It's Heating Up

The 2020 Democrats' Principles Project is picking up steam. It's a gradual build (as you'd expect it to be), but the web team has been creating shaolin-style java widgets, and the outreach people logging long hours in the clinches to get the word out on the wire. I zipped in to make some comments on the 2nd draft, and day later going back I'm one of 17 comments in most cases. That's heartening to see.

If you've got a stake in progressive politics going forward, I suggest you log on in and drop a comment. Who knows; maybe you'll underwrite the next great slogan of the Left. Lord knows it can't hurt to take a few more shots at it.

I've been following this story with some interest, and this worries me:

An Arabic television channel aired a videotape Monday purporting to show insurgents firing a missile that downed a British transport plane in Iraq, and London said 10 people were missing, believed dead.

My closest personal attachment to the war at the moment is my friend JD from high school. He flys as a Loadmaster on a C-130. He's supposedly on his last tour in the Middle East (number 7 if you can believe it) before being re-stationed stateside to do training. I hope those orders hold up. If the latest scuttlebutt about how they're dealing with troop shortages holds any water it looks like my man might get a reprieve from the front lines -- someone will need to train those desk-jockeys -- and by the looks of it not a minute too soon.

So this doesn't bode well for my friend, and it doesn't bode well for the rest of our people over there either. Whatever else you might call them, the Insurgents aren't stupid. They've been attacking suplly lines since day one, and from what I can gather, the air link -- largely supplied by C-130s -- has grown in importance as there are no truly safe truck routes in many areas. If the Insurgents have found access to a steady supply of SAMs, things are going to get much tighter over there. Here's hoping it doesn't.

Chris Albriton has been an independent reporter in and out of Iraq for almost two years now. His is a set of opinions I have come to trust. With elections there tomorrow, I take his predictions with some stock. Why? Because he writes it as he sees it:

BAGHDAD—Tomorrow Iraqis will go to the polls and, inshallah, get a better government that they have right now... Eventually. But first they will have to vote, and that's an activity fraught with peril.

The security situation is unreal. No cars tomorrow—except those with special passes, which includes media, cops, political guys, etc. in short, if you're an insurgent and you hit a car tomorrow, you're bound to get someone vaguely important. Only five polling stations in Baghdad will allow cameras or other electronic gear, so bear that in mind when you look at photographs of the election.

I'll be out in the thick of it for a while at least... Out with my photographer and seeing what goes on. Not sure if I'll be driving or walking. That will depend on my security guys. This is a free election? Insurgent pamphlets are being distributed that anyone walking to a polling center is a target. Several centers have already been blown up. The fear is thick enough to cut with a knife. The Iraqi security forces—with their American patrons—have tanks at the end of my street. Old Soviet T-55s, but tanks, nonetheless.

No one knows what's going to happen, whether it's the level of violence, the level of turnout or who will win. The Sistani-blessed United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) list is expected to do well, but I would be shocked if it got an absolute majority. My predictions for the elections...

Like I said, he writes it as he sees it. As Mike pointed out, he works for Time also. I know this. The only restrictions on his blog are that he can't scoop himself. For instance, when he interviewed Allawi, he didn't blog about it until after the relevant issue of Time came out, at which point he posted a much more lengthy transcrip than was published on paper. The whole point of what he's doing has been to provide better "context" and, since he started working as part of the regular reporter pool, to talk about the State of Journalism in a war zone.

In the political circles I swim in, the fashionable debate these days is over whether you support Howard Dean -- who's candidacy I can lay credit (or blame) on for my own current participation -- or Simon Rosenberg, the brilliant leader of the Yuppie faction of the Democratic party (aka the NDN) who's got all the right organizational moves.

I don't have a vote or know anyone who does, so this is really only a debate. (There are only 440 voting DNC people around the country. Yeah; that's kinda fucked up, and hopefully it will change. But the debate rolls on.)

Here's where I'm at: I worry about Dean because I think some people might not be willing to accept him what with all the secretarian baggage he comes with. I believe he and his people will work with everyone in the party to make shit happen, but I don't know if everyone currently on the inside of the party feels the same. Also, Dean was just the candidate for his campaign; the actual organizational mojo was the work of his staff. That being said, I like Dean as a figurehead and tone-setter. I like his moral instincts, and I trust that there are plenty of people who would work for him in a heartbeat who understand how to kick ass with New Skool organizing techniques. In short, I think he'll do well communicating to the American people, I think he can re-brand the Democrats (which is what we need), and because he hasn't fucked me yet I trust him.

Simon, on the other hand, seems more popular with the folks I know. It may be that they're are closer to him and his organization. It may be that they trust his track record more than Dean's. Some ask about the wisdom of putting a loosing primary candidate in charge of the party. Some are put off by Dean's more vocal followers. Some just think Rosenberg would do a better job of reforming the party.

I can see Simon's qualifications, but I don't find myself liking him. Part of it is superficial -- I don't like his style, and I don't like the NDN's style. They're yuppies. I'm not supposed to like them personally, but it also worries me. I don't think they embody an idea of America (white-collar success) that can be broadly shared. People have knocked Dean before for being backed by the "Starbucks Ghetto" but that seems more an appropriate Simon's posse. I went to their after-party at the DNC. It gave me the fear... felt like the Marina.

I also feel that Simon Rosenberg is less trustworthy, because he told a small audience of activists I gathered with after the election all about his ideas for reforming the party, then insisted adamantly that he didn't want the job of DNC chair. I found out a few days later that he really did want it, so to my mind he lied to us. While I'm enough of a professional by now to understand that sort of thing, I'd rather not have to internally sigh and say "well, that's politics" to myself when picking the chairman of a party I'm trying to use as my vehicle.

I got into this to change the nature of the game. My sense is that Rosenberg is smart and committed, but essentially wants to build a Left-Wing version of the Republican Noise Machine. I'm looking to find a way to tune the country back to a good signal again, and that means more than doing Conservatives one better at the propaganda game.

In any case, I think either of them are preferable to the other lot. That Frost guy is a joke. Are you fucking kidding me?