bloggers in Los Vegas for convention and Big name Dems follow

[rodeodance]

Arianna Huffington Bio
06.08.2006
Carville and Greenberg Bury the Lede! (Hint: It's Iraq) (24 comments)

The latest strategy memo and poll from Democracy Corps founders James Carville and Stan Greenberg just landed in my e-mail inbox -- and it's a decidedly mixed bag.

On the upside, it's encouraging to see them acknowledge that the war in Iraq is "the largest contributor to the public's mood for change" and that "voters supporting a Democratic candidate for Congress are mainly motivated by the Iraq war."

The problem is that this information isn't offered until pages 5 and 6 of the ten-page memo. Talk about burying the lede.

Instead, Carville and Greenberg's grabber advice, delivered in the memo's opening graph (and the e-mail tease), is that Democrats should "run as outsiders." Huh? That's the elevator message that's going to carry Democrats to victory in 2006?
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P.S. I have no doubt all this will be thoroughly discussed at the YearlyKos convention, which runs today through Sunday in Las Vegas. If your favorite bloggers are posting a little lightly today, it's probably because they (and a thousand of their fellow bloggers and activists) are on their way to the Riviera Hotel for a full slate of workshops, panels, speeches, and roundtable discussions. I'll be taking part in a panel Saturday morning on how U.S. foreign policy is being influenced by the netroots -- and how this will, in turn, influence the 2006 and 2008 elections. A sign of how increasingly influential the netroots are becoming is the number of party heavy-hitters descending on Las Vegas for the event, including Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, Mark Warner, Barbara Boxer, Tom Vilsack and Wes Clark. It should be a lively and productive weekend. This is one time when what happens in Vegas will definitely not stay in Vegas.