DU Needs to Pivot Off the Debates onto the Economy now.

[Tom Rinaldo]

Web sites like Democratic Underground have long stopped being partisan club houses and pep rallies. We play a real role in shaping the weeks political news narrative. The themes that we settle on to dominate discussion get taken note of beyond DU. The drop in the unemployment rate to 7.8% on Friday is our chance to turn the page on debate one, and undercut Romney on his core campaign strategy - damning the President on jobs.The jobs number is great for our side, and it is something the public gets immediately. It's time for increasing job growth to push debate number one out of the headlines.

I am not among those who think it was a mistake for the Left to criticize Obama's debate performance on Thursday. There are still three more national debates ahead of us and I think it helped the Obama team refocus on how to approach those to have gotten some stark unvarnished feedback from their own side on the last one. And DU also did what it always does best ; we trail blazed new attack lines against our opposition in our commentary about Romney's own debate performance. All in all I think we did well.

Now though it is time to move on. The Romney campaign would like nothing more than to gloss right over the jobs report and to keep replaying last Thursday night's debate instead. The President will castigate Romney in real time now, calling Romney on his lies is woven into Obama's stump speech. Our job now is to strengthen the narrative that America is back on track despite all of Mitt Romney's enthusiastic efforts to verbally derail it.

[DonViejo]

1. Okay, lead the charge, post some articles about the economy

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. That indirectly brings up an interesting point...

I've been on DU since 2003. Since that time I've seen a slow steady shift in the content of threads posted here. There has always been a blend but that blend has changed. Over the years DU topics have more and more become reposts of stuff written elsewhere and linked to from our forums. That's clearly the case in our Greatest Threads.

I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand I love being able to open up a DU forum and find links to lots of important articles and opinion pieces gathered here together in one place. On the other hand I miss seeing a little less original writing here.

I tend not to be a big reposter of articles from elsewhere onto DU, though I have done that also. Henceforth whether it's my own stuff or something I repost, or threads i kick through commenting on, I'm moving on off the debate now personally.

[KoKo]

2. Why did we need QE-3 to 2015 if the jobs numbers are looking so good, then?

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. Coffee is working slow for me today. I don't quite catch your point....

It's not that I think job numbers are looking so good, it's that they are looking better and that is news and that is better news than continuing to rehash the last debate If we here keep talking about the debate more than we do the drop of unemployment numbers below 8% we should not be surprised if the main street media does that also.

[lunatica]

3. Even if we aren't all that influential we should act as if we are

With only a month left before the elections we best throw our support behind President Obama because continually griping and whining is weakness. If, Fate forbid, Romney gets elected I'd rather lose fighting for President Obama and us than screaming at him.

[writes3000]

6. You are 100% correct. Very good point.

[Confusious]

7. I think you have an overinflated sense

about the importance of this website.

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. No, not really

It would be like saying that a volunteer door knocker for Obama had an over inflated sense of their importance to Obama winning the election because s/he thinks knocking on 500 doors during the election campaign makes a real contribution. How many voter minds in total are changed by visiting 500 doors? What will the margin of victory end up being? Yet the vibrancy of the total Obama GOTV effort makes a direct contribution to his victory AND makes a psychological difference to a feeling of momentum that drives voter perceptions about the election.

Web sites like DU have a role in shaping the political climate, and that has a role in influencing what national pundits talk about and how they talk about it, and that influences overall media coverage of the race etc. Ultimately it all comes down to votes of course, and all of us only have one each which can make what we each contribute seem tiny, but it matters.

DU is a major left wing political web site - it gets monitored by "players" at every level. We are a live interactive poll in a sense that reflects what Democratic activists are thinking about, how enthusiastic we are, what puts wind in our sails and what deflates us. We are public record. What we choose to discuss and how makes a difference.

[Confusious]

9. No, it's a overinflated sense

One in which "armchair quarterback" comes to mind.

Web sites like DU have a role in shaping the political climate, and that has a role in influencing what national pundits talk about

Proof? Or just your gut?

DU is a major left wing political web site - it gets monitored by "players" at every level.

Proof? Or just your gut?

Talking to 500 independents is a lot different then sitting in your basement in your underwear, eating cheetos, preaching to the choir .


Offer up some proof, I will most likely change my mind. Until then, it's an overinflated sense of importance.

Ps. if they really did listen, then during the health-care debate, we would have gotten single payer, or at least a public option. We got neither.

I think you put the horse before the cart. We discuss what the pundits put up, not the other way around.

[Tom Rinaldo]

10. Start with this

DU has over 150,000 registered members. That's only people who filled in the screens to actually join and doesn't count all of the people who visit DU regularly or on occasion. That qualifies DU as a major left wing political web site. Dig a little deeper into who posts on DU and you find that a hell of a lot of Democratic activists are included in DU's membership. I'm not talking about eating Cheetos in basements, I mean people active in local Democratic Party organizations. People who run for school boards, city councils and state legislatures as well as local Democratic Committee Committee persons. Which doesn't count all the people who post on and/or read DU who do active (physical ) volunteer work for Democratic candidates. I fit tin he latter category

If you accept that DU is a major left wing website whose members include large numbers of democratic activists it doesn't take a leap of logic to realize that some people whose business it is to understand what it going on regarding the political mood of the nation, and especially that of grass roots Democratic Party members (you know, "the Base&quot would check in here on some kind of regular basis.

It's true I haven't done a research project on this. That's one reason why I don't bookmark links pertaining to it, but I've seen threads here about Rush Limbaugh doing rants about stuff that was posted on DU, and I've seen shout outs posted about DU by people like Thom Hartman who referenced information posted on DU. I remember when Elizabeth Edwards posted regularly on DU while her husband was seeking the Democratic Presidential nomination, both times. I know that Wes Clark was aware of Democratic Underground. If you spend any time here during major primary seasons it is obvious that some posters have regular connections to some candidates campaigns and sometimes the candidates post here themselves.

I betcha most regular posters here can, off the record, name some DU posters who they suspect are connected to some politician's teams, though officially that can't be speculated on with names. As to the matter of the Public Option and single payer - it is a horse of a different color to directly influence political policy as opposed to indirectly influencing perceptions of the political climate. However I will note that it was reported on widely in the main stream media that large elements of the progressive activist community were up in arms with Obama over his "failure to fight for the public option". You might remember that back in early 2002 Preside3nt Obama was taking some credit for being independent enough to stand up to the Democratic Party base when he felt it was in the best interests of the nation to do so.

As to mere speculation, we are in a political era when pundits are counting up numbers of tweets made and/or google searches started using topical buzz words and phrases, and then integrating that data into the subject of their columns etc..Everyone is trying to get a new angle on the "horse race" aspect of political campaigns, so why would pundits not pay attention to a site like DU where there is constant real time feedback flowing in from around the country about what "the base" is feeling and discussing?

For the record I said 500 door4s,by the way, not 500 Independents. One would have to hit over 5,000 doors to even have hopes of talking to 500 independents. My point wasn't to demean the value of in person politics, just to point out that even the most active among us usually only directly help swing several dozen votes in a nation where tens of millions are cast. Small things matter was my point. Granted, a change in the nature of discussions on DU is of little notencompared to the actual impact of the debate, but I believe it matters and it is one way for us to help counter political narratives that are not helpful for the Democratic Party.

[Confusious]

11. 72 million registered Democrats

That is .002% of Democrats.

Not to mention, some people probably aren't even registered as Democrats. I'm registered as independent, but always vote Democrat.

So your take of the pie is even smaller then .002%

So no, I don't consider it a major player, in any sense of the word.

That's one reason why I don't bookmark links pertaining to it, but I've seen threads here about Rush Limbaugh doing rants about stuff that was posted on DU, and I've seen shout outs posted about DU by people like Thom Hartman who referenced information posted on DU. I remember when Elizabeth Edwards posted regularly on DU while her husband was seeking the Democratic Presidential nomination, both times. I know that Wes Clark was aware of Democratic Underground.

I've been here 7 years, I hear about it major media every once in a while, no more then once a year. Compare that to something like the Cato institute, (I know right wing, but this is an example) which I hear about every two weeks. The Cato Institute has influence. DU does not.

[FrenchieCat]

13. You are correct......

I know that Rachel Maddow and Ed and Al Sharpton are very aware of DU as well as KOS,
and yes, our reactions here are part of the social media...and there is no reason for someone
not to believe that.

[DevonRex]

12. You're exactly right. BTW read con's post pre-edit.

Enlightenment will be yours.