Actions speak louder than words. And without uttering a word, Moveon has declared war on the DLC and the "New Democrats."

From: "Tom Matzzie, MoveOn PAC"
Mon, 11 Apr 2005

Deadline: Heinous bankruptcy bill--show Congress you're watching.

Dear MoveOn member,

A great majority of the families that declared bankruptcy last year did so because of a major life crisis—huge medical bills or layoffs—that threw them into a spiral of debt. Now, after a multi-year, multi-million dollar lobbying effort by credit card companies, Congress is poised Wednesday to approve a sweeping change in bankruptcy law that would make it impossible for folks who have been dealt a bad hand to get a clean start. The law actually gives credit card companies new ways to seize your home and car if you get into financial trouble.

After accepting more than $620,000 from the lending industry to his various PACs, Republican Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay has scheduled the vote for Wednesday. The change in bankruptcy laws is a clear example of whose interests the Republicans in Congress are serving. But, in a betrayal of middle class families, as many as 90 Democrats may also vote the wrong way. Both Republicans and Democrats need to know that millions of us oppose this bonanza for corporate contributors that hurts families who are the victims of circumstances beyond their control.

We need to show Congress that we're watching. Today we're asking you to make a pledge to contribute for radio ads in the hometowns of representatives, both Republicans and Democrats, who vote wrong on this bill. We'll announce the amount of the pledge fund TOMORROW, before the vote on Wednesday, so that members of Congress know there are consequences for their votes.

Please click below to check out the script of the radio ad and make your pledge today:

http://www.moveonpac.org/radiopledge

Why is this a declaration of war? Because Moveon is threatening to run hard-hitting radio ads against Democrats.

Democrats are well known for internecine battles. But Moveon has always steered clear of such battles. From the beginning, Moveon has always been a positive force within the Democratic Party, raising tens of millions of dollars and spending that money on creative messages and essential grassroots organizing.

So what suddenly changed?

(On a personal note, I've been a member of Moveon since day 1. I have met the amazing founders (Wes Boyd and Joan Blades) and many of the wonderful staff. Unfortunately, as Moveon has grown, it has become ever harder for progressives allies to communicate with them. I invited them to join our DebtSlavery.org coalition, but I never got a reply.)

Without any feedback from Moveon insiders, I'll have to guess.

When the Debt Slavery Bill moved through the Senate in March, Moveon was MIA. Their absence was so conspicuous that Salon's Julia Scott wrote a stinging article about it:

Why MoveOn didn't move on bankruptcy

The passage of the bankruptcy bill by the Senate on Thursday was a dark hour for the Democratic Party. No fewer than 18 Democrats voted for the legislation, which vocal opponent Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts called "a nightmare for the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak." Given the bill's consequences for middle-class families, women and elderly folks forced to declare bankruptcy because of insurmountable credit card debt, often due to job loss or big medical bills, we wondered why grassroots bellwether MoveOn.org didn't ask its members to act on the issue. Or even mention it on its Web site, for that matter.

According to Eli Pariser, MoveOn's executive director, it was because they didn't think it would have made a real impact. "Because of the solid Republican support for the bill, terrible though the bill is, it wasn't something that we could make a difference by weighing in on," Pariser told War Room by phone on Friday. He said that MoveOn's members had chosen to focus on two other "critical fights that we can win" -- namely Bush judicial nominations, and the battle over Social Security.

Back in June 2003 MoveOn turned its attention to the FCC media ownership vote, a fairly obscure issue at the time, generating thousands of phone calls and emails to Capitol Hill, and raising national awareness of the issue. Pariser did acknowledge the possibility that a visible effort on the bankruptcy issue this month by MoveOn could have "changed the calculation" of Democrats who voted for the bill in the Senate. But he reiterated that when faced with the choice of diverting resources from other key, winnable issues to one "which was doomed to fail," MoveOn would choose to be "pragmatic."

Pariser maintained that the group has not narrowed its focus since the presidential election: "We've always been a multi-issue organization and we always will be." But he says that members have indicated that they've been overwhelmed when asked to "track 16 different issues at once, so we've done our best to respect our members' attention and inboxes."

Obviously Pariser was making lame excuses. My own assessment is that Moveon's staff was still licking its wounds from Stolen Election 2004, and just wasn't psychologically ready to gear up for one more losing fight.

So what has changed in a month? My guess is that several factors came into play:

• Moveon was stung by the Salon article, and probably heard complaints from its members
• Spring arrived and Moveon staff got re-energized
• Moveon noticed the size of the coalition we built at DebtSlavery.org in just two weeks and didn't want to get flamed by Salon again for being MIA

But I suspect the most important factor is visceral politics: Moveon looked at the number of Democrats in both Houses who were betraying America's working and middle classes, and got outraged.

Of course, it is outrageous that any Democrat would support the Debt Slavery Bill. There is no principled reason for supporting the bill; it is purely prostitution to corporate contributors, led by MBNA and the credit card industry.

Even some "New Democrats" were outraged. The New Republic's Noam Scheiber reacted in horror when the House New Democratic Coalition fired off a letter to Dennis Hastert begging for immediate passage in the House.

FOR SHAME: This e-mail came in over the transom today from the House New Democrat Coalition. If you consider yourself a moderate Democrat, it should turn your stomach:

Washington, D.C.--With consumer debt reaching record highs of more than $2 trillion, members of the New Democrat Coalition (NDC) sent a letter today to Speaker Dennis Hastert, urging him to schedule House action on the bankruptcy reform legislation as soon as the Senate completes its consideration of the bill. The letter, signed by twenty NDC members, including the four NDC leaders, reiterates New Democrats' long-standing support for common-sense bankruptcy legislation and states an intention to work across the aisle to pass bankruptcy reform into law.

"I'm pleased to see so many New Democrats band together in calling for a mainstream solution to bankruptcy reform. I hope Speaker Hastert will heed our calls and move promptly to bring this legislation to the floor soon," said Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher.

If this letter made moderate Democrats nauseous, I can only imagine the ferocious reaction inside Moveon.

Of course, the battle between Moveon and the DLC has been brewing for years. The DLC exists for one purpose: to destroy the Democratic base in order to turn the Democratic Party over to big corporations. Moveon's purpose is exactly the opposite: to make the Democratic Party truly responsive to its base.

The quiet conflict between Moveon and the DLC exploded in December, when Pariser decided to mobilize the Democratic base in the campaign to succeed Terry McAuliffe as DNC chairman. In a stunning letter to Moveon members, Pariser wrote:

In the last year, grassroots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the party doesn’t need corporate cash to be competitive. Now, it’s our party: we bought it, we own it, and we’re going to take it back.

Pariser, who is still in his mid-20's, took a lot of flack for his precocious declaration. So he bit his tongue and let his actions speak for him. 

Moveon endorsed Howard Dean for DNC chair, which terrified the DLC. They attempted to pull an inside power play by enlisting Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to support a prominent DLC'er, former Rep. Tim Roemer. Unfortunately for the DLC, Roemer was strongly anti-choice, so the pro-choice majority rightly went ballistic and quickly aborted Roemer's campaign. The DLC then backed former Rep. Marty Frost, but Dean's supporters found campaign ads where Frost openly embraced Bush. It was game, set, and match - Dean and Moveon crushed the DLC.

As a strategic move, I think Moveon's declaration of war over the Debt Slavery bill is brilliant. There is no division whatsoever within the Democratic base on this horrendous bill. There is no justification whatsoever for any Democrat in Congress to support it. We're still 18 months from the next election, so an internecine fight won't affect Moveon's effort to elect a majority in Congress.

I'm eager to see how the DLC responds. If they openly embrace the Debt Slavery Bill, they will commit political suicide. If they keep quiet, their allies in Congress will have no air support as they individually commit political suicide. The DLC is damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

You go, Moveon!

Update: Salon's Tim Grieve gave Moveon another kick in the ass for skipping the Senate battle in March. He also dismisses Moveon's pledge campaign, calling it "half-hearted." (I disagree - I think a soft touch in a pledge campaign is exactly the right way to go if you want to maximize the conversion of pledges to contributions.) But Grieve misses the most important point - that Moveon is taking on conservative Democrats for the first time in their history.