Some say the feud between Nancy Pelosi and Ellen Tauscher has always existed. Some say that it that it is a Hatfield-McCoy stories that goes back generations in east coast politics. But one thing is clear, it erupted in the press during the summer of 2001:

The story nonetheless laid bare a dispute that belies the solidarity of Bay Area delegation, arguably the most liberal in the nation. Its origins are a matter of dispute. Some believe Tauscher sees Pelosi as competition. Some believe Pelosi feels betrayed after helping Tauscher first get elected in 1996.

The rift has isolated Tauscher to a certain degree from her California colleagues, who almost universally are behind Pelosi.

“I’ve searched my heart why Ellen Tauscher would not support Nancy Pelosi for whip,” said California Sen. Barbara Boxer, a firm Pelosi backer who was appalled at Tauscher’s assertions. “I cannot figure out in my wildest imagination as to why she is not excited at this history-making prospect. Her doing this says to me she is a very bitter person.”

Boxer wasn’t the only California Democrat who was “appalled” at Tauscher not supporting a fellow woman of the delegation, the move infuriated John Burton (who many people at the time viewed as almost as powerful than the governor and overly protective of Pelosi.

It wasn’t just the fact Tauscher abandoned Pelosi that made the situation so controversial, it was also the manner in which the story exploded:

In a culture where even the worst of political enemies are referred to as “my good friend,” each struggles to find nice things to say about the other.

Their long-running dispute spilled onto the front pages of Roll Call — the newspaper of Capitol Hill — with an eyebrow-raising banner headline: “Pelosi Denies Whip Threats: Tauscher Charges Intimidation” as members were preparing to adjourn for their summer recess.

The Roll Call made no attempt to conceal the fact that the story was all Tauscher’s doing:

Exposing a rift between two of the House’s most powerful women, Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) charged this week that allies of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in the state Legislature are threatening to weaken Tauscher’s district in redistricting as retribution for her decision to back Pelosi’s opponent in the race for party Whip.  […]

The rumors, according to Tauscher and associates both in Washington and California, began soon after.

If Tauscher’s first mistake was shivving Pelosi, her second mistake was to go whining to Roll Call about it:

Tauscher charged that the effort is being led by state Sen. John Burton (D), a former Member of Congress and close Pelosi associate who is now the Senate’s President Pro Tempore. […]

Though he evidently intended to bury the rumors Burton nonetheless made little effort to disguise his contempt for Tauscher, suggesting that she was inviting trouble by voicing her concerns.

“The best way to get a problem with me is to run crying to the press,” Burton said gruffly.

Burton described his close relationship with each of the Members in the Bay Area delegation, but pointedly excluded Tauscher from the list, concluding, “Ellen is not one to determine where her district would be.”

In the end, Tauscher’s two blunders ended up with Burton creating a new 10th District that would remove any fear of Tauscher losing in a general, but one that was specifically designed to allow her to lose in a primary if she kept undermining Pelosi.

Tauscher wasn’t redistricted out of a seat, but was given a clear shape up or ship out choice.

Yet Tauscher was defiant, insisting that she would continue her DLC push to water down the Democratic Party.

Remember, Tauscher’s one of Washington’s rising Blue Dog Democrats — she’s vice chair of the Democratic Leadership Council — and that leaves the liberal Bay Area Democrats feeling blue. […]

“Our party is trending toward districts like mine — coalition swing Democratic districts,” Tauscher said. “The old guard is threatened by us. There’s a real concerted effort to say, ‘We don’t want to grow any more like her.’

“The fact is, I’ve worked hard with my Bay Area colleagues. I don’t rub their noses in the fact that the DLC picked up four seats in the last election.

If we’re going to get the majority (in the House), we need to be more moderate.”

Since then, Tauscher’s side has been rejected by Democrats while Pelosi is about to be sworn in as Speaker.

Not only did Tauscher end up on the wrong side of history, potentially even worse is she ended up on the wrong side of Burton, who does all he can to help Pelosi:

In San Francisco, Pelosi’s friends and allies concede that one adviser stands head and shoulders above the rest: John Burton, the tart-tongued liberal famous for championing the cause of the poor, elderly and homeless in Sacramento and as a House member in Washington. His sister-in-law, the late Rep. Sala Burton, wife of legendary San Francisco Rep. Phil Burton, summoned Pelosi to her deathbed to urge her to run for Congress.

It was Burton’s top goal to get Pelosi the gavel, which has been completed. Now it is time to shore up Pelosi’s support, which begins in a district Burton knows so well you’d think he drew it himself.

If Katie Merrill had the goal of preventing a primary campaign against Ellen Tauscher, it might not have been the best strategy to provoke the publisher of the most widely read political blog in the world into declaring, “So in CA-10, we will have a candidate, and there will be a primary.”

But as Jane Hamsher noted, Tauscher has greater problems than netroots. Sure, California bloggers are going to cover this race closely (Calitics is averaging more than a post a day on Ellen Tauscher in December of all months and Markos lives in the east bay). And sure, if things get interesting the national blogs will have the ability to get the race nationwide attention. But all of that will be focused towards understanding and supporting what is actually going on in California’s 10th congressional district.

Rototilling the Grassroots

From a grassroots perspective, the DLC fad of the 1990s destroyed the Democratic Party. The reliance on corporate big money all but cut rank and file supporters out of the process.

The new people-powered grassroots wave was a direct reaction to people like Gray Davis who triangulated against the base to be funded by big corporations.

Ellen Tauscher was part of this fad, but her continued contempt for the grassroots is so out of style that it makes it clear she is out of touch.

Since Tauscher bought her seat by spending $1.7 million, she has grown increasingly dependent upon PAC contributions while failing to develop support infrastructure in district. In her first re-election, almost 60% of her funding came from individuals, but her most recent report shows the ration flipping to where she now relies upon (mostly business) PACs for more than 60% of her warchest.

Now here is where the blogs come in and why Katie Merrill’s move was such a political disaster for Congresswoman Tauscher. What the blog infrastructure allows is not just volunteers and tons of money, but the ability for local resentment of Tauscher’s arrogance to have a nationwide voice.

After reading the front page post on Daily Kos, an 18 year old spoke up in the comments. He then learned how easy it was for him to refine his point, set up an account here, and post his thoughts as a diary. This morning, that diary was picked up by Fire Dog Lake and broadcast nationwide.

There is a structure to promote and reward ideas about the race, which is compounded in Tauscher’s case by the unique geography where bay area writers have six different BART stops they can choose from in the 10th district.

In the successful primary campaign against Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, the blogosphere amplified the reporting of Paul Bass and Colin McEnroe turning them into nationwide stars. Do you think this dynamic has escaped Tim Redmond? If a bay area race becomes ground zero in the battle for the future of the Democratic Party, CA-10 could be more thoroughly covered than most people can imagine.

The tools are readily available for grassroots activists to share stories of personal experiences involving Ellen Tauscher. I’ve heard lots of stories that I’m sure others would appreciate hearing and I know there are far more out there. So start an account and tell your stories — people are waiting to listen.

——–

Some of the comments thanks to Counterproductive Katie’s whine:

Kos, “It’s not surprising that this writer, Ellen Tauscher campaign manager Katie Merrill, would try to head off what will be a vicious fight for this seat in a primary. Unlike her apparent hero Joe Lieberman, Tauscher won’t get a “do-over” if she loses.”

Blue in Colorado, “How stupid can this woman be? A campaign manager-political operative needlessly and untruthfully insulting a several million strong group in her own party.”

zot23, ” I don’t even know who Tauscher was 5 mins ago, but now I support a primary challenge against her.  This whiney-ass boo-hoo letter makes me think she’s afraid of a populist net-roots primary challenge for a reason.”

Emetbloom, “I can tell you that there is significant antipathy towards Tauscher in both the El Cerrito and the Lamorinda Democratic Clubs.  I can also tell you that a lot of folks in CoCo County are upset because Tauscher belittles people who have challenged her vote on the war, has actively supported a Republican over active Dems for Community College Board, and in general is scornful towards people who don’t agree with her.  Also, her support of Filson didn’t exactly win her any supporters among Dems in her district.”

deaniac83, “Ellen Tauscher did her darnest to push Jerry McNerney – now the victorious Congressman from California’s 11th CD (defeating Richard Pombo) out in the Democratic primary.  You know why?  Because her longtime donor Steve Filson was running.  Tauscher put her nose in where it didn’t belong (I know this because but I can’t reveal the exact happenings or the source) to try to force Jerry out, and she was not nice about it.  We had to trounce DLC and Tauscher favorite Filson in the primaries 52-25% and then go on to beat Pombo.”

DavidW, “She was dragged kicking and screaming to drop her support for the Iraq War, and to start standng up against Bush. I’m in her district and I attended the district “town hall” meetings when she spoke about the war. Though she wasn’t an active proponent of the war, she didn’t represent her district when she voted for it, and it took her forever before she backed away from her support (via votes) for the war”

hartford for lamont, “by invoking Lieberman, a guy who lost the Connecticut Dem vote, all that Katie Merrill is doing here is showing how ignorant she is about what being a good Democrat is all about.”

machopicasso, “According to Tauscher’s campaign manager, it was a “misguided effort” to challenge an incumbent who was willing to leave the Democratic party in order to retain his Senate seat, campain with Republicans, and draw substantial support from the White House. That’s a totally different ballgame. Quite frankly, I’m surprised Merrill wants to place Tauscher and Lieberman in the same category. The latter already lost his primary; maybe Tauscher isn’t all that committed to the party, herself.”

electricgrendel, “She picked this fight.  It was her insufferable and useless “business friendly” Democratic model that helped greatly in getting the Democratic message diluted to the point of uselessness.  Not only that, but if I am not mistaken it was Ellen Tauscher who went out boasting about how much power she’d gotten because so many of the newly elected Dems were “conservative”. As for the press flak’s whine that we should be doing X, Y and Z so long as none of that involves rooting out conservative/business-friendly Democrats who make it impossible for us to deliver on a populist message, the only thing I have to say is that there are a whole lot of us.  There are a lot of fingers on a whole lot of keyboards and there are a whole lot of small wallets out there ready to open.  Don’t worry about us trying make sure that the freshman get elected and that we secure the White House in 08.”

tmo, “Lots of Dems in the district don’t like her and don’t consider her to be on their side. The general wisdom in the district is that she’s out of touch with her constituents and is not interested in being in touch; she knows what’s best and the voters should really just stay quiet.”

Giodude, “As I recall, she got really upset when the legislature unveiled the new maps. She was upset her moderate voting record would be a liability in her safe democratic seat.”

Neutron, “The chickens are coming home to roost for Lobbyistloving Tauscher.”

brittain33, “And here we have “business-friendly” Ellen Tauscher, representing a district substantially more liberal than her. No wonder she didn’t want this outcome. It reduces her ability to be a power player in the middle, who also happens to be exceptionally valuable to lobbyists. If she plays her moderation as a point of principle and not a way to get money from lobbyists and nicknames from George W. Bush, she’ll do well. If she sells out, by all means, primary her ass.”

RevJoe, “And Tauscher should be very, very afraid. She has been out of touch with her constituents for quite some time. She is definitely out of touch with her party.”

Faber, “This county is home to a large number of technical professionals;  I’m one of them.  Times aren’t as bad as they were in that business, but they’re not what they were in 2000. Ellen Tauscher has been in bed with ITAA since the get-go, and has sold out this constituency every chance she got. It isn’t a matter of ideological litmus tests or “values” issues.  Tauscher has simply done a rotten job of representing the issues of her constituents.  I will be working actively on a primary challenge for 2008.”

Big Tent Democrat, “The Netroots does not demand ideological purity. The Netroots demands the Democrats fight for Democrats, and that ideological disputes be resolved within our Big Tent. Tauscher’s meeting with Bush undercut our Dem leadership. That was Bush’s goal and Tauscher played along, just as Joe Lieberman always did. But it is more fun to believe there is an ideological test in the Netroots. Pure malarkey in the best tradition of Lieberman.”

AustinSF, “Congresswoman Tauscher serves as National Vice-Chair of the Democratic Leadership Council, an organization that is widely regarded as the intellectual center of the Democratic Party. DLC > them’s fightin words around these Dkos parts.”

mackellanpatrick, “I live in Ellen Tauscher’s district, and I agree that a primary challenge would be good for the district, good for the Democrats, good for democracy, and, frankly, good for Ellen Tauscher.  She seems to live in a gilded bubble and has gone unchallenged for too long, which isn’t good for anyone in leadership. The district has truly changed underneath her and become much more liberal.  And her campaign manager is just frankly an ass.  If you’re going to create enemies, at least be smart enough to be on the right side of history and don’t ramble on with “dying entrenched dinosaur overlord” kinds of things when new tools and communities arise with fresh voices.  A real choice for Democrats in the 10 would be a good thing, and maybe this time ALL democrats would rally around and support whoever the actual winner was, and not start their own party if they didn’t like the results.”

michael1104, “I seriously cannot wait to see her go! It is going to be soooo much fun challenging her and making her defend her right-wing corporatist stances against a progressive Democrat who would better represent the district.”

Pthy Cherub, “Nevertheless, she deserves a primary challenger that speaks to the values of the district and not her Liebermanesque view of how the world ought to be.  Maybe just maybe, she failed to notice her neighbor district brough done Pombo with a candidate that beat the establisment candidate in the district.  Some people have to learn lessons by actually getting in trouble rather than showing leadership and evolving when evidence says their political worldview is undergoing a dynamic shift.  She wants to “learn” the hardway – didn’t Joementum start out by poo pooing the netroots too.”

Nemesis22, “If Tauscher wants to avoid a primary from the emboldened left of the party, having her campaign manager whine about the indignity of being challenged by the great unwashed & comparing her favorably to Joe Lieberman isn’t a good start.”

And finally, a letter:

Dear Congresswoman Tauscher:

Today I read your campaign manager disrespecting the netroots Democrats, whining about attacks on pseudo-centrists Lieberman, Harman, and now apparently you.  "D-Alamo?"  Please.

You want to pick a fight with the netroots?  Fine.  It's on.

You've just turned another netroot constituent into a political enemy. 

See you in two years

Way to go Katie!

UPDATE: Counterproductive Katie responds:

On the contrary, my post far from backfired. In fact, the critical responses to my post on CMR and on different blogs prove my point.

No, you proved our point, catapulted a primary, and in the process an 18 year old high school kid proved he has more game than you when it comes to online communications.

Katie Merrill, Tauscher’s former campaign manager has penned an utterly predictable post on CMR about the recent rumblings in the blogosphere about her former employer.  It starts out with the typical smear on blogosphere fueled primaries and then goes on to talk about what a great Democrat Tauscher is, just look at all of these wonderful scorecards…yada yada.  While I am glad she has joined the conversation, here is my response.  This is from the beginning of her post:

Only a month has passed since the Dems took back the House and Senate, and the divisive efforts of the netroots to rid the party of elected officials they don’t agree with has geared up in full force. Instead of doing what most good Democrats should be doing right now, which is working on getting our Freshman members of Congress re-elected in 2008, increasing our majorities in the House and Senate, and electing a Democratic President, the netroots are targeting sitting Democrats for defeat. That’s right. Instead of focusing on beating Republicans, these vocal Democratic activists are focusing on beating Democrats.

Last year, their misguided efforts were primarily concentrated on now re-elected Sen. Joe Lieberman, although they also targeted various “moderate” (bad word for the netroots) members of Congress in their primaries, such as Congresswoman Jane Harman and Congressman Adam Schiff. Their newest target: Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo.

1. The Lieberman primary was about his constant undercutting of his fellow Democrats.  The war played a central role in the battle, but it was just one example of Lieberman’s failings.  The primarying of Joe Lieberman arguably changed the whole narrative on the Iraq war when it came to the 2006 general elections.  No longer were Democrats afraid to stand up and speak out against the “stay the course” strategy.  It was critical to the Democrat’s broad-based victories.
2. While the primary of Harman failed, it brought about a tremendous change in her behavior.  Just check out Todd’s post for more.  If Tauscher is interested in such a change, we would welcome her renewed engagement with her district.
3. The netroots does not decide to issue a primary challenge based on liberal scorecards.  We are a diverse crowd without an explicit litmus test.  Rather, the majority of these primaries were about party unity and the failure to adequately represent their constituents.  For another example when it comes to primaries, though not ones with incumbents, look at the people we supported in contested primary fights: Jim Webb, Jon Tester, Jerry McNerney.  Not exactly, a homogenous bunch.
4. It isn’t about moderate Democrats.  It is about people who put the moderate above Democrat.  It is less about policy (though her co-sponsoring the bankruptcy bill was odious), and more about behavior.  I welcome Tauscher’s talk of uniting behind Pelosi, but I don’t trust her undercutting that unity by meeting with Bush.
5. The district Tauscher was elected in 2000 is not the same one she represents today.  Tauscher does not have to act like a Democrat-lite. 

   January 2000

   Democratic: 41.20%
   Republican: 41.17%
   DTS: 11.96%

   October 2006

   Democratic: 45.01%
   Republican: 32.52%
   DTS: 18.32%

   (as Matt pointed out in the comments on Ruck Pad, the district started trending more blue even before the redistricting)

   Furthermore, this is not a Club for Growth style primary attack.  Tauscher is not vulnerable like Chaffee.  Replacing Tauscher with a different Democrat, even one that ideologically further to the left does not greatly risk losing the seat to the Republicans.

6. There is not a fixed number of political resources.  There is no set limit of political funds and volunteer hours.  Primaries energize the grassroots, bringing more people into the political process.  Have people still not learned the lessons of Dean?
7. The problem with Rubenomics was its attitude towards trade and the impact it had on jobs.  The wave of economic populists, the guys who have this crazy idea about balancing the budget and not encouraging all of our jobs to go to China are on the rise.  Go see Sirota for more and I highly recommend buying his book.  Go take a look at Sherrod Brown’s race for how liberal Congressmen can win with a populist message.
8. The netroots won overwhelmingly in 2006.  After all, it was this crazy guy named Chris Bowers, who had this nutty idea to contest every seat.  We won the Lieberman primary, got Tester and Webb elected.  We even had a comparable success rate to the DCCC, when it comes to the House.  We brought millions of dollars into the races and made hundreds of thousands of phone calls and door knocks.

   We are not a bunch of angry neophites with too much time on our hands.  The issue of Tauscher and a potential primary cannot be just a netroots phenomenon.  If there is a successful challenge to Tauscher it will because her constituents used the Democratic process to elect someone else.  The netroots discussion of Tauscher would be completely academic, if there was not already grassroots discontent within the district.

So, Ms. Merrill, thank you for starting a dialogue.  May I suggest that you get back in touch with your former employer and encourage her to start rebuilding her relationships with her constituents.  Perhaps she would like to directly engage the netroots.  If we lay off the kabuki dancing and focus on beating the Republicans we will be a stronger party and nation.

Katie Merrill, August 26, 2006:

Shhh. Don’t tell anyone. I’m going to let you in on a little secret as part of our getting-to-know-you process in the blogosphere. Ok, here it is. I am a political Luddite… a technology rebel… a wireless outlier. That’s right. You heard me. I am declaring myself, at least for the purposes of this piece, anti-technology. I am not completely anti-technology of course. I am, after all, writing this entry on my computer. For the launch of a new blog, no less. It’s just that I think that the whole notion that the Internet and wireless technology are changing the way we win elections is… well, a bunch of hooey. Incendiary remarks, I know. And bygones up front to my friends and colleagues in the mobile media, net roots, viral marketing, online activism world. But here’s the thing, I just don’t think any of those things actually win campaigns. At least not yet. And not in California.

Katie Merrill, today:

So, to the netroots, I say this: It’s time to get constructive guys. Roll up your sleeves and help our party leadership govern. And lay off the moderate Dems. They actually share your values. We as Democrats have a tremendous amount of work to do in the next 23 months. It’s time for you to focus on beating Republicans, not Democrats.

In just three and a half months, she went from admitting she didn’t have a clue about how much we don’t matter to trying to tell the netroots that we need to get “constructive” and listen to her when it comes to focus?

(She’s the Mike McCurry of California. – promoted by SFBrianCL)

From the San Jose Mercury News:

Swanson derided supporters’ glee over the Internet wave washing over the ad.

“Sixteen thousand hits? That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the 4 to 5 million people they’ll need to convince,” Swanson said. “Everyone heralded the netroots as the next great thing, and you saw it propel Howard Dean initially. But when it came to translating it to votes, it didn’t happen.”

The irony is that this story is about an ad from Bill Hillsman and talks about the Lamont campaign, which translated enough votes to win, beating a sitting US Senator.

It really isn’t surprising that Swanson, who is the shill for big insurance and big oil, would bash the netroots.

However, the idea of integrating youtube into campaigns to get exposure is something that is going far beyond politics.

For example, tonight on PBS, Bill Moyers is devoting Now to the topic of public financing of elections. So PBS put a preview on youtube.

The TV insider publication Broadcasting and Cable took notice:

PBS is getting serious about getting more bang for it promotional buck–or make that no buck–via the Internet.

It has set up a “directors account” on YouTube–allowing for longer clips and some other perks–and begun showcasing promos, with a link to the PBS homepage and the show’s site.

PBS President Paula Kerger has said from the get-go that the noncom service needed to be on the cutting edge of getting its programming to where the eyeballs are, and CPB President Patricia Harrison said just this week that programmers “can no longer broadcast to an audience where you last saw them.”

The PBS clips–14 of them so far–include tune-in information, like “check your local listings.”  Kevin Dando, director of education and online communication, for PBS, says it is helping to promote the shows to a huge audience–100 million views a day to all of YouTube. And you can’t beat the price of the screen time: free.

“It’s a great way to get in front of a broad variety of audiences,” Dando says. He points out that the clip promoting a NOW program on “clean elections” is now among the top-50 most viewed recent video posts to the site with 13,600 views to date.

“It’s where the market is headed,” he says.

To increase the chances of getting noticed, PBS loads the clip with tags so that it will come up on a variety of searches–for the NOW show, the tags were “NOW,” “PBS,” “votes,””sale campaigns,” “democracy,” “clean elections,” “election,” “proposition 89,” “vote voting.”

Indeed, it is where the market is headed. Which makes Robin Swanson look extremely out of touch when she bashes us.

The Merc News story quoting Swanson also had some other quotes, from people who actually understand politics:

“I don’t know if we’ll pull this off,” said Bill Hillsman, who created the ad and is the media consultant for Connecticut senatorial candidate Ned Lamont’s insurgent campaign against Sen. Joe Lieberman, “but if the spot goes out enough, people will say this is how I feel, and if for no other reason but this, I’ll go out and vote.”

Joe Trippi, the San Jose State University graduate who helped revolutionize the convergence of politics and the Internet as former presidential candidate Howard Dean’s campaign manager in 2004, said the ad “really captures” the mood of the voter.

“It’s the perfect spot,” said Trippi, a consultant to the Proposition 89 campaign. “It helps create the echo chamber between the Internet and TV that it will need to make that big move. This is getting moved around pretty virally right now.” […]

“We’ve learned from working with underdog and insurgency campaigns that if you do an ad that people are watching (on the Internet),” Hillsman said, “you get a multiplier effect that makes it three to five times worth the amount you paid for it.”

Hillsman’s ad campaign for Lamont was the first political effort to tap into the YouTube phenomenon. YouTube, which was recently acquired by Google, is one of the largest and fastest-growing free video sharing Web sites.

If you haven’t yet, check out the ad and use our tools to email it to your friends.

And check out the youtube promo for tonight’s PBS special on public financing (which I recommend watching).

(cross-posted at The Courage Campaign)

Last Thursday, dday wrote a great post over at GovernorPhil titled Arnold And The Traditional Values Coalition. It quoted an LA Times article that told of an unholy alliance that had formed in Sacramento.

Meanwhile, to drum up support for Schwarzenegger among evangelicals, the state party has hired Ben Lopez, a lobbyist for the Rev. Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition, a group that seeks to outlaw abortion and roll back gay rights.

Lopez and Anna Bryson, statewide coalitions director for Victory '06, the party's November election operation, plan to meet next week in the Sacramento area with roughly 200 conservative ministers — the first of several such gatherings to promote the governor, Bryson said.

The Traditional Values Coalition is no ordinary conservative group, you see.

More over the flip…

As dday went on to document, with the help of PFAW's great Right Wing Watch:

TVC founder the Rev. Lou Sheldon once said this:

“Americans should understand that their attitudes about homosexuality have been deliberately and deceitfully changed by a masterful propaganda/marketing campaign that rivals that of Adolph Hitler. In fact, many of the strategies used by homosexuals to bring about cultural change in America are taken from Hitler’s writings and propaganda welfare manuals.”

We at The Courage Campaign took this nugget of pure gold and ran with it, composing an e-mail that went out the following Monday calling on supporters to sign our petition demanding that Arnold Schwarzenegger fire Ben Lopez:

Ben Lopez's Traditional Values Coalition has…said this about gay rights activists: “Many of the strategies used by homosexuals to bring about cultural change in America are taken from Hitler’s writings and propaganda welfare manuals.”1

This one is simple: Governor, show us who you are. Do you side with the hate mongers who masquerade as religious leaders?

And then…

Call on the head of California's Republican Party, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, to fire Ben Lopez.

Gov. Schwarzenegger can’t keep playing the moderate with extremists like Ben Lopez at his side.

How gratifying it was to wake up this morning to the headline: State GOP suddenly dumps newly hired evangelical lobbyist. The spin from the CRP was that Lopez was only meant to work

"…through the convention, and that work is now completed."

Yet according to the Chronicle:

on Sunday, Dorinson had given no indication that Lopez's job with the party would end.

Not to mention:

Lopez, reached Sunday by The Chronicle, didn't appear to know that his work was to end at the close of the convention.

As Courage Campaign Chair Rick Jacobs writes in the Huffington Post, our success at getting this "bad actor out of state politics" is a victory for good ole (or, rather, good new) fashioned people powered online organizing. Indeed it's a victory for all of us in the grassroots and netroots that worked together to bring attention to the governor's divided loyalties, get a big chunk o' hate out of Sacramento and force the governor to cut an important tie to the right wing base, an action that just might keep some of them home in November.