MyDD Netroots Survey

Chris Bowers of MyDD has a fascinating survey up on the progressive netroots (I assume this would generally includes bloggers, commenters, Democratic websites, progressive websites, etc.); here, for me, is a key paragraph that follows a graph of six Democrats (Bill Clinton, Gore, Barack Obama, Murtha, Feingold, and Barbara Boxer) with strong ratings among the netroots:

In our survey we conducted favorable / unfavorable ratings of about twenty-five Democratic leaders and elected officials. These were the only six Democrats who had a higher "strongly favorable" rating than a "somewhat favorable" rating. In terms of ideology, it is quite a mixed group. You can find conservative Jack Murtha, DLC co-founder Al Gore, cautious moderates like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and progressives such as Barbara Boxer and Russ Feingold. Considering how mixed this group of six is, I see no way that one can conclude that it is ultimately ideology and left-wing stances on policy issues that most inspire the netroots. Instead, we find candidates that offer an inspirational narrative for America and the Democratic Party (Barack Obama, Bill Clinton). We see Democrats who have in fact stood up for something and fought Republicans in dramatic fashion (Jack Murtha on Iraq, Russ Feingold on civil liberties and Iraq, Barbara Boxer on election reform and Condi Rice, and Al Gore who has become one of the most full-throated critics of President bush in the last few years). Perhaps most of all, we see at the very top a Democrat who won. Bill Clinton had easily the highest "strongly favorable" rating of all Democrats, and I have little doubt that this is because he was a Democrat who actually defeated Republicans on numerous occasions and served as President.

I'm tired of cliches about Democrats. It's good to see people going out to get the facts instead of relying on 'conventional wisdom.' I just hope more Democratic candidates dump political consultants who rely too much on conventional wisdom and dilute the passion and fire of the candidates.