Stonewall Democrats Attack Crist
Michael Mitchell, the Executive Director of the National Stonewall Democrats released this statement in response to Charlie Crist releasing a gay rights platform.
"While I'm glad that Governor Crist has changed his position on a number of issues regarding LGBT equality, it's simply too little, too late from a politician who has spent his life using the LGBT community as a political football. Kendrick Meek, Crist's Democratic opponent, has an outstanding track record of fully supporting our community, whereas Charlie Crist has spent his political career using us as a wedge to further his own ambitions.
Charlie Crist is the worst kind of politician. When it was clear to him and everyone that there was no way he could win the Republican Primary - he became an Independent and thus left long held positions in order to save his political future. Once again, he is attempting to use the lives of LGBT people as pawns in his game to win votes at any cost.
"With a lifelong track record as a conservative Republican, said Michael Albetta, President of the Florida GLBT Democratic Caucus. "Florida’s LGBT-taxpayers are not fooled with Crist's newfound positions in the fight for equality. He is just another craven politician out to siphon votes from disenfranchised Floridians who are genuine supporters of equality, like Kendrick Meek. The real question voters should be asking: Does Governor Crist support the same positions on LGBT issues as Senate Candidate Crist? As a sitting Governor, Crist only acts when polls tell him the time is right. He is without leadership in representing the needs of LGBT Floridians."
NSD’s Mitchell continued, “National Stonewall Democrats encourage all Floridians to see through this latest façade of Governor Crist and see him as the opportunistic lifetime politician that he is.”
I share the Stonewall Democrats skepticism toward Crist's newfound progressive stance towards gay rights. I don't think progressives should punish NPA or Republican candidates for taking progressive stances on issues. Otherwise, there is no payoff for these candidates and they will back away from supporting progressive causes. Kendrick Meek and Democrats could have taken the high ground and one-upped Crist. Imagine if Meek released this statement.
"I congratulate Charlie Crist for backing gay rights. However, Kendrick Meek and the Democratic Party has a longer record supporting gay rights. Win or lose, Kendrick Meek pledges to continue to fight for gay equality. We ask that Gov. Crist take the same pledge."
Gay rights activists care about who is going to give them equality. Unemployed workers want a politician who will help create jobs. College students want a candidate who will make education more affordable. Most voters couldn't give a rat's ass who is the "real Dem."
There are plenty of issues to attack Crist on. Do progressives really want to push Crist away from backing gay rights?
Republicans Steve Schmidt and Meghan McCain support gay rights. I consider that a good thing. Progressives have plenty to disagree with Republicans on fiscal policy, national security and the environment.
Should we attack Charlton Heston because he marched with Martin Luther King? If Democrats want support from gays then the best thing to do is aggressively push for the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and support gay marriage. The latter neither Crist or Meek supports.
Labels: charlie crist, lgbt, stonewall democrats
posted by Michael Hussey @ 8:00 PM
17 Comments
17 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
Do you even try to look this stuff up before you post it?
Meek campaign statement
News flash Kenneth: you are no longer working for the Zombie campaign. You don't have to do rapid response. Meek is attack Crist. Got it and I have seen it. So what. It was a lame response.
You were a shitty new media director. Was that factually incorrect?
Ah, I think I finally get it. This is a personal thing for you, that's why you don't care about right or wrong, true or false.
And, of course it's factually incorrect that I was a shitty new media director. As you said before, you don't even know what the job is and I know for a fact you don't know what I actually did or the related metrics. I'll write about them as time allows, but since you only care about personal attacks and your own narrative that you decided on before you saw any actual facts, you won't pay much attention, I'm sure.
Kenneth, feel free to diss me on your own blog. I haven't posted comment on your blog or felt the need to respond to your posts. I remember you giving me a direct message on Twitter about how certain bloggers need to be held accountable.
As far as what you did: I could make the same agument that you twist my words. I am aware of what a new media director does. I am not aware of what you did because you netroots outreach program was a disaster with nothing to show for it.
The Meek response was weak. There are several Florida bloggers but you are fact-checking me? I haven't been blogging about you since you left the campaign. I am not the one who is obsessed.
What is next: a blog post to fact-check if I am really "Pushing Rope?"
Not obsessed, I just respond to things I see that are wrong. Other Florida bloggers, more than 100 that I read, don't say such blatantly false things. You apparently don't know what a new media director does, because you only reference one tiny aspect of the job and you get that wrong as well. I have dozens of e-mails from bloggers from when I left the campaign who said that the outreach I did was very successful. You just have a personal objection to me and to Meek and you won't let any facts get in the way of that. As long as you say things that are factually incorrect about things that are of importance to me, I'll respond. That's what bloggers do.
Joy-Ann Reid and Peter Schorsch wrote posts about how unsuccessful your outreach was.
I have a personal objection to a candidate who makes the CREW corruption list. I pointed out the four major Senate candidates made the list. I certainly wasn't playing favorites.
I have a personal objection to a Democrat who voted against net neutrality.
I have a personal objection to a new media director who (while still employed with the campaign) sends me a message that he is going to hold certain bloggers accountable. I also know I am not the only blogger the campaign went after. Short answer: punish any progressive blogger who doesn't carry water for Meek.
I have a personal problem for a new media director who has his candidate win Florida Netroots awards which same said new media director runs. No conflict of interest there.
Elected Democratic officials are endorsing Crist, the campaign backed out of its promise to buy blogads, Meek raised less money in the second quarter than Allan West. (How fucking sad is that.) Yet, you want to collect a pound of flesh from me because you couldn't even get even Kos to back Meek. The reason I have no idea what you did during your time on the campaign because I can see no tangible results.
I publicly asked the Meek campaign to release online fundraising numbers. If Team Meek actually had successful netroots outreach they wouldn't hide their online fundraising. I got an e-mail from Kos asking me to donate to Alan Grayson. I never received emails from Daily Kos, Firedoglake or Open Left asking me to donate to Meek. Why is that? Don't these A list bloggers know about all these Florida Netroots awards he won?
And, once again, you confuse "blog outreach" with "new media director." Blog outreach is one of many aspects of the job and you treat it like it were the entire job. The type of results you want a blog outreach campaign to achieve are not possible with Kendrick Meek -- no one could achieve what you are suggesting -- and you blame me for that rather than accurately describe the situation, which involves conflicts that occurred prior to me being on the campaign and issue stances and candidate traits that I have no impact on. And while I didn't get Kos to support Meek, check out his posts about Meek before I came on board and after and you'll see a near 100% turnaround in those comments. That is a tangible result. As of now, you are the only blogger of any note who is publicly writing posts about Meek that are anti-Meek. A few others are skeptical (such as Joy and Peter), but they aren't anti-Meek. And you can certainly go on firedoglake and Open Left and find very positive posts written about Meek (by David Dayen and Mike Lux, respectively) that are the direct result of work I did. I pursued those writers, I put those blogs on Meek's radar, I set up those interviews. I also set up the interviews that Meek did with Joy and Peter and any number of other bloggers (Chris Bowers, Nate Silver, Amanda Terkel, Matthew Yglesias, Sam Stein, Faiz Shakir, etc.). There are tangible results of my outreach, you just don't care to find out about them.
I asked the campaign to release the online numbers and they strategically chose not to, just like 99% of the campaigns in the country. You assume that means that the numbers are bad because that's what fits your narrative. They aren't bad but, as I am sure you are well aware, there are strategic reasons to release or not release information. If your imagination only allows you to come up with one reason for that, then fine, you go ahead and think that. I'm telling you your assumption is wrong, but I already know you don't respect my opinion, so even though I have a very good and very public track record for honesty -- and admitting when I'm wrong -- I assume you'll ignore my comments. Fine. I could care less, the point of this conversation isn't to convince you, it's to not let nonsense be in the public sphere without an accurate response.
Meek is certainly not Alan Grayson and thus to expect the same type of reaction from bloggers about him that Grayson would get is nonsensical. But, then again, if you have a narrative to tell and the facts don't fit that narrative, I guess the best thing to do would be to ignore those facts. Well, you keep spreading misinformation and I'll keep responding. If you just post opinions, I won't care. If you post things that are accurate, I'll credit you for doing so. Again, that's what bloggers do.
How did a post about the Stonewall Democrats response to Charlie Crist's LGBT platform become about what Kenneth Quinnell did or didn't do for the Meek campaign? Kenneth, write whatever you want about me on your blog.
I searched the Think Progress web sites and Matthew Yglesias did not write a single post on Meek. Ditto with Nate Silver. The only results for Meek show up in Yglesias'comments. Amanda Terkel wrote a post in 2007 on Meek. I can't find anything since she went to The Huffington Post. Dave Dayen wrote, "I know there’s a lot of flattery here – he’s running for Senate and not doing much of a job of it yet – but the message is worth heeding." That is a real get out the vote message.
I searched for Sam Stein and Kendrick Meek. The first page on Google shows Stein reporting on a conference call Meek did with bloggers. I can't a single post Faiz Shakir wrote about the Meek campaign using the search item on the web site. Want to keep going?
Some of the bloggers you mentioned did not even write posts on the campaign. Others gave scant coverage. You want to brag about the administrative work you did on the campaign. More power to you. Team Meek hired you to do outreach and edit emails.
Well, at least you tried this time, you didn't try very hard, but it's better than nothing. Sloppy as usual, though. For instance, Nate Silver moved his blog this month from his old site to the new one and you might not find his whole archives on the new site. Not to mention that we didn't always pitch stories about Meek, we also pitched stories about Charlie Crist, Jeff Greene and Marco Rubio. And, with Nate, he let us post a story to the front page of his blog: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/in-support-of-question-time-congressman.html.
Another example, you picked out an older post from Dayen -- one from before he interview I arranged. In the post he wrote after the interview I arranged, he was much more positive: http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/09/09/kendrick-meek-i-dont-support-raising-the-retirement-age/
I could go on, but I don't need to. I can't figure out if you are just being lazy or if you are willfully ignoring facts that don't fit with your narrative. Either way, you are still wrong. Also your last claim that I was hired "to do outreach and edit emails" shows that you know almost nothing about what you are talking about. My second post about what a new media director actually does and if you are interested in actually learning something that is accurate, you are invited to read.
I think you have too much time on your hands. You seem to spend more time at my blog than I do.
True or untrue, it's irrelevant and a way to try to change the subject.
Considering you have left seven comments in this post. Only one has to do with the actual post I say you seriously need to get a life. If you did such a great job as new media director you wouldn't be making comments justifying your job. We both know the actual reason you left the campaign is because Team Meek cut your position. The campaign is having fundraising problems and needed every penny for television ad buys. You can cite your official reason. My sources say you were shitcanned.
The Rubio campaign (has horrible a pol as Rubio is) was able to raise money online and get support from right-wing blogs. You're accomplishment is... what? The campaign doesn't want to release online fundraising numbers because they suck.
The best you can cite is Dave Dayen getting Meek's position on Social Security. You cited Matt Yglesias and he wrote zero posts on Meek. There are no posts from bloggers asking readers to actively support Meek and raise money for the candidate. All you got was a few minor posts and conference calls. That doesn't make you Matt Stoller. Don't blame me if you never get a job on a campaign again. Man up and take responsibility for your work.
If you actually read my post on leaving the campaign, I specified that money was one of the considerations. So your big "reveal" hear is something I stated up front. I'll wager you don't have any sources inside the campaign, since I know what the people in the campaign who know what's going on think about you and they wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. So if you do have a source, it's some lower level person who wouldn't possible know what happened.
It is unrealistic to compare the darling of the tea party to Meek. Beyond that, your assumptions about the numbers are wrong.
Actually, Dayen's post wasn't the best I could cite, I, in fact, cited the fact that a blogger who has since been promoted to the New York Times allowed us to post to the front page of his blog. I also said that I wasn't citing further because I didn't need to, not because I couldn't.
There are numerous posts of bloggers asking readers to actively support Meek, Senate Guru (since retired), for instance, is a notable blog that did. DemConWatch is another. A number of state bloggers did as well. Were they the top line bloggers? No, but I already explained that it's not possible for outreach to overcome preconceptions about a candidate that are strong. For instance, could any outreach I did to you have convinced you to support Meek? Obviously not, so whether my outreach was good or bad, it had no impact on the outcome. Markos, Jane Hamsher and a few others actively disliked Kendrick at the start of the campaign. When's the last time, though, that they wrote an openly negative post about him?
I never said I was Matt Stoller. Never said I wanted to be Steve Schale. Never said I was any of the other straw men you attribute to me, either. You are too busy ignoring facts and coming up with clever insults to deal with reality.
Don't worry about me and my job situation, I'm just fine. I take complete responsibility for the new media work that I did and am proud of it. People who know what I actually did agree with me and I get regular requests for new media advice on campaigns already. Like I said, if you want to actually learn about what a new media person does and what I did, you can read my posts about it, which I've already begun posting. My guess is you won't read them, you'll find some other clever way to insult me instead.
If you actually read my post on leaving the campaign, I specified that money was one of the considerations. So your big "reveal" hear is something I stated up front. I'll wager you don't have any sources inside the campaign, since I know what the people in the campaign who know what's going on think about you and they wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. So if you do have a source, it's some lower level person who wouldn't possible know what happened.
It is unrealistic to compare the darling of the tea party to Meek. Beyond that, your assumptions about the numbers are wrong.
Actually, Dayen's post wasn't the best I could cite, I, in fact, cited the fact that a blogger who has since been promoted to the New York Times allowed us to post to the front page of his blog. I also said that I wasn't citing further because I didn't need to, not because I couldn't.
There are numerous posts of bloggers asking readers to actively support Meek, Senate Guru (since retired), for instance, is a notable blog that did. DemConWatch is another. A number of state bloggers did as well. Were they the top line bloggers? No, but I already explained that it's not possible for outreach to overcome preconceptions about a candidate that are strong. For instance, could any outreach I did to you have convinced you to support Meek? Obviously not, so whether my outreach was good or bad, it had no impact on the outcome. Markos, Jane Hamsher and a few others actively disliked Kendrick at the start of the campaign. When's the last time, though, that they wrote an openly negative post about him?
I never said I was Matt Stoller. Never said I wanted to be Steve Schale. Never said I was any of the other straw men you attribute to me, either. You are too busy ignoring facts and coming up with clever insults to deal with reality.
Don't worry about me and my job situation, I'm just fine. I take complete responsibility for the new media work that I did and am proud of it. People who know what I actually did agree with me and I get regular requests for new media advice on campaigns already. Like I said, if you want to actually learn about what a new media person does and what I did, you can read my posts about it, which I've already begun posting. My guess is you won't read them, you'll find some other clever way to insult me instead.
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