"The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics," by Matt Bai

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT book review: Democrats Face Online Diagnoses, but No Cure Yet
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
Published: August 28, 2007


Matt Bai

....In his illuminating new book, the journalist Matt Bai examines the health of the Democratic Party, focusing on the insurgent progressive movement that is taking on the Washington establishment — a largely Internet-driven movement that’s brought together wealthy venture capitalists, determined to help build a re-energized party; angry bloggers, furious with the Bush administration and fed up with Democratic moderates; and isolated suburban liberals in red states, eager to use the Web to connect with like-minded citizens around the country.

“The Argument,” which grew out of articles Mr. Bai wrote for The New York Times Magazine, combines lots of energetic reporting on the ground with some astute political analysis. The result is a colorful topographical map of the Democratic landscape: an anatomy of the party’s new progressive wing and its contentious relationship with centrist groups like the Democratic Leadership Council, and some sharply observed portraits of progressive power brokers like Howard Dean, the bloggers Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga and the union leader Andy Stern....

In one of the book’s more biting chapters, Mr. Bai draws parallels between “the most successful company of the last century” (i.e., General Motors) and “the dominant political party of the same era” (i.e., the Democrats) — two 20th-century behemoths, he says, that are reluctant to let go of old ideas and fonder of new marketing plans than of genuine innovation....

The Internet, in the view of many progressives, was going to change all that: the Web was going to be for Democrats what talk radio was for Republicans. As the political blogger Jerome Armstrong put it, the Web was going to change the nature of the party, putting power into the hands of passionate grass-roots activists and redrawing the country’s political map by organizing progressives not just in old industrial blue states, but in red-leaning states as well.

And yet, as Mr. Bai finds, the insurgents are often painfully split among themselves, and their emphasis on tactics and fund-raising underscores their own difficulty, thus far, in articulating a new paradigm for the party....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/28/books/28kaku.html

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