The Netroots Hit Their Limits

Because the Netroots are bound by a medium and not by geography, they have been able to nationalize fund raising for congressional and Senate races more effectively than other groups of their size and relative inexperience. They are also the liberal rival to conservative "noise machines" like the online Drudge Report and talk-radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh. When Allen called an opponent's political operative by the racial slur macaca at a recent rally, the blogs touted the video, and the incident became a national story, contributing to a troubled campaign that has shrunk Allen's lead in his Senate race from double digits to 3 points.

Yet a coarse estimate of the Netroots' numbers shows them to be something less than a groundswell. The readership of the largest liberal blogs and the membership of MoveOn suggest that the Netroots could total 6 million people, and that assumes blog audiences don't overlap, which they do. That's only a small fraction of even the Democrats in the U.S., who number more than 70 million. While 5 million people can elect the Governor of California, the Netroots are dispersed all over the country. Even in Connecticut, one of the most liberal states, Ned Lamont, Lieberman's primary nemesis, couldn't rely on just the Netroots to get him elected. MoveOn has 50,000 members in the state; Lamont got 146,000 votes to win the Democratic nomination. Netroot strength is even less potent in a general election, as Lamont is discovering; he trails an independent Lieberman in the polls.

When it comes to money, the bloggers are still playing with Monopoly dollars compared with groups like Emily's List and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The top several liberal blogs together have raised about $1.2 million over the past year, which isn't enough in most districts to run a successful congressional campaign. To be sure, MoveOn has more money; it plans to spend $25 million this election cycle, targeting 40 key congressional races with television ads and a get-out-the-vote operation.

No one recognizes the Netroots' limits more than the activists themselves, which is why they are changing their tactics. First of all, they're becoming pragmatic about policy goals. There's little demand from the Netroots for Democrats to support gay marriage, for example, even though 91% of the people who gave money to or worked on Dean's campaign back it, according to a 2005 Pew poll. "We're not asking anyone to commit political suicide," says Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn. If the Democrats win the House, it will be on the strength of moderate candidates in places like Indiana, many of whom don't support one of MoveOn's top priorities, a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq. And the bloggers are actively supporting and giving money to many of these more centrist candidates. Virginia Senate candidate Jim Webb was encouraged to run and has received more than $280,000 from the Netroots, even though he served in the Reagan Administration as Navy Secretary and was a Republican until recently.