Lefty Rage
Today's Washington Post includes a five page (well, five-webpage) profile of Maryscott O'Connor, one of the more distinctive voices of the left-wing blogosphere. Though I don't think this was the writer's purpose, the article provides some good insight into both why community sites like Daily Kos and O'Connor's own My Left Wing might soon help to improve the political fortunes of progressive candidates, and why these sites offer potential danger for American politics even if they do help facilitate better electoral outcomes.

I used to spend a lot more time on dKos than I do now, and I remember O'Connor from at least three years ago. She's always stood out for cutting wit, inflammatory writing and just a burning, visceral loathing for Republicans. She also clearly had considerable gifts as a self-promoter: O'Connor is an attractive woman (though the pic in the WaPo piece wouldn't make you think so; this one, posted on her "My Left Wing" site in explicit response to the bad shot in the Post, gives both a more favorable impression and some insight into her monumental self-involvement, and this is the pic I think was her original on dKos) who wasn't shy about posting pictures of herself in her early dKos pieces, and in them she'd often talk about the vicissitudes of her own life--alcoholism, an unwanted pregnancy that ended in abortion, etc--in (sometimes abstract) connection to political arguments. In an emergent community with few visible leaders--Kos himself is not especially telegenic, and has an unfortunate speaking voice that makes him sound like a 12 year-old--O'Connor quickly acquired a cult following online, and that allowed her to start myleftwing.com... where the key word, I think, is "my."

People like O'Connor and, I think, her hero/admirer The Rude Pundit (whom I remember first hearing of in O'Connor's early dKos diaries; he's now on the permanent AIS blogroll, as I find his rants much funnier, less self-serving and more deeply felt than hers) seem like the necessary counterweight to the hyper-partisans on the right. A piece in the current New York Review of Books, breaking down the recently released, Kos-co-authored polemic Crashing the Gates, strongly makes this case. That it's personality-led might be a bit depressing to those of us who distrust cults, but hardly surprising: a lot of Bill O'Reilly's appeal probably is bound up in his personality, and in that sense too O'Connor, Kos and the rest of them are filling a void. Their outrage fuels the activism and determination to engage without which Democrats likely just can't win elections. What I'm pretty sure they can't do, however, is govern. It's not that they don't have well-articulated views on issues: O'Connor's MyLeftWing manifesto probably compares favorably, in depth and detail, to the major party platforms. But the absolute certainty with which she states her views, the incredulous and contemptuous dismissal of all other opinions, does not bode well for the likelihood of these views serving a fractured, divided and often ambivalent public if they ever gain the legitimacy of office.

So far as I know, none of the rising heroes of the online left are running for office: not Markos Moulitsas, not Air America's Randi Rhodes, and certainly not Maryscott O'Connor. This strikes me as a good thing: if they serve to keep more mainstream Democrats honest and focused on core principles, that's fine. But if and when their chosen champions do take office, that's going to present a new set of challenges: stridency might help win elections, but compromise and civility are required traits if the winners are to make their victories worthwhile.