The Netroots Difference

Chris Bowers has the stats on the netroots victories:

The media and the right-wing blogospehre used to brag aobut how Dailykos and MyDD candidates never won, even though they might have heard of Barack Obama, Stephanie Herseth, and Ben Chandler. Well, welcome to our new generation of victorious netroots candidates:

PA-07: Joe Sestak
PA-08: Patrick Murphy
CA-11: Jerry McNerney
MN-01: Tim Walz
NH-02: Paul Hodes
VA-Sen: Jim Webb

I would like to point out that when we picked these canddiates, none of them were top tier. In fact, I'm pretty sure that right up until the end most people thought Murphy, McNerney, and Walz would still lose. But they didn't.

And we picked up a bunch more "hopeless" races as well, that dramtically expanded the playing field, and came far closer than anyone thought would come:

MT-Sen: Tester on the brink of victory.
WA-08:Carcy Burner. Votes still being counted--outcome unclear.
NC-08: Larry Kissell down by 400 votes, recount imminent.
WY-AL: Gary Trauner down by less than 1,000 votes, race undecided.
NY-29: Eric Massa not conceeding, down by less than 2%
NJ-07: Linda Stender loses by only 2%
ID-01: Larry Grant down by 5% with most votes counted.
IL-10: San Seals loses by only 6%

And there is this history too:

CT-Sen: Ned Lamont shocks world to win CT-Sen primary.
OH-02: Still competitve in 2006. We fought when few others would.

Oh yeah, here's the "rightroots" difference:



Two wins, both in Republican-held seats, one because Rahm Emanuel's pet project Tammy Duckworth was shipped in from a different district to beat the netroots-endorsed candidate in the primary (Christine Cegelis would have crushed Peter Roskam, and will do so in 2008).

For the first time in history, one party was completely shut out. Republicans did not pick up a House seat, a Senate seat, or a Governorship. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY.

I've been involved in the netroots since the very beginning. I've seen this coming, because I've been blessed to work with a group of people who were not only content to talk about their frustration, but were willing to go out and do something about it. It's a pure pleasure to be a part of this community, because I know it's about taking the country back for the people who built it. I know it's about building a progressive majority, from state legislatures, where Democrats won nine additional chambers, on up. It comes out of a sincere belief that progressive principles are what can bring America back to its former greatness. It's incredibly exciting to be at the beginning of this new direction. And make no mistake, it's just the beginning. This morning, I saw this graphic on CNN: "Selloff may not be direct result of Democratic victory."

At the time, the Dow was down 4 points.

We still have a way to go. But it feels good to start down that path.