DK Civil War Pt. 2

Ok, next post. I mentioned Kos' response. There's two threads to it: standard Markos boilerplate and some more specific stuff about the primary and Clinton.

First, boilerplate:

I would add one more item to the list above -- this site has also been hostile to the corrosive consultant class that gave us our timid and weak party until Howard Dean shook it up in 2004.

Now I'm willing to stipulate that on the consultant front, there's likely not much difference between the Obama and Clinton campaigns (I don't know if it's true, but I assume it is). But on everything else, Clinton fails the test of the guiding principles of this site, and of my first book, Crashing the Gate.

Clinton isn't just a member of the DLC, she's in their leadership. Obama, by the way, repudiated the organization three times (it's a great story, which I tell in my forthcoming book).

Clinton hasn't just rejected a 50-state strategy, she has openly attacked it. CTG has a great quote from former Virginia Governor and future senator Mark Warner on this very topic

I won't subject you to the quotes. You know them if you've read DK. Consultant class DLC etc. etc. etc. I had said in my last post that he hates the consultant types, and he does. What Clinton backers don't get is that Kos would be just as critical were Clinton a man. I don't buy that gender has anything to do with it.

The other thread? Well, that's the primary itself, and I hate to say it, but he has a point:

I could deal with all of that, really, if Clinton was headed toward victory. I see this as a long-term movement, and I've always expected setbacks along the way. Clinton isn't the most horrible person in the world. She's actually quite nice, despite all her flaws, and would make a fine enough president.

If she was winning.

But she's not, and that's the rub.

First of all, the only path to victory for Clinton is via coup by super delegate.

She knows this. That's why there's all the talk about poaching pledged delegates and spinning uncertainty around Michigan and Florida, and laying the case for super delegates to discard the popular will and stage a coup.

Yet a coup by super delegate would sunder the party in civil war.

Clinton knows this, it's her only path to victory, and she doesn't care. She is willing -- nay, eager to split the party apart in her mad pursuit of power.

Etc. You know where he's going with this.

Clinton supporters seem to be having a huge problem with this, so let's make this perfectly clear what's going on here: Clinton cannot win a majority of the grassroots delegates. To win, she would have to set the superdelegates' will against the grassroots delegates.

That's it. To say "b-b-but Obama needs superdelegates too!" is to miss the point. Absent superdelegates, he has won. Period. There's no question about that now. You can complain all you want about rules and caucuses and popular vote and whatever you please. The fact remains that by the rules of the Democratic party's nomination system, Obama is the grassroots choice. Either Barack wins, or the grassroots and "machine" are fundamentally opposed.

And where does that leave Kos? Well, think about it.

(The Clinton-backing "Kossacks" sure didn't.)

The gatekeepers will have proven that their power is near-absolute if Clinton wins the nomination. The DLC et al will declare victory. It will be a victory: they'll have cemented their control over the party for years to come. Kos can amass all the diarists and commentators and visitors he likes, and it won't matter, because he's not one of them and probably never will be. Whether or not Clinton wins the general doesn't matter, because even if they get hammered in the wake of a Clinton loss, they'll still have the power within the party itself.

Yes, they want that power... because the party will, in all likelihood, still control Congress. That's real, tangible power over the fate of the country in ways that the presidency can't even match. They want it. Markos wants it. Everybody wants it. I don't blame them for it--somebody has to have it, and many want to do what they think is right, including Moulitsas--but they still desperately want it.

That's what's going on, Alegre. Sorry you got caught in the middle, but it's not like the idiots in the media get it either. They're too obsessed with trying to cash in on racial and gender tension, and most of their "analysts" couldn't find their asses with both hands and a GPS tracker. I hope you've figured out that maybe, just maybe, Markos' visitor numbers aren't worth Markos' political agenda.

Maybe it's time for a solo project.