netroots v Facebook!
Thelimitsofthenetroots.html> June 15, 2007 The limits of the netroots Patrick Ruffini, newly liberated from Giulianiland, has a provocative = post asking whether the Netroots haven’t “stalled out.” Party. They aren=92t even the largest constituency online. [snip] The core reason for Jerome=92s alienation is that the netroots are = losing a battle for relevance to a bunch of Obama-supporting, = Facebook-addled college kids. When the second quarter closes, it will = probably be announced that Obama has raised at least $15 million = online, three times what Dean did at this point last cycle, and about = twice Edwards=92 total. Obama has done it with some netroots support, = but the not inconsiderable difference between him and Edwards is due = to a cult of personality that matters far more than anyone=92s support = on the blogs.
There’s a limit to this critique. The leading liberal bloggers (not = identical to the broader netroots, in any case) may not win, as = Andrew Rasiej said to me a while ago, but they will be heard. Their = influence with the congressional leadership isn’t going away either. But that central point =97 that the netroots aren’t the dominant force = in online politics, just its avant garde =97 is a way in which online = politics is beginning to normalize back toward the politics of the = real world, in which activists are important, but also limited by = their relative numbers. [Ruffini: stalling-out/>]
Lo and behold, they aren=92t the largest constituency in the Democratic =