Plouffe: "Little tolerance" for left's blog blowback
BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, December 17 2009
During a recent sit-down interview, techPresident contributor and Nation writer Ari Melber tested Obama campaign manager and ally David Plouffe for his reaction to the protests erupting on some segment of the liberal blogosphere over the health care reform package emerging from the Senate. What do you make of blog posts like that from Markos Moulitsas, Melber asked Plouffe, where Kos blasted the Democratic National Committee for sending out a fundraising email last week that touted compromise health reform legislation that, judged Kos, "potentially worse than the status quo"?
Plouffe is, of course, a campaign strategist and message manager, and so it's not surprising that he framed his tempered response in terms of the art of the possible. After running through a set of generalized talking points on the bills merits (reduced costs, increase coverage, ending "insurance company abuses"), Plouffe took on Kos' criticisms directly:
I have very little tolerance for this, because we're trying to solve something that is a systematic problem that's afflicted us for decades. It's very hard. You've got the insurance companies, an entire opposition party arrayed against you. It's really a hard thing to do.
Watch the interview, and it's hard not to come to the conclusion that in the Venn diagram living in Plouffe's mind that represents the Democratic/Obama base and the liberal blogosphere, there's very little overlap. "It's easy to take shots," Plouffe said. "But I'm very closely in contact with the people who made up the heartbeat on the ground level of Obama for America and who are still out there." Out there, yes. But on the liberal blogs, not so much, it seems.
You can read the whole interview here.