"Keeping Our Eye on the Ball"

Jared Roebuck on MyDD (frontpaged):

Before I begin, I'd first like to say thanks to Chris for the opportunity to post on MyDD. Secondly, I look forward to being a part of the MyDD community. I also want to disclose to the community that I also blog at Students for Barack Obama--yes I'm an Obama supporter. Anyway, heres my first post.

As anyone who has ever thrown their support behind a candidate will tell you, there is, perhaps, nothing more infuriating than reading a blog or an article about your guy or gal, that you believe is totally off base. It's a lot like watching sports when you feel like the refs are making all the wrong the calls. A better analogy may be, watching "very serious journalists" talk about Democrats on Sunday mornings. As someone who has made their '08 presidential choice this early, it isn't very pleasant browsing through the internets, when news comes out that I know he's going to catch flack for on the blogs. Usually, the criticisms are on base if not justified. But I must confess, there are times that I have to quiet the conspiracy theorist in the back of my head. It's human nature to, at times, assume the worst of people you disagree with, and assign malicious motivations to their actions. Which begs the question, are we-- the progressive base of the Democratic party-- keeping our eye on the ball?

The latest MyDD and DKos straw polls(and the others prior), indicate a clear divide within the progressive political blogosphere, between Obama and Edwards. This information is, of course, supported by the flame wars and accusations, that arise in comment sections of blog posts as well. I'd go further to suggest that this divide also exists in the netroots as a whole, although, probably to a lesser extent. The point being that the progressive base of the Democratic party seems to be split, to varying degrees, between Edwards and Obama. For us, the race is a contest between those two. There is no Howard Dean of 2008. This dynamic has been documented and discussed before, but its importance remains.

The point being that the national polls tell a very different story than those straw polls. Moreover, we in the progressive political blogosphere all know this. The biggest story of the past few weeks for progressives, shouldn't be that Obama's plan has no mandate or that Edwards says he would keep troops in Iraq--on the margins, I think, neither of those positions are deal breakers. Rather, our concern should be the expansion of Hillary's lead in the polls. As best documented in The American Prospect debate between Garance Franke-Ruta, Matt Yglesias, and Sam Rosenfeld, Hillary is not the progressive candidate in this race.

The larger question for progressives is, at what point does the Edwards v. Obama dynamic become self defeating? Does it at some point make sense for us to "declare" a winner between the two?

Barring, a mass transfusion of support from either candidate or an Al Gore entry into the race (see this), I don't see either candidate locking up or losing their support within the progressive wing of the party. The math is clear. In almost every national poll, the support between the two of them outweighs Hillary's. That means that we or rather those in the party that think like us, can, in fact, put a progressive on the ticket. Putting aside if you think Obama is no longer a progressive or if you feel Edwards' move to left shouldn't be respected, it's fair to say, better one of them than Clinton. Therefore, how useful is it for us to remain split, or rather how much longer is it useful to remain as such?