Archive: Year: 2010

I hate to break it to my friend Mark Tapscott, who I have made common cause with (and broken bread with) over the issues of government transparency and accountability, but my end-of-the-year post on the Obama Disconnect should not be read as saying, "the truth about the Obama campaign in 2008 was almost exactly the opposite" of the mainstream media's description of him as bottom-up and people-driven. I know this is as hard for folks on some parts of the Right, so wound up in their intense dislike of Obama, to understand, as hard as it seems to be for folks on some parts of the Left, so passionate in their support for him, but the picture I tried to...

British writer James Crabtree has weighed in at The New Statesman with an absolutely fascinating prediction for the coming year of English online politics as the country heads into new elections: the balance of power and energy is going to shift from the right, which has long dominated the British political blogosphere, to the left. He writes: ...

Dear Karoli: Obviously, we don't know each other. I didn't know if Karoli was your real name or your nom-de-blog; thanks for clearing up that confusion with your latest post. You clearly don't know me or my work, or you wouldn't be accusing me of "criticizing from afar." I forgive you. I'm sorry if you think I'm being disrespectful of your passion. Actually, I really like it. People who are passionate about something are the ones who drive change. I just want passion married to facts, rather than illusions. And here's the facts about Obama, campaign finance, and his grassroots base: -The early money he raised (in 2007) came heavily from the finance sector; I think you and I don't dispute this. -The "internet...

A blogger who goes by the name named Karoli has posted a long critique of my Obama Disconnect post entitled "The Sifry Disconnect: When cynicism kills hope." It's fundamentally a sentimental post, arguing that it makes more sense to be a "positive catalyst for change," to take responsibility for making change into our own hands, and to "quit taking potshots at the President." Why the latter is in contradiction with the former is beyond me, but whatever. Since she accuses me of various mistakes and falsehoods, here goes an attempt at responding. First, Karoli "calls bullshit" on my writing that Obama's heavy dependence on early money from the finance sector, and from wealthy donors overall, implied a degree of "corporate...

One question that a number of people have raised in response to my post on The Obama Disconnect is essentially, "What's your alternative? What should the Obama team have done to keep the new political movement it had spawned going as a force for change? And how could they have better reconciled Obama's role as president of the whole country with his role as leader of a political organization beholden to him?" That's absolutely a fair question. Here's what I think could have been done: First, the Obama team could have immediately made "keeping the movement going" as high a priority as the formal transition process was in the months of November/December/January right after the election. Their failure to do so...