Apparently it’s not a done deal:
Short version: they haven’t said they’re firing Marcotte and McEwan, and they haven’t said they’re not.
I’m with Chris Bowers on this: if the Edwards camp lets the wingnuts start pushing them around with every pseudo-‘scandal’ they can drum up, then Edwards is too much of a lightweight to be President. Hardly matters what one thinks of Amanda’s old posts at Pandagon.
Does it matter much which Republican is most popular among the Freepers?
You folks have to understand that the activists in both parties are seen as deeply strange by the majority of Americans. And they probably have a very good reason for feeling that way.
Can’t you people understand? Edwards is a cunt. Period, end of chat!
Even if you’re right that the netroots crowd is irrelevant–and I’m not sure you are, especially where the primary is concerned–it’s the one place where Edwards has a lot of support right now. If he takes hold of that, he can build outward from there. If he loses them, he has nothing, and he’s over before he really starts.
The mood around the blogs is that if Edwards fires Amanda and Melissa, he isn’t worth supporting. It isn’t so much a show of blogger solidarity as the desire for a candidate who will actually fight back against the right-wing nutjobs. There was hope for Edwards, since he was reportedly pissed about the Kerry campaign’s anemic response to the Swift Boaters and their ilk, but his response here suggests otherwise.
Hell, at this point, even if he does come out tomorrow with a strongly-worded defense of his hires*, he deserves some scorn for taking 24 hours to find his balls.
You do realize that it’s impossible by definition for everyone to become rich, right? Everyone could, in utopia, come to comparable wealth & comfort that might look like “rich” compared to the squalor most moderns live in, but rich is a relative term, especially in a free market. I suspect Forbes doesn’t really want everyone to become rich, because that would mean he’s really oblivious.
Yeah, those guys are better. But if I have to choose between two hyperrich exploiters of the masses, I’m gonna favor the one who at least cares a little bit more about the little guy.
All that means is that he favors policies that open markets and create wealth. And of course not everyone can be ‘rich’ if you want to grade wealth on a curve. But who says that’s the right measure? I’m right in the middle of the middle class, and I feel ‘rich’, because not only do I recognize that I live better today than kings did 200 years ago, but in my own lifespan I have seen not only my wealth, but the average wealth of citizens in my country expand by a fairly dramatic amount. All you have to do is drive through a neighborhood of houses that were middle-class in the 1960’s, and compare it to the same neighborhood being built today. The houses are twice the size, everyone has a two-car garage because most families have two cars or more. The average house has 3 TV sets and is air conditioned (in southern areas). The quality of almost everything we use is better today than it’s ever been.
If getting all of that means that in absolute terms the rich made out somewhat better than I did, why should I care? If a rising tide lifts all boats, I don’t really care if some of them rise a little higher than mine.
That’s the antithesis of the message John Edwards is preaching. He’s telling people that they are owed something by the rich. That they’ve been left behind, that their plight is hopeless without a charismatic leader like him to lead them out of the wilderness on the backs of the wealthy. Populists like to play to the masses by telling them what whatever their unhappiness with life may be, it’s not their fault. Don’t make enough money? There oughtta be a law. Kid can’t get into a good school? There oughtta be a law. Worried about them pesky furriners taking your job? Why, there should be laws against that. The world is unfair to the masses, but with the help of John Edward’s brilliant leadership, the promised land awaits.
Or says he cares more about the little guy, because he figures that’s his ticket to power. When he first ran for office, he ran as a moderate, even a conservative. He voted for the war. But when the political winds shifted, he shifted right along with them. Now suddenly he’s a man of the left, a progressive for the people. Uh huh.
Rising tides don’t lift all boats. The gap between rich and poor is widening. The Republican tax cuts have helped the rich get oh so richer while they cut back on college loan funds to keep the poor and middle class from advancing. The bankruptcy laws were rewritten to keep the working poor from filing. The issue isn’t that the rest of us think the rich owe us something- it’s that for the last 6 years the rich have fattened themselves at the public trough while making it tougher for the rest of us to join their ranks.
No. But Left Blogistan is much bigger than it’s rightwing counterpart.
How do you know this? What do Americans generally know about the netroots, anyway? They’ve only been around for a few years, and the few pieces about the lefty netroots I’ve seen in the MSM would function better as parody than reporting - such as the story where the WaPo reporter, knowing nothing about the netroots prior to researching his story but having the phrase “angry left” kicking around in his head, managed to find exactly the caricature one would expect based on his starting point.
Remember, please, that the candidate most popular in the online Democratic community, Howard Dean, lost the Iowa caucus in 2004. In fact, he lost it badly, and never regained momentum in that race. And there is pretty strong evidence that he lost because voters there were turned off to a large degree by the behavior of his volunteers in that state, and by the anger he displayed that made him so popular with the online community in the first place.
The netroots don’t behave like normal voters, and choosing a candidate that appeals to them will repel others.
Mr. Moto, just out of curiosity, remember when you left that one time? How you said you were leaving because of the hardening of the partisan positions and how distasteful that was to you?
I’m just curious about what changed, because since you’ve been back, you’ve been nothing but a conduit for whatever right wing meme has been circulating, and now you’re recycling the “angry Dean” nonsense. Don’t even get me started on the “You just hate Bush!” argument you laid down for us a few days ago.
It seems to me you’ve brought nothing but hardened partisan right-wing nonsense back with you. So why do you embrace such when it previously made you announce to all and sundry that you were leaving for good and don’t cry for me Argent Towers?
2004, 2007…what could have possibly changed in the meantime? 
First I’ve heard of it in all these years. Got a cite?
Damned if I know what that has to do with the netroots.
True. For instance, the netroots dislike Hillary pretty strongly, and she’s currently at the top of the Dem polls.
What do you base that on, other than your gut feeling? The netroots supported a lot of winning candidates in 2006, from Jim Webb in Virginia to Nancy Boyda in Kansas to Jon Tester in Montana to Jerry McNerney in California. Apparently candidates that appealed to the netroots also appealed to many other Americans.
Not to speak for Mr. Moto, but the only attitude that Hentor won’t attack is the one Aeschines espouses - “I will vote for whatever Democrat runs”. Anything else gets characterized as “hardened partisan right-wing nonsense”.
Same as the announcement that no reason can be held in good faith not to vote for a Democrat. Hentor automatically assumes they are merely conservatives who are lying.
To an extremist, anything but another extremist appears extreme. If the Democrats won’t accept anyone except other yellow dog Democrats, they will (hopefully) wind up with only other yellow dog Democrats.
Business as usual on the SDMB.
Regards,
Shodan
Complete nonsense, as most will recognize, but just to be clear for the sake of others, there are plenty of legitimate reasons not to vote Democratic. For the third time, my request is that your brethren don’t pretend like they were going to vote Democratic, excepting for [John Edwards’ house size… John Edwards bloggers… Nancy Pelosi’s request for a rocket ship…].
These are nothing more than attempts to spread usually false stories about Democratic candidates under the guise of thoughtful political commentary.
If business is so usual around here, I wonder why you don’t give up the ghost, Shodan?
So, Mr. Moto, does this make your vote for Edwards more or less likely? What fraction of 0 would you say ever best characterized your likelihood of voting for him in the first place?
For me, I wasn’t pleased with his tone in condemning their previous posts, and I think he should have known about what they’ve written in the past. I think that he needed to demonstrate to the oh-so-irrelevant netroots that he was ready to run a campaign that would shoot down the swiftboaters for bullshit when they first surfaced, and not fear the overblown faux outrage of assholes like this Donahue who won’t ever vote for him in the first place.
And for the third time, you are going to assume that statements from anyone but True Believers are made in pretense. As when you state the following -
I’ll post here as I please, of course. If it bothers you, I can’t really say that registers on my radar, or should.
Regards,
Shodan
When did I ever say I would vote for Edwards? I was commenting on the way he was running his campaign and his need to eventually win over Catholic and other Christian voters.
BTW, I did vote for Edwards in the 2004 Virginia Democratic presidential primary.
Do you take Edwards’ statements on his own faith and faith in general at face value? Do you find them at odds in any way with what Marcotte and McEwan wrote in their posts?
Can’t you see how Catholic or evangelical voters who might have been inclined to vote for Edwards (like many union members or black Democrats, for instance) might have been offended by these posts? And that outrage over them wouldn’t have been confined to the right wing?
I think the likelihood of someone who is voting for a politician based on religious reasons voting for Edwards in the first place is very, very small. I think religious voters who are voting for other issues would regard prior statements of employees made independent from their connection with the campaign as very ancillary concerns.
That’s not the problem, though. Edwards has to win a primary fight first, among other Democrats who might not be very far apart on policy matters. Even if someone is choosing for economic or policy reasons, that voter might be someone whose faith is important to them.
If he is seen as hostile to faith, he will chase away voters he needs in his column. And the profane and hostile posts by Marcotte especially went far beyond an honest criticism of faith - they attacked religion and the faithful.
And, of course, chances of them even knowing about the posts is very slim unless they are reading right wing blogs in the first place.
Mr. Moto, given your perpetuation of the “angry Howard Dean” bullshit earlier, I hope you’ll forgive me for dismissing out of hand your expressions of concern for how Edwards fares in the Democratic primaries and your opinions about how Democratic voters would reject him for someone else’s comments about religion.
This is a controversy for Freepers and Red Staters pretty much exclusively. And, of course, for those of us at the SDMB reading your posts on the topic.
[Edited to add]: Exactly, jsgoddess. That’s why it’s important for the Mr. Moto’s of the world to spread the word in the guise of concern for how the Democratic candidates are going to do, or, again, how they were swayed at the last second for voting for him themselves, if only!