Last Night as a Triumph of the New Institutions of the Netroots

[eridani]

http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/last-night-triumph-new-institutions-netroots
The dream, in shorthand, was thus. The web-savvy new left could learn the levers of electoral power, and figure out strategies by which to game them. Small-dollar online fundraising would play a big part, helping to nationalize formerly localize elections. The various organizations that would have to be developed would be independent and distributed, but interlocking and complementary -- not (simply) competitive. Out of that dream, groups like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, and ActBlue arose. If all went well, they might even be able to primary Democratic incumbents who had proven themselves insufficiently progressive and/or aggressive, no matter the candidate preferences of the President or the Democratic Party.

There's a decent chance that Senators Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)* are feeling the power of that dream this morning.

Elections, of course, are complicated things. But the Specter and Lincoln elections in particular were targeted hard by the online left. In the inbox this morning are emails from two of the relative titans of the netroots that hit some seemingly justifiable self-congratulatory notes. One came in from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which focused hard on Lincoln for her lack of support for a public health care option. PCCC got strongly behind Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter, and PCCC's numbers on ActBlue show about $170,000 raised for Halter through the PeeTrip, some raised in cahoots with DFA. The group ran hard-hitting ads against Lincoln, branded her "one of the worst corporate Democrats in Washington," and, they report, even put troops on the ground during the contest.