Article Of Faith

by digby

Writing about the recount process in Minnesota, Ed Kilgore makes an odd claim:

It’s an article of faith among many progressives that Gore and Lieberman lost the election in 2000 well before the U.S. Supreme Court intervened, by exhibiting a naive respect for the rule of law while the Bushies laughed at them contemptuously and blew their doors off in manipulating the process by any means necessary. That’s certainly the impression left by the much-watched HBO movie Recount, where an effete and pompous Warren Christopher, who worried about New York Times editorials and the judgment of history, was decisively outflanked from the beginning by the charmingly vicious Jim Baker. Indeed, the idea that Democrats handed Bush the presidency through a weak and supercilious concern for fair play provided a lot of the impetus (according to some accounts) for the whole “netroots” phenomenon of the ensuing years.

As Josh Marshall notes today via a reader email, Al Franken has been the quieter, more rules-observing contestant in the Minnesota dispute. And that seems to have paid off politically: according to a new poll, 63% of Minnesotans now want Coleman to concede. This is important because it places pressure on MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty to certify Frankel as a senator if Coleman loses his state appeal, without waiting to see what happens in a possible federal suit.

I honestly don’t know what he’s talking about. It’s possible that there are those who think the Democrats should steal elections — or excuse me — adopt the tactics of James Baker and Karl Rove but I don’t know who they are. As for it being an article of faith, I very much think not.

The election of 2000 was certainly one of the catalysts for the netroots’ formation, but not because people thought Gore was some sort of wimp who didn’t know how to fight dirty (although some certainly thought he should have fought on.) It was because it was a terrible abuse of the electoral process by the Republicans, the exact opposite of what Kilgore claims. The “netroots” position has always been electoral reform and exposing the Republican Party’s unethical behavior, not emulating it.

We have spent years documenting their nefarious plans and techniques and would be almost ridiculously hypocritical to call for our side to do the same things. Indeed, I’ve not heard a peep from anyone in the netroots (although I may have missed it) complaining that Franken wasn’t playing hardball. I think most people assume he followed the rules and did pretty much everything right.

There is ongoing concern that the Republicans not be allowed to spin the media the way they did in 2000, which may be where Kilgore gets the idea that we endorse Republican tactics. But I see any media strategy as a purely defensive action designed to allow a Democrat the ability — as Franken has had — to legitimately contest or defend an election result. I don’t think anyone believes they should be out there spinning the press to create a clearly erroneous impression of victory in order to draw out or foreshorten the process, which the right clearly thinks is a-ok. And I can’t imagine anyone endorsing the idea of contesting a clearly lost election purely to delay filling a seat as they are doing in Minnesota.

Anyway, I like Kilgore and agree with him more often than not. But in this case, I think he’s giving the netroots a bad rap. There is no article of faith that I’m aware of that suggests we should adopt the right’s scorched earth electoral tactics. We just want fair elections. And on that, I think we agree fully with Kilgore.