Well, the DailyKos (and some others) hit the MSNBC website today, of course its the traditional media's take on our take on the Hackett controversy so they 'went fishing' for a good quote without much analysis of the actual discussion and debate:
Democratic blogosphere reaction was mixed with some such as "Kos" (Markos Moulitsas Zuniga) urging party activists to unite behind Brown.
'Brown better win this'
"I just have one thing to say right now: Sherrod Brown better win this," said Democratic blogger "Adam B" on the Daily Kos web site. "I hope that once Hackett's many supporters get over this disappointment, we can all work together this fall to make it happen. At the end of the day, Chuck Schumer's not the enemy -- Mike DeWine is, as is every other Republican who stands between us and control of the Senate."
Congrats to Adam B., you got to be, well, 'all of us' at the DKos, at least just for today. (I'm guessing this is how it goes. One is all, and all is one. I guess I don't think Tom Curry tossing Kos an M&M because he owns the site counts as an analysis of his views, frankly.)
Democratic Bloggers Abuzz over Hackett
Of course, it wouldn't be MSGOP without a little dig from their gleeful little benefactors at GOP headquarters. As a point of fact, I have been scanning the blogs all day and I didn't really notice any real attempt at a GOP 'pushback' on this mess from yesterday. But hey, if you have tons of GOP numbers on your speed dial, why not?
Republicans were quick to try to exploit the opportunity to inflame Democratic divisions. "The Democrat party bosses dumped a candidate with mainstream vote-getting potential for one of their most liberal members," said Dan Ronayne, a spokesman for the Republican Senatorial Committee
-And the inevitable backhand and slammed door that the traditional media serves up so well.
Assessing bloggers' importance
The negative reaction to Hackett's exit "will certainly pass, it may even pass before the next news cycle," remarked Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the non-partisan Cook Political Report.
"Hackett is the kind of candidate who illustrates that the blogs are loud, but not necessarily representative," she added. "In this election cycle in particular, people are watching blogs and assigning them enormous importance that isn't necessarily warranted."
The Hackett episode showed that party leaders had decided it was worth risking the wrath of pro-Hackett bloggers in order to get the candidate they judged to be the stronger one.
Nice. An MSNBC twofer. They sandbag the blogs AND Hackett as he is walking out the door and use a quote from a third party (nonpartisan!) to do it. I believe that's as good as a eagle. Well under par for the hole.
So, basically, the whole Hackett issue isn't about Hackett, Brown, or the Democratic party. Maybe political inside baseball, politics being a rough business, innocence lost? Nah. Its that people shouldn't pay attention to us. Bloggers, apparently, liked Hackett. So, what happens to Hackett and his candidacy is a referendum on the power of progressive blogs.
What a joke.
But I suppose that considering its MSNBC, this could have been worse.
The best thing that I can say about it is that Brown got some decent play out of the article and wasn't slagged at all, and Curry didn't let his GOP quote of the day smear Brown either. Plus, we get to see some of our account names used to source quotes as if we walk around being called that like we are superheroes or something.