much more with a total lack of organization and infrastructure within the party and the movement, than it does with substantive ideology.
I was a bit surprised to find their analysis as compelling as I do, given that I'm no far left ideologue. But when you think things through and realize that the Selfish Right Wing spent more than 40 years after the 1964 Goldwater debacle building up its infrastructure, it becomes a lot clearer how the GOP can keep winning---not only elections but arguments.
Let me offer an example. If you wanted to prove the world was flat, and you sent some shill to MIT for five years to help him come up with a compelling, sylogistic theory as to why the world is flat and give him a PhD in WorldIsFlatology, and then put him in a televised debate against me, he'd probably win. But he'd still be flat out wrong.
That's about what has happened. The Left became complacent, and the Right, well-funded but shut out of power for most of the 20th century, was hungry.
CTG would offer a terrible prognosis for America's future, except that technology advanced at the same time, so that communities and idea factories can be built on the internet at much lower cost than years ago. So it's no longer only the Selfish Right Wing that can afford the infrastructure.
Shorter answer: We still have a long road ahead of us, but it's clear, and CTG is a pretty good map.
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The Instruction Manual for 21st Century Political Activism Mar 2, 2006 (661 of 729 found this helpful)
Markos and Jerome put a great deal of thought into this book, and it's clear from page one that they've come up with some very strong ideas. It's not a 196 page ad for either of their sites. They discuss some of the key disadvantages progressive candidates and activists face in today's political landscape and some of the changes that should be made to even the playing field. While I was familiar with much of what they discussed, I thought the chapter on media consultants and the relationship between the DNC and those consultants was very interesting and illuminating. As a donor to both the DNC and Democratic campaigns, I certainly agree that more transparency and accountability is necessary in spending by the party.
"Crashing the Gates" delivers exactly what it promises--an organizing manual for 21st century campaigns and activism. There's not any wishy-washy language or halfway ideas--there's alot of stuff in there that will probably make people uncomfortable. The discussion of advertising is particularly interesting. If you're interested in politics and you're a progressive-minded person you really ought to pick this one up.
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Interesting book encourages innovation among the Democratic leadership Mar 8, 2006 (302 of 330 found this helpful)
I've been looking forward to this book since I first saw it advertised and it does not disappoint. The authors of this book are the founders of "MyDD" and "DailyKos", which are two influential left-leaning blogs which I visit almost every day, because I find information and viewpoints there that I could never find in the homogenized press.
The authors argue that the Democratic party's biggest problem is not how it is perceived by the public as much as its position-hardened leadership, prehistoric fund raising methods, and the coalitions that support the whole thing - coalitions that are more interested in how the party can benefit them than how they can work to help the party and its collective goals. However, the authors do see hope for the future via the Democratic party being forced to reconnect to real people as a result of McCain-Feingold, which as of 2002 prohibits soft-money donations. The "netroots" way of financing campaigns through direct communication with small donors actually allowed the Democrats to achieve financial parity with the Republicans in the 2004 campaign for the first time in decades. However, the authors caution that these small donors quickly become impatient with the traditional Democratic infighting and beholdenness to special interests that has become a way of life for party insiders.
The authors' viewpoint on how the Democrats need to update and tailor their "get out the vote" efforts is highlighted by an article I read in the newspaper today. Apparently the Republicans have built a database that enables the party and its candidates to tailor messages to individual voters and households, using information about the kind of magazines they receive, if they own guns, their church membership, their incomes, their charitable contributions, and their voting histories. This information makes it possible to specifically address the issues of probable GOP voters who may oppose abortion, support gun rights or be angry about government use of eminent domain to take private property. A personalized pitch is then made via door-knocking, direct mail and e-mail, and phone banks. Some Democrats are trying to emulate this method by attempting to build a data warehouse of their own. Believe it or not, they are facing opposition from within their own party because this independent effort "makes the National Committee look bad." Quite frankly, I can't imagine what would make the DNC look worse than continuing to lose elections.
This brings up what I and apparently many others think is the best chapter in the book - the one on paid political consultants. The authors expose what they have learned from disaffected insiders on how these highly compensated individuals try to centrally run local campaigns and why we have seen some of the puzzling inside-the-beltway slogans applied to places where they ring hollow. Up to now, nobody has bothered to ask local Democrats about the bread-and-butter issues that affect their localities and individual campaigns.
Although I agree with the author's overall viewpoint, I have to say that the Republicans suffer much of the same problem as the Democrats, a problem which is rooted in the huge amounts of money needed to run a campaign of any kind. Republicans, too, are held hostage by groups that hold the purse strings who only want what they can get out of the party. The difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that the Republicans don't mind "baiting and switching" their supporters. The GOP talks about national defense and pro-life issues to get out the vote among their core constituents. Then they turn around and legislate punitive bankruptcy "reform", limitations to class action lawsuits, and a so-called medicare prescription program that is actually a gift to the pharmaceutical industry. I can hardly believe that these laws are what the GOP rank and file had in mind when they voted for George Bush, but it is what they got. Thus, if the Democra
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Ahead Of Its Time Mar 11, 2006 (203 of 217 found this helpful)
In the preface to their new book, "Crashing the Gates," Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga acknowledge that last fall they took a long look at everything they had put together for their book to date, realized they were lost, chucked it all and started over.
After reading the book I can understand what fostered this sentiment. They had taken on the extraordinary difficult task of wrestling all the flailing tentacles of the right wing machine, as well as the horrible legacy of the past four years of George Bush's imperial reign, and tried to hone it down to a simple, direct message that was focused through the lens of their formidable online experience to forge a blueprint for the future of netroots activism. That they would suddenly find themselves sitting in a pile of unwieldy information is no surprise. That they would have the courage to throw it all out, regroup and refine their narrative to a 183 page dagger that cuts to the heart of the system most certainly is.
The book is a gem, a must-read for anyone contemplating the future of online activism, a subject that is certainly consuming pages and pages of blog space these days. Their outline of the extremely deep and well-developed GOP message apparatus is fascinating, and their examination of it as it worked to shape public perceptions around many events that should have played well for the Democrats is both enlightening and daunting.
But perhaps of even greater concern is their depiction of the DC Democratic consultant/interest group nexus that could really not do a better job of keeping their party in the minority if they tried. As disheartening as these details are to read, however, the book gives a clearer picture than anything out there to date about exactly what we're up against, its architecture and its weaknesses.
Crashing the Gate is way ahead of its time; you'll no doubt see copycat tomes just catching up to it years from now. It does presume familiarity with a lot of events, personalities and online conventions that might make it a bit challenging for people unfamiliar with the blog world to fully understand, but it is so engaging and well-written that I don't think that would be a problem for any intelligent person whose first exposure to the world of political blogging and online activism came with this book. I myself really appreciated the respect for the reader that this style of writing displays; I didn't feel like I was always trying to scan through pages and pages of exposition that I already know all too well.
Sometimes I feel like I get lost in the day-to-day aspect of blogging and never step back to take the long view of what we're engaged in. This book does this superbly and if you're on my birthday list this year you now know what you're getting.
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Breath of Fresh Air Mar 11, 2006 (201 of 212 found this helpful)
It's a great look behind the curtains of Democratic politics. It's not so much about the Republican problems - or at least that material is covered in so many books these days - but it details the peculiar weaknesses of the Democrats. I wish there were a few more details about how to cure these ills, but they are pretty obvious: more shoe leather, more Internet fund raising, etc.
Great for those who are "inside-politics" junkies, as well as those who aspire to be part of the netroots and the next wave of political power.