The MoveOn Primary
BY Joshua Levy | Thursday, January 31 2008
Be sure to check out Ari Melber's piece in the Nation about MoveOn's Democratic primary, in which they're asking their 3.2 million members to vote for their preferred Dem.
...if MoveOn does manage to unite "as a progressive community around one of these candidates," as Executive Director Eli Pariser explains in a new e-mail, its activists could play a pivotal role in this race. There are over a million and half MoveOn voters in Super Tuesday states. The group boasts 575,000 web activists in California alone--about 9 percent of turnout for the state's 2004 presidential primary. It has one of the largest and most active donor lists in American politics, which could help finance a long delegate hunt for either candidate. And among many Democratic activists and primary voters, it offers a credential that both candidates covet: a commitment to aggressive, forward-looking politics that will end the war and confront the corrupt GOP establishment. In short, MoveOn is a political "brand" that could blunt lingering Democratic concerns that Obama's post-partisanship is too nice for the inevitable battles ahead, or validate Clinton's argument that she is the toughest, most partisan Democrat in the race.
The results will shed light on the thinking of progressives now that John Edwards is out of the race. Should be interesting.