illumined horizon

I just watched the video of Kos on Meet the Press, I thought he was pretty articulate and clear for the most part. The one thing I didn't like, though, was how he wouldn't own up to supporting liberal candidates or being part of a liberal movement (I should say he mentioned supporting the progressive principles of the Democratic Party). Although, I don't think it's good for bloggers to be pigeonholed as far left, or irrelevant, I also don't think that the so-called progressive blogosphere should make any pretensions that we are not attempting to move the whole Democratic Party leftward (as talk radio and evangelical Christians have done to move the Republican Party to the right).

Kos didn't make this clear, and if this is not what he is trying to do, then maybe he and the left blogosphere are something different than what I thought they were. It's fine to support a big tent, but I'm not sure what role the DlC and their ilk should have (if any) in this tent. If Kos is not committed to reducing their stranglehold on the party, then I think he's not committed to the right goals. I understand that there are very conservative and right leaning parts of the country where Democrats need to be able to win, but I don't think masquering as something one is not, is the way to electoral victories. I mean with regard to the points he made about Lieberman, Lieberman is not being opposed because he undermines the party, he's being opposed because he's Republican-lite. Lieberman represents Connecticut, so there's no reason to have a Mississippi-style Democrat representing that state. We all know (or should) in the progressive blogosphere that we're not going to get a Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich representing every state, in every office. But we should be clear and open that the party has run from its progressive values, and where we can get a strong holder of these values, we will struggle mightily to. Where we can't get one we will struggle mightily for whoever represents working people the best.