Earlier today, a controversial endorsement by a prominent Virginia Democratic blogger has served as the spark for the more or less inevitable blog war in Virginia's Leftysphere. While regrettable because of the damage it will no doubt cause to friendships and political relationships that have been years in the making, this year's blog war was inevitable, and probably even healthy, from a certain point of view.
As with so many shooting wars, the incident that has sparked the conflict is far less important than the underlying tensions that caused it: in this case, the underlying reason for the current battle is the statistical three-way tie in the Democratic primary race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. So if you will bear with me for a moment, I will delay talking about that spark until I come to its place in my story.
Three candidates--Terry McAuliffe, Brian Moran, and Creigh Deeds--have been within a few percentage points of each other for months. With less than three months remaining, some of the campaigns are reaching for any advantage they can to break the deadlock. Today, bloggers from two of the campaigns took advantage of a spark to break the implicit truce that has heretofore governed the relations between Virginia's Democratic bloggers.
A word about that truce. Early last year, right around the time when Creigh Deeds and Brian Moran announced their candidacies, several Virginia Democratic and progressive bloggers--myself among them--implicitly agreed that our focus had to be on last year's Democratic presidential primaries and the general election that followed: the 2009 Governor's race was judged to be too far off, and potentially divisive. Attacks on or between Deeds and Moran's supporters were discouraged in comments sections and elsewhere. On the whole I think the truce was both justified and successful.
Once the presidential election was successfully concluded with the election of Barack Obama, the justification for the truce among the various factions ended, but fighting did not immediately break out. I attribute that to a kind of euphoria among Democrats who were united and energized by their victories in November 2008. The field expanded shortly after the election when Terry McAuliffe threw his hat in the ring along with Deeds and Moran, meaning that there were at least four factions in the blogosphere (McAuliffe, Moran, Deeds and Undecided). In addition, there were several sub-factions of people who supported no one, but strongly opposed at least one of the candidates.
Still, there was little real fighting, as the candidates themselves seemed to prefer positive campaigns, apart from a few mild attacks from the Moran camp aimed at McAuliffe's formidable fundraising machine. It has been months therefore, since the presidential election brought an end to the informal truce among Virginia Leftybloggers, but until today there had been little in the way of acrimony in Virginia's Leftysphere. The truce ended today and the shooting war--at least between two of the camapigns--has at last begun.
Which brings us at last to the incident that has sparked our little war. Last Thursday, three prominent Virginia Democratic bloggers, among them Lowell Feld--the dean of Virginia Democratic bloggers--endorsed Terry McAuliffe's bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Today, the campaign of Brian Moran either released or leaked information about another member of the trio, Josh Chernila. The leaked information? A pair of e-mails from January 2009 that indicated that Josh Chernila had previously expressed support for, and sought paid employment with, the campaign of Brian Moran.
The text of the two e-mails appeared on Ben Tribbett's famous (and kind of notorious) blog Not Larry Sabato. The implication of the post--though it was nowhere expressed in the post itself--was that Chernila had switched his allegiance to McAuliffe in exchange for a paid position with the McAuliffe campaign. While, as I have said, this implication was nowhere expressed in the post itself, it was explored ad nauseum in the comments section, as was no doubt intended. Ben promised another update this afternoon, but as I write this no such update has been posted.
My own first reaction to this post was that if Josh Chernila had received an offer from McAuliffe prior to his endorsement, then he should have disclosed that offer when he endorsed McAuliffe. I was subsequently informed by blogger "teacherken" (those of us who know teacherken's actual name know that he prefers that we do not use it, but I regard him as a very reliable source) that while Josh has received an offer from McAuliffe, he did not receive it until after his endorsement. Here is teacherken in his own words:
Josh made his decision on Sunday, he was not approached by the McAuliffe campaign until several days later, and he has still as of my last information 3 hours ago NOT accepted a job with the campaign. They would be fools not to ask him once he decided to support them. And please note - THEY initiated the conversation AFTER he decided to endorse, that endorsement being a result of several factors (1) disappointment in what he believes was a lack of focus in Brian's campaign; (2) disgust at what he was seeing in tactics from Brian's campaign and.or supporters; (3) the opportunity to interact with Terry twice, observing him up close, and watching his impact around the state; (d) deciding that based on what he was seeing Terry could beat McDonnell, and was the best candidate to help with the House of Delegates.
Tribbett's post, and its associated comments section, quickly drew an angry response from Chernila's friend, fellow blogger, and fellow McAuliffe supporter, Lowell Feld. Here's a taste of what Lowell had to say on his new blog Blue Virginia:
Yes, I know politics is a rough business. And yes, I know you've got to have a thick skin and all that. But I'm sorry, what the Brian Moran campaign has done here, leaking PRIVATE emails in order to embarrass and potentially harm the livelihood of my friend Josh Chernila - one of the best progressive, Democratic activists in Virginia if not the country - is completely beyond the pale. Aside from potentially harming Josh's livelihood, they also potentially harm Josh's young son in the process. This is unethical. This is immoral. This is disgusting. This is unacceptable.
Lowell then prescribes--or I guess "demands" might be a better word--the following punishment for the Moran staffers presumed to be responsible for the release or leak of Josh's e-mails:
Whatever that is, it's not right, and it's not democracy. As a result of this behavior, I am demanding today that Brian Moran completely shake up his campaign, change its direction, fire the staffer(s) who leaked Josh's emails, and generally do a serious "gut check" on how he's allowed his campaign to stray so far from his progressive principles and ethical nature. I'm also urging that, unless and until this change in direction and accountability occurs, that no Democrat endorse the Moran for Governor campaign. I would further urge that any Democrat who already HAS endorsed the Moran for Governor campaign seriously consider withdrawing their endorsement.
I like and respect Lowell Feld. He really is, as I said above, the dean of Democratic blogging in Virginia. While Virginia boasts many excellent Democratic and progressive bloggers, Lowell is, as the ancient Romans had it, primus inter pares: first among equals. Nevertheless, in making these demands, Lowell overreaches and writes a check that is beyond his ability to cash. I doubt very seriously whether anyone will heed Lowell's demand that Brian Moran be treated as a political untouchable.
So what to make of today's events? The decision by someone in the Moran campaign to leak or release Josh Chernila's e-mails certainly marks a distinct escalation in the level of negativity in the campaign. Evidently someone has decided that it is time to take off the gloves and go after McAuliffe and, by extension, his supporters. Moran's implicit attack here is that McAuliffe is trying to buy the election and, along the way, a few Democratic activists as well. The kneejerk response from McAuliffe's supporters seems to be to try and "draw the foul," and turn Moran's attack back on him. This is a well established blogging strategy--blog jujitsu--and it can be very effective against a candidate that makes a clumsy negative attack. It should surprise no one to see McAuliffe's supporters employ it.
What supporters of McAuliffe and Moran need to remember is that in the coming months they will need each other. It will require a high degree of Democratic unity to defeat Republican Bob McDonnell's well funded and well organized campaign. It will be interesting to see how Moran and McAuliffe's blogger supporters balance their need to attack and draw distinctions between their candidates with their need to avoid burning bridges for the future.
As for Deeds' supporters, we still apparently remain on the sidelines, awaiting some sign from our candidate that he wants to challenge the other candidates. Deeds' strategy may be as simple as waiting on the sidelines for Moran and McAuliffe to fatally damage each other.