I'm in the Mood to MoveOn

Mike Allen reports:

Veteran Republicans say they have quietly raised millions of dollars for a pair of nonprofit organizations that will launch this fall with the ambitious aim of providing a conservative counterweight to the liberal MoveOn.org, Politico.com has learned.

Thank Zeus, a conservative answer to MoveOn! It'll turn out at least as well as the other conservative answers to MoveOn: TheVanguard.org, Citizens United*, MoveAmericaForward.org, WeWinTheyLose, and the beloved Victory Caucus, which debuted on Tucker Carlson's show with this sky's-the-limit hype:

A new conservative group, the Victory Caucus, aims to hold politicians accountable for their positions, serving as a counterpoint to organizations like MoveOn.org.

You look at that track record and it seems like obvious folly for Republicans—who argue that MoveOn has been terrible for Democrats, driving them to the left, making them less electable—to try yet another Boys from Brazil job. But there's a new wrinkle. MoveOn was founded in a hurry to tackle one issue, the Clinton impeachment. Not so Mystery Right Wing Group:

The new group will focus on generational issues that cannot be solved in any single election cycle, the Republicans said. Among the focuses will be the war on terror and confronting radical Islam, the Republicans said.

Both issues 1)very well covered by existing think tanks and 2)responsible for the GOP losing a decades-old advantage on national security issues. Terrific.

Very serious post title inspiration here:

*Correction: Citizens United was launched in 1982. I was basing my claim on their anti-Fahrenheit 9/11 activism, which was the first I heard of the group.

Comments

[Kwix]

Ah yes, to emulate, nay out do, the far left organization that has the longest loosing streak of candidate endorsements on record. That my friends is indeed a lofty goal.

[Fluffy]

You leave out the other difference - Moveon.org developed organically, and represented a genuine "cooperatively entrepreneurial" web effort.

Throwing money at some web guys to try to duplicate that is not very likely to succeed.

[Fluffy]

Kwix, when you make a habit of endorsing primary challengers to incumbents, you're likely to have a pretty bad hit rate.

The question is whether or not you improved the chances of your primary challengers, or whether you knocked out more incumbents than otherwise would have been knocked out. Not whether you get 'em all.

I don't care much for Moveon's ideology but they're more effective than you might think. You just need to judge them by the right standard. How many primaries did Joe Lieberman lose before Moveon was around?

[Kwix]

Fluffy,
I am not saying that MoveOn.org hasn't had it place or that it hasn't done anything particularly good, indeed I thought the whole "let the UN finish its weapon inspection of Iraq before bombing the shit out of it" petition was a pretty good idea. I am just riffing on the fact that MoveOn has a tendency of supporting not only the underdogs, but he unelectable ones at that.

Besides, while Lieberman may have lost the primary, he still won the seat.

[Cesar]

Why would the Republicans want to immitate something like MoveOn in the first place? Everything MoveOn has backed has failed.

Clinton was impeached.

Bush was elected.

The War in Iraq happened.

Bush was re-elected.

Lieberman was re-elected.

[GM]

Whoa - I thought for a minute that 'ThankZeus' was the name of the new PAC. That left me scratching my head for a minute.

Thank Zeus the GOP has not co-opted one of my favorite expressions.

[Greg]

Fox News and talk radio just aren't enough?

The attempts by liberals and conservatives to emulate one another's media successes has almost always ended in disaster. Conservapedia, Half Hour News Hour, Air America, etc.

[ellipsis]

David, your point is made without it, but you neglected to include Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in your list of conservative operatives.

[David Weigel]

David, your point is made without it, but you neglected to include Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in your list of conservative operatives.

Not really the same thing. The SBV only existed to beat Kerry, not to counteract MoveOn.org. The groups I mentioned were all launched with that goal.

[ellipsis]

Fair enough, I guess I was thinking in terms of moveon.org being initially a one issue group, much like SBV. But I guess SBV has all but vanished.

[de stijl]

The new group will focus on generational issues that cannot be solved in any single election cycle, the Republicans said. Among the focuses will be the war on terror and confronting radical Islam, the Republicans said.

PNAC 2: Tehran Boogaloo

[joe]

Moveon doesn't exist to get candidates elected, but to push public discourse in a certain direction.

Every one of the defeats Cesar listed has ended up moving the country in Moveon's direction, and increasing the influence of liberal voices on the web, and in the larger culture.

[Jonathan Rick]

Citizens United was founded in 1982, long before MoveOn.org. Also, CU's PAC, the Citizens United Political Victory Fund, is, I think, the third-largest on the right.

[Taktix?]

Half Hour News Hour has to be the DUMBEST FUCKING SHOW I've never watched but heard a lot about. They should match that with Mind of Mencia for the hour block...

[gorgonzola\'s foil]

TheVanguard.org?

WTF? Is that supposed to make me think of old-money "Vanguard mutual fund" millionaire conseratives, or "The Workers Vanguard"?

[Randolph Carter]

Uh, Vanguard is hardly for millionaires. They do safe and plain as vanilla index funds.

[Pro Libertate]

I'm a Vanguard non-millionaire. Incidentally, I highly recommend them. If I had any money invested, I'd have made a bundle over the last few years. I have money in an S&P 500 Index Fund, which has gone up (percentage-wise) quite a bit the last couple of years.

[Seamus]

TheVanguard.org?

WTF? Is that supposed to make me think of old-money "Vanguard mutual fund" millionaire conseratives, or "The Workers Vanguard"?

Or National Vanguard?

[Blackshire]

Is this the first time Ween has appeared on H&R?

[mishu]

Fluffy, didn't George Soros throw money at MoveOn?

[shockcorridor]

I went to college at Penn and was in a fraternity (oh how unprogressive!) with MoveOn.org's first executive director Peter Schurman. A more reviled, loathed, and ridiculed campus character you could not find. The biggest phony activist type on the planet who jumped onto any left leaning cause he could boast about while also being the most smug obnoxious upper class blue blood on earth.He would plaster the walls of the house with anti-war posters during Gulf Jr. They would immediately be defaced with "Support War - Draft Pete Schurman!" which would be followed with "and hopefully his own troops will kill him!" I'm sure I've posted about Schurman before but I just always feel like it needs repeating every time the subject of MoveOn comes up because of what a loathsome cretin this guy is.