(Cross-posted to MyDD, dKos and My Left Wing. – promoted by SFBrianCL)
With the recent launch of the California Majority Report, I returned to the idea of what the meaning of what it really means to have a blog, to write a blog, and to be part of a group blog. What is a progressive blog? But more generally, what is a political blog? To me a political blog has a purpose more than just to inform. It has a goal in mind of moving political goals forward. Some are focused on plain and simple electioneering, some on issues, but they have a purpose because they have a somewhat consistent message. This is even true of the Daily Kos, where there are a wealth of different opinions. dKos is attempting to further Dem politics by building and motivating grassroots activists. It’s a model that can be successful for a blog because there are so many grassroots activists out there that it can appeal to. It’s the model that I based Calitics on precisely because I wanted to help develop progressive grassroots infrastructure in California.
But let’s digress into some of the specifics of this new site, the California Majority Report. First, the technical aspects. First of all, it appears to be based off of a WordPress install. However, somehow they managed to mangle WordPress so badly that it’s a ridiculous pain in the ass to leave a comment. It took me about 7 hours to set my user name up. What can a computer do in 7 hours that it can’t do in 7 minutes, or 7 seconds? Who knows, but that’s how long it took me because the email took that long to arrive. And even when I got my password, the site seemed to have some problems logging me in. Oops! Additionally, I don’t want to harp on the design itself, but I will point out the fact that it’s amongst the ugliest WordPress blogs that I’ve ever seen. Oh wait, that’s harping isn’t it? My Bad.
I ask the question that is in the title of this post because the “contributors” of the California Majority Report seem to be working at cross purposes. To flesh this out let’s compare this site to several others on the Internet. Follow me to the flip…
First, as the site seems to want to be compared to Jon Fleischman’s Flash Report, let’s do that. First, I will note that by continually comparing themselves to Jon Fleischman they are giving this man some sense of credibility which he does not deserve. His business model is only successful because Republican insider advertisers (with whom his readership is already familiar) have elected to pay him ridiculously high ad rates, as a sort of wingnut welfare. (Ironically, Flash Report was for a long time also subsidized by Fleischman’s income from a taxpayer-funded job as the PR flack for the Orange County Sheriff.) Fleischman should be ignored as much as possible. It’s hard enough trying to deal with conservatives like Schwarzenegger without dealing with Fleischman. Currently, the man is in a state of mourning over the minimum wage deal. (My God! You mean these poor peoople are going to make more money! And then they will spend it all! And it will pump more money back into the economy creating more jobs! ….Oops, I guess he didn’t really say that, that’s just me I suppose) I suppose Jon never read Card and Kruger’s Myth and Measurement.
But back to the Flash Report, Fleischman has several contributors from around the state, some with slightly different perspectives. But the one consistency from the Flash Report contributors is that they are all unapologetically conservative. They occasionally have their disputes with the governor and other elected Republicans, but almost always from the Right. In the CA-50 Special Election it was Fleischman championing Eric Roach to run. And the message from the FlashReport was clear because of Fleischman’s iron grip on the site. It’s his site, and everybody else is just allowed to play in his sandbox.
But as much as the publishers of this site seem to have wanted to copy the Flash Report, they only went halfway. Their messages come from both the Left and the Right of the Democratic Party. Would Garry South agree with Chris Lehane’s suggestion of taking a position on pulling the National Guard out of Iraq? I tend to think no because of South’s vigilante war against all that is progressive in his Lieberman ’04 Presidential campaign and the Westly ’06 Gubenatorial campaign. And there’s no Fleischman to give the site an overall direction in case of disputes. The site seems to be insider for insider’s sake. And while I’m sure that many insiders will read and appreciate that, I predict a lot of difficulty attracting more than a handful of readers outside the Sacto bubble.
And while I’m on the topic of Garry South, it appears that he once he bashes Phil Angelides once again. (This song and dance is getting tired.). He’s also joined this time by Jude Barry, who throws in some Ned Lamont bashing in for good measure.
If California voters forgive Schwarzenegger, like Connecticut voters seem to be forgiving Lieberman, for the sin of supporting an unpopular president and a disastrous war, it will result in the re-election of an incumbent and prove that voters, like moviegoers, love sequels. (CA Majority Report 8/23/06)
This is the stuff of a man who doesn’t really know Connecticut and hasn’t been really following the Lamont race. I don’t blame him for that, but if he was, then he’d have known about Lamont drawing within the margin of error in the most recent polls. But that’s all secondary when you can give the man who defeated you a good push towards the cliff.
Now, I’m inclined to cut Barry some slack, mostly because of his Howard Dean work in 2004. South, on the other hand gets no slack at all. He’s had his time and he’s shown his true colors with the Davis campaigns (can you triangulate any harder than those campaigns? ), the Lieberman ’04 campaign (Oh, yes, it seems you can triangulate harder) and then with the ridiculously jaded no negative campaign pledge that he pushed Westly to issue even as South was lashing out with attacks on Angelides through press releases, press conferences and interviews.
Another site that is worthy of comparison to this site is Frank Russo’s excellent California Progress Report. Frank writes an informative site that dishes out a perspective that is consistently progressive, but in the voice of a number of different speakers. His editorial control on the site makes him an excellent progressive website. The site actually drifts more towards hard journalism than most blogs and would probably best be described as a California progressive news site with the inclusion of a comment feature. Frank’s consistency in perspective and his knowledgeable policy analysis make it a valuable resource for California public policy that is accessible to all.
But the California Majority Report is clearly not a policy analysis site. It features little analysis on policy at all. The closest it comes is an interesting post by Bart Broome, a Mark Leno staffer, about the universal health care bill SB 840. Other than that bill, everything else seems to be insider-ish to a whole new level. A level which I previously thought impossible. And that could be valuable, if it wasn’t merely for its own sake. The question which was featured on the page, “How can Phil Angelides win” was taken by Barry and South as to be just another opportunity to bash Phil without actually answering the question. And while John Whitehurst makes some good suggestions for the campaign, not one of the contributors offers something that can be accomplished by somebody other than an insider. If this site is directed only at insiders, why not just put up a newsletter in the capitol building?
That is not to say that all of the posts are of poor quality. Some of them are very interesting precisely because they are from insiders. Some are well written. One example of both is a post by Steve Maviglio, one of the main publishers of the site, entitled “Some Notes From the War Room.” It’s actually an interesting recap of the media bias towards Schwarzenegger as we approach the election. One salient example from Steve’s post:
The New York Times ran a lengthy editorial praising Schwarzenegger’s faux support of greenhouse gas emissions, noting that he had signed legislation in 2002 authored by Democratic Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, putting on the books the nation’s first greenhouse emissions law. The Grey Lady refused to run several letters-to-the-editor that were submitted that noted the law was actually signed by Governor Gray Davis, not Schwarzenegger. Only days letter did it bury a correction of the facts.
That’s a good blog post. It gives us some concrete examples of the issue i n an enlightening and conversational manner. Plus it bashes the media, always a common enemy of blogs. I like it, but ultimately there’s not enough at the site to make it worth it for more than few dedicated California politicos.
What could help this site become a blog? Well, there are many ways to go, some of which directly contradict others. First, exercise more editorial control. Who’s site is this? Is it Salazar’s? Maviglio’s? Or is it their hired hand’s site? I don’t know, as it’s hard to tell from a reading of the site. The lack of editorial control leads to a lack of editorial direction. I don’t know if this site is supposed to be helping Democrats get elected or if it’s just supposed to be an entertainment site, something like a defamer for Sacto pols.
The other suggestion I would give is to reach out to the grassroots and netroots. With the exception of a few limited contact, the founders of this site made little effort to market this to what I expect is their target audience. Oh sure, they did a great job if they were going to start up a rival to the Capitol Weekly, what with the press availability and the fancy insider party. But if you want Internet readers, perhaps you should attempt to have an Internet outreach and Internet campaign to publicize the site (maybe even the most basic step of a blogroll so that you participate in the liberal blogosphere’s link economy). Not to be unpleasant, but when political professionals fail to reach out to the single constituency that they say they’re trying to reach, it causes one to doubt their skill set generally. Especially when the people that make up that constituency are among the easiest people on the planet to find and contact. At any rate, that didn’t happen and they elected to use only traditional media for their launch campaign. Oh, and Fleischman. So, CA Majority Report, get to work on doing some serious connecting with the ‘roots.
So, back to my original question. What is a progressive blog? Well, this certainly is far from progressive, and it could use some help on the blog side too. Perhaps it could benefit from a few less voices, especially some of the voices that have proven to be toxic to the Democratic Party. But, I’ll reserve judgment before heaping scorn upon the actual concept. It needs some work, but perhaps it could become a resource.
