Kos full of himself again -- Reid to go to his convention

[beachmom]

Harry Reid is going to YearlyKos, some dumb convention for those vile people over there in Las Vegas. Is he stupid in the head? Are our elected leaders so ignorant as to follow those fools, and think that they represent anything but a bunch of lefty freeper whiners? And now some right wing senators are attacking Reid, and all of the Kos Kids are giddy for being noticed. As I have warned before, that site may destroy us, and now the minority leader is going to give them face time in a very public way? Arrggghhhhh!!!

I commented over there, trying to be semi-civilized (but I'm sure I'll piss a few off) that dailykos is only one piece of the liberal blogosphere pie, and that I don't agree with them a lot. The RW will never be able to brand "liberal bloggers" the way they have, for example, moveon.org. The liberal blogosphere is just too diverse to be so pinpointed.

I may add, that this is COMPLETELY different from you guys meeting with Kerry in Boston. DailyKos is not a "We love Harry Reid" site, it's simply a liberal blog. Every time elected Dems post diaries or meet with those kids, they're LEGITIMIZING the incredibly shallow, ill conceived, only short term "thinking" of a bunch of demoralized, revenge filled Deaniacs who want Wes Clark for president. Oh, and I may add, that I feel completely duped and bamboozled by Kos, who has been raving about Reid all year long, without disclosing the fact that he seems to be connected with his people. None of us here have been anything but completely honest that we worship the ground JK walks on, and will fight for him, with or without face time or any ego stroking of any kind, the way Kos obviously needs. We researched the man and were won over. That 12 of you ended up having a beer with JK was completely unexpected and a wonderful surprise, but definitely not necessary to continue your devotion to him. Kos, on the other hand, is only "loving" Reid to seek more power and egomania for himself.

What do y'all think of Reid going to the Kos Kid convention?

[karynnj]

1. I don't think that Senator Reid is stupid

and influence can go both ways. One thing that impressed me about Reid is that he wasn't what I expected from the initial descriptions of him and he has often had a way of getting the Senate Democrats to somewhat work together. I think some of the philosophy he must have to bridge the differences with various Senators would be a good idea for Kos.

I am not naive enough to think he could influence Kos - who seems to have pretty rigid opinions, but a convention implies more than one person. It would be great if he could reach the more sensible of those following Kos and get them to join the independent thinkers (like you) over there. As people have said, it is one of the more influential sites - and if Reid can use whatever skils he has to try to point the bloggers in a more positive direction - such as building grassroots for 2006 or building consensus behind a Democratic agenda it could be real useful.

I would count on Reid not being so shallow that Kos saying nice things about him would make him into a syncophant or get him to give Kos negative quotes on Biden, Kerry, Feingold, Clinton, Edwards (he did know him) or Bayh. (I haven't followed Kos, but has he reacted to Clark's more stay the course than Kerry Iraq policy - or is 6months good, 1 year bad, 2 years good.)

[beachmom]

4. You know, I am a sporadic reader of Kos. I go over there out of

curiosity as to what they're into, and to see if I need to defend Kerry (just in case an impressionable lurker is reading). So I don't know how they reacted to Clark. I just know he wins every straw poll on the site.

That whole thing about Kerry and Reed (the other one) responding to *'s speech on Iraq left me extremely suspicious. Kos has twice used Harry Reid to put down Kerry, like he's some kind of egomaniac trouncing on the minority leader's turf. I think someone said that Armando pretty much admitted that they got the info from Reid staffers. So I'm torn. On one hand, I think Harry Reid has done a good job on many issues, and has been a good leader, yet I think overall he falls short of what I want to see from the Democratic leadership. But that's probably because I think Senator Kerry should BE that leader in the WH!!! But I don't think Harry Reid is going to do Kerry any favors anytime soon, unless it benefits the whole party. So there's my cards on the table. I don't really have any concrete evidence for this, but just how info goes around on Kos makes me feel this way.

[rox63]

2. It's a politically-oriented convention in his state

And it's not a rethug event. Frankly, I don't see what's all that weird about him putting in an appearance.

[beachmom]

3. Maybe it's the way Kos was bragging about it that made it seem

more bizarre. He had a post "Guess who's coming to YearlyKos?". The Kos community organized it, not Kos, but we all know how most of them feel about Kerry. And don't forget that article about how they only just want to win, rather than developing a true philosphy of what they want for the country.

However, having said that, perhaps I am way off base here. You mentioned that it's a politically oriented convention -- do you mean that it's not just the Kos community? If that's the case, then I'm okay with it, but if it's ONLY about dailykos, I don't know -- I think they're bad for our party, I have to say. I rarely will read an interesting idea over there. What they're best at is opposition and, quite frankly, good old fashioned attack politics (mostly against the Right, but alas, going after our guy, too). Negativity is what they do best over there, but I just feel like elected Democrats should keep an arms length from them.

[rox63]

5. Apart from the DKos Kerry-bashing

I do occasionally come across some good stuff over there. Because they have a large audience, it's unwise to just write them off. Better to try and convince them otherwise. We won't get all of them. But getting a few of them is helpful.

[TayTay]

6. Yeah, I'm going to re-activate over there

Remember, when Kos came out against Paul Hackett and for Sherrod Brown for Ohio Senate and 84% of his 'kossacks' went against Kos. They don't all march in lockstep. (Well, liberal never all march in lockstep. We are allergic to that kind of thing.)

[wisteria]

7. I agree with you that Dailykos and others like him are bad for our party

other Dems should not be encouraging them. I am curious to know why Reid is going and what he has planned.

[JI7]

8. yuk