Bought and Paid For

"We bought it, we own it and now we're going to take it back.".

*blink blink blink*

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BOUGHT AND PAID FOR

December 11, 2004 -- 'Now it's our party," reads the typically arrogant e-mail, referring to the Democrats, from MoveOn.org to its supporters: "We bought it, we own it and now we're going to take it back."

Sad to say, the message — sent by the group's political director, Eli Pariser — is largely true.

MoveOn.org and similar so-called "527" groups (named for the section of the campaign-finance law that governs their activities) did all but take control of the Democratic Party this year — for no other reason than that the Democrats offered themselves for sale.

So groups like MoveOn and left-wing fat cats like George Soros effectively pumped $300 million into the Democratic presidential candidates' campaign — first Howard Dean, then John Kerry — all while remaining officially and legally "independent."

Indeed, MoveOn & Co. pretty much set the Democratic agenda this year, forcing Kerry to lurch sharply leftward in order to outflank Dean, who seemed to have cornered the market on strident, over-the-top anti-war rhetoric.

So now the party finds itself in a political pickle as it prepares to choose a new chairman of its national committee.

Howard Dean wants the job in a big way — a prospect that terrifies most Democrats, who see his candidacy as a one-way ticket to irrelevance.

Dean would insist that the party echo the MoveOn message — that the Democrats must remain firmly rooted on the leftward-most edge of the political spectrum. As Dean himself puts it: "There's only one thing Republican power brokers want more than for us to lurch to the left — and that's for us to lurch to the right."

(Though it might be a tad indelicate to point out that the Democrats have never been stronger in the past 40 years than when a guy named Bill Clinton "lurched to the right" — first being elected president as a moderate Democrat and then governing by co-opting GOP themes and proposals, like welfare reform.)

If the Democrats want to be honest about the state of their party today, they'll elect Dean and embrace the MoveOn crowd enthusiastically.

And go the way of the Whigs.

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Eli Pariser is the 23-year-old director of the MoveOn.org anti-war campaign.

wanting a little more information on Eli Pariser, i found this from, *rolling my eyes*, MotherJones (May/June 2003):

http://www.motherjones.com/news/hellraiser/2003/05/ma_379_01.html

what lifted my brow was the last paragraph:

"A visit to MoveOn's New York office really got Wimsatt thinking. Upon arriving at the door, he was ushered into the 8-by-10-foot room where Pariser sleeps. "There was a little desk, a little bookshelf, a chair, and a laptop," says Wimsatt. "I'm like, 'Okay, let's go see your office.' But he's like, 'This is it.' I was stunned -- the most effective progressive political force today is coming out of this 22-year-old kid's bedroom."

shades of Ted Kaczynski. creepy.