Last month, Open Lefters voted in an inaugural vice-presidential straw poll that took the 15 possible candidates who had received the most blogosphere buzz. The results were illuminating, and the extensive discussions we have had on the topic since that time have been enlightening. Based on the first straw poll, and the excellent discussions we have had since that time, I have created a second straw poll with half the number of candidates. Go vote in the second Open Left Vice-Presidential straw poll now.
The eight candidates in the straw poll, who are a combination of the most likely choices and the most popular online choices, are as follows:
Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico, who won the first straw poll
Hillary Clinton, Senator from New York, who probably can't be removed from these discussions, given that she has large amounts of supporters in the party.
Brian Schweitzer, who fits the reinforcement criteria very well, and who also seems to have a decent amount of online support.
Additionally, I have included a ninth option, "other," for those of you who refuse to settle for one of these eight candidates.
Go vote in the straw poll. I am interested to see where sentiment stands these days, after four weeks of intense, extensive arguments on the subject. In order to have any influence on the process, we need to start pushing for a short list of candidates soon. Your opinion will help shape how we move forward from here.
While it was expected that his gains from last month would continue, Chris Dodd has surprised even me by shooting all the way to second place in the Dailykos straw poll. After 3,633 votes, here are the current results, which tend to only change from this point based on stuffing (last month's results in parenthesis):
This is interesting for several reasons, many of which are more blogosphere and progressive movement centric than they are 2008 centric. Consider the following:
Chris Dodd still languishes in last place in the Democracy for America straw poll. Even though that poll has been heavily stuffed by at least Al Gore supporters, and probably those of several others, that Dodd remains in last at DFA suggests that his rise at Dailykos is not widespread in the progressive netroots community.
Had Dodd's increase been accompanied with a simultaneous rise in small donors, volunteers, and email sign ups for Dodd? Media buzz from a major blog is certainly helpful, but so are the resources the blogosphere can provide to help run a campaign. As of September 30th, Dodd had actually received the second fewest small contributions of any Presidential candidate except Gravel, and he didn't even lead Gravel by much (source). If the support for Dodd is deep, this should change instantaneously, as blog favorites are known for having a large amount of small contributions. If there has not been a large increase, that would be quite telling.
Even if there was a widespread pro-Dodd shift in the progressive netroots community as a whole, and even if that shift was translating into massive activist support, would it even be possible for the blogosphere and the netroots to make a big difference for a candidate such as Dodd? During the first four months of 2003, Howard Dean averaged 15.3% across ten polls of New Hampshire. By way of contrast, Chris Dodd's best showing in New Hampshire has been only 3%, less than one-fifth of Dean's starting position, and he hasn't achieved that number since July. Dean also started at 5.5% in Iowa, according to the four polls conducted in that state during the first four months of 2003, whereas Dodd has never risen above 2% in any poll of Iowa. Dean was also facing far less well-known and well-financed competition. In 2003, on the Democratic side, Dean's opponents had raised about $69M at the end of Q3 (source), and no one had a name ID in excess of 65%. By way of contrast, three Democrats have name Ids in excess of 90% this time around, and they have raised funds in excess of $206M. Dodd is facing a far, far more formidable situation than Dean.
Now, with all of this in mind, what does it say about the netroots and the 2008 campaign? First, I think it shows quite clearly that the blogosphere is not of one mind on anything, and isolated islands and fragmentation might be emerging to a degree they did not in the past. Second, I think it also demonstrates that the blogosphere is not the primary activist engine of the netroots, and that it is more of a buzz machine. Third, it shows once again that it is virtually impossible for the netroots to accomplish anything on their own, and that we have more success with campaigns, candidates and ideas that have a solid footing offline beforehand. Fourth, it might also show that growing numbers of the blogosphere are starting to view both the Edwards and Obama campaigns as long shots too, so if you are going to support a long shot there is no need to restrict your choices to the second tier. Fifth, and finally, it confirms to me what I have always thought about the ideological bent of the netroots for some time: foreign policy and civil liberties issues are of the most importance to progressive netroots activists, and the willingness to show some fight against Republicans and conservatives are far more important than the specifics of policy proposals will ever be.
Dodd's huge performance in the Dailykos straw poll provides lots of food for thought, both on the blogosphere and the 2008 Presidential campaign. If nothing else, the straw poll certainly is a lot more interesting than most of the other campaign happenings these days.
Update: As far as the second bullet point above is concerned, the Dodd campaign has told me that they raised "well over" $200K entirely in small donations during the two days last week when Dodd announced he would filibuster. Also, traffic to the Chris Dodd campaign website has increased ten fold, and "tens of thousands" of new people have singed up for the email list. So, there has been some real activism. Whether that momentum continues, and then whether the activism reaches a critical mass to start changing the public opinion polls, remains to be seen. The dkos straw poll could still yet prove to be a leading indicator on this one.
It is interesting to see the huge differences in candidate support online in straw polls such as those taken at Dailykos. One of the reasons I find the large gaps between candidates so interesting is that there does not appear to be a huge number of policy differences between the candidates who are receiving a significant amount of online support. Consider the top three finishers at Dailykos, who also happen to be the top three finishers in most early state and national polls of the Democratic field: Clinton, Edwards, and Obama.
Health Care: All three support government mandated private insurance, with breaks that allow individuals and / or business to purchase private insurance plans cheaper. Essentially, this is a health care tax on individuals who currently do not have health care, with most of the tax receipts going to private insurance companies.
Residual Forces: As I have repeatedly documented both here and at MyDD, Clinton and Obama support nearly identical residual force plans that would require at least 40,000 American troops to remain in Iraq. Edwards seems to support less, but he has personally muted the differences between the three of them on this issue, which I don't take as a particularly good sign.
Now, on other major issues, it seems that at lest one of these three has yet to release a major proposal of some sort. For example, I can't find anything significant about immigration on Edwards's issue page. Also, apart from pre-school I can't find anything about education on Clinton's website. Further, I can't find much of anything about trade on either Obama's or Clinton's websites. Still, I imagine that when they do all release their plans, there will not be significant differences. Further, for anything that must go through Congress, which is just about all of this, what slight differences there are likely to be erased in the legislative process.
The point is that I am not sensing much of anything in the way of policy differences that could be leading to the great differences in support the three candidates are receiving at Dailykos (39% Edwards, 21% Obama, 11% Clinton). The major policy differences seem to be coming from the so-called "second tier" candidates. Dodd, who is at 7%, is in favor of a carbon tax and voted against Levin-Reid from the left. Richardson, who has seen his support at Dailykos drop recently, has been campaigning on no residual forces for some time. Kucinich, who regularly hovers in the mid-single digits, is in favor of single payer health care, and a whole range of other left-wing policy proposals. These candidates, however, have not combined for more than 14% of the vote in the Dailykos straw poll since May, and have never combined for more than 18% of the vote in the straw poll.
Given the general lack of difference between the top three, I can only conclude that something other than policy proposals are the driving force behind the candidate preferences of the majority of people who participate in Dailykos straw polls. Now, I know it is isn't exactly a shock that not everyone chooses which candidate to support for President based on policy positions. There are other and, I think, valid reasons to support a candidate, even if these reasons are fairly nebulous. Several reasons I can think of include:
Relative connection to the "elite / establishment" and "netroots / grassroots," aka, who someone will side with in the party once they become its de facto leader.
Sense of a "progressive core," aka, what are the general tack will a candidate adopt in policy areas that are currently unforeseen in the campaign.
"Electability," both personally and in terms of down ticket races.
"Fighting the noise machine," or whether or not a candidate is likely to fight back against Republican attacks, both personally and when such attacks are lobbed at progressive more generally more generally.
Partisanship, or the degree to which someone will fight for the entire party or just triangulate in order to improve his or her own position within the political and media establishment.
Cultural / identity politics, or the potential offered by having the first member of a given demographic group occupy the highest office in the land.
"Leadership," or the degree to which a candidate will fight to move the rest of the party and the country in a more progressive direction.
While clearly there is a minority segment voting on policy, as seen perhaps most clearly by the steady support of Kucinich in the straw poll, the majority of the decision making for the participants in the Dailykos straw poll seems to come from these are other, non-policy related areas.
As I already said above, I want to emphasize that I don't think that this sort of decision-making is necessarily wrong. Some of these issues matter to me quite a bit, although to varying degrees (1,2,4 and 5 jump out at me as important). However, I think it is fair to say that these criteria are also much more nebulous than policy differences, and that they are also more similar to the decision making process of "low information" voters than policy focused differences. Regarding the latter, I cringe when I hear about people supporting someone in a primary based on a "gut feeling," for example. Mainly, I dislike this sort of response because I don't think there is anyway to sway a voter like that, making it extremely disempowering from an activist perspective. Also, it feels dangerously close to treading into the vacuous "change versus experience" territory that has unfortunately dominated much campaign coverage so far. Maybe it is simply a bruise to my ego as a netroots activist, but I like to think we rise above all of that online more frequently than in other medias.
So, rather than making any definitive statements, I want to use this post mainly to ask a question: do you base your vote mainly on policy distinctions between candidates, or mainly on other, non-policy oriented factors such as, but not limited to, those that I listed above? I know that it is probably a mix for most people, and also probably varies from election to election, but in the poll attached to this post I am asking you to identify which side toward which you lean most heavily in 2008. If you side mainly with non-policy qualities in your 2008 decision making process, I'd also like to hear from you in the comments as to what those qualities are.
And yes, this is connected to Richardson dropping in the Dailykos straw poll, despite his stance on no residual forces. Primarily, I am interested in listening to people on this one, and understanding where they are coming from.
Update: Reading over all the comments both here and at Dailykos, I will certainly say one thing. It strikes me that people have so many different ways that they select candidates, that most arguments over candidates online are probably talking past each other. there simply isn't agreement on how to select a candidate, much less on which candidates match up to different criteria. This has been very enlightening.
Even though it probably was not worth much else, one positive from my post yesterday on the general lack of progressive blogger endorsements so far in the Democratic presidential nomination campaign is that it started several interesting side conversations. One of those conversations is centered around Hillary Clinton and the blogosphere. This conversation is actually two-fold, discussing both whether or not the progressive blogosphere has "vetoed" Clinton support within its ranks, but also why there does not seem to be as much overt anti-Clinton blogging as one might have expected before the campaign began.
Those questions are fairly amorphous, but let me try to ground them both with some numbers, since they both stem from the same observation. Specifically, there has long been a perception that that Hillary Clinton is not a blogosphere favorite, demonstrated quantitatively both in her consistent single-digit showing in progressive blog straw polls, and in her net negative favorable / unfavorable rating among regular blog readers in the BlogPac Netroots poll of MoveOn.org members. The chart below breaks down favorable / unfavorable ratings of Hillary Clinton by how often MoveOn.org members read progressive blogs (the data measures up to standards of scientific randomness in polling, too):
Now, a quick impression from these numbers is that not only is Senator Clinton not the first choice of regular progressive blog readers, but that she is actively and vehemently disliked by many progressive blog readers. However, that dislike does not seem to be translating into much "anti-Clinton" blogging.
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