Doc Searls’ website and he decided to feature it on his front page. Hasn’t gotten me any hate mail…yet…
Direct link
I think something that is forgotten about Move-On and Michael Moore is not the fact that they “turn off” some voters, but that they infuriate and energize the heck out of the Red state activists. If all you are looking at are total net votes, then I think it is a debateable issue–did MoveOn and Moore bring more into the fold then their alienated. I’d say zero-sum gain (to be polite to Move-on, not because I believe it).
But what isn’t taken into consideration is the effect MoveOn, Soros, and Moore have on the red activists–it drives them into a 24/7 work frenzy. Take a look at the 2002 elections–what was one of the deciding factors? The funeral for Minn. Senator Wellstone that turned from a memorial into a partisan bashing session. In poll after poll AFTER the election, it was discovered that this event energized and focused the Republican Get out the Vote (GOTV) efforts in ways MILLIONS of dollars and a hyperconnected tech community could never match.
The same happened in 2004.
I had both Red and Blue friends working in Ohio on GOTV. One thing that came back to me was in Ohio, the forces of Red had 14,000 Ohioans working, and people who looked like Ohioans. The Blue team had a number of, well, purple-haired, pierced nosed, etc kind of folks that just did-not-play in rural Ohio. Maybe the Blue forces were better connected to their organization and what not, but the Red forces were just so pumped and energized they broke turnout numbers throughout the state.
Never understimate the effect of pissing off the other side. Hatred of Bush may have helped create MoveOn and given loads of cash to Michael Moore, but hatred of the left got Bush in office for four more years.]]>