born live love die

At Drinking Liberally last night, there was a conversation about the impact of the Netroots. Two people, one more than the other, seemed, at least to me, to be overstating the importance of the Netroots. I said that the Netroots can’t deliver either money or votes.

One of the people said that Act Blue had raised about $54 million since 2004, with the majority of it coming in this election cycle. Let’s do the math.

In the two election cycles of 2006 and 2008, there are 870 Congressional races, 66 Senate races, 50 governorships and one presidential race. If each Congressional race has a budget of around $4 million, a Senate seat and the governorships at $6 million and this year’s presidential race at around $500 million, we are north of $4.5 billion. Act Blue is good for a little more than 1% of that. Since my estimations are for both parties, that would bump Act Blue up to 2%. Since some people give directly to candidates, bypassing Act Blue, bump it up to 3%. You can argue that Act Blue and Netroots activism is on the rise, meaning that more of the money is being donated this year. So make the money attributable to Netroots activism this cycle at 4%. You could also say that the Netroots can target money toward specific races, making the impact greater. It may be greater, but the percentage is still in the low single digits.

There is often a direct correlation between money and votes. If the Netroots can’t deliver an appreciable amount of money, how can it deliver votes? The argument was made that the Netroots is issues oriented. While this is true, elections are personality driven. One of the structural defects in the formulation of American democracy is that elections turn on personality, as though personality is a ready indicator of character. When the American democracy was formulated, there were checks in place to reduce the impact of populism. For example, Senators were chosen by the legislature, not by direct vote. When I see the current crop of sitting Senators, there is no way a legislature would have picked someone like Jim Bunning. Trent Lott would still get the nod though, so it isn’t like the system is infallible.

The Netroots can have an impact by focusing on issues, and adding to the intellectual capital of issue politics. The Republicans have used populism to call into question the nature of government, particularly by pushing the idea that there are intractable problems and government is incapable of solving them. The Right has tried to destroy democracy while leaving the benefits of it intact. By being issue oriented, the Netroots can lead the effort to restore faith in democracy as a means of governing. When people believe that government actually works, they will vote.

Wanting to be part of and trying to be part of something makes for a good feeling. Netroots netizens want to be part of a greater good, and maybe they are, but they have had minimal impact to this point. But that doesn’t mean it will always be so.

Update:

It has been pointed out that Act Blue has had a fundraising impact in races it has targeted, like Darcy Burner, WA-08.  My estimates were made while watching the climb up the L’Alpe  d’Huez.

Yes, Netroots influenced fundraising can help targeted races.  But the number of races they can successfully impact is limited at this time.  Internet based fundraising is, like elections, driven by personalities.  Barack Obama has raised a lot of money from the Internet in small dollar denominations.  If the Right had a more  personable candidate, they would be raising money there also.