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“Lizza’s article makes it clear that he has the institutional insight to join this small company of presidents who used moderate means to achieve previously unthinkable ends. I think of this as the Pilate tradition in politics. Someone like William Jennings Bryan or George McGovern could not have done this (neither–need it be said?–could Howard Dean), because they were runing Jesus campaigns. [Ed note: and, I would argue, so did John Edwards. Sigh.] People who are more interested in being Jesus than in being Pilate end up you-know-where. Obama sounds like a Jesus candidate from time to time, but he’s definitely running to be Pilate. That’s a good thing.”
This is part of a more general shift in Netroots culture over the past few years. DailyKos, for instance, has a rep for being a hothouse of crazy crazy hippies, and while there’s some of that there’s also another side that’s realistic and calculating about what kind of Democrat the base should be mobilized to support, a sliding scale that changes on the race and region. Those calculations can direct a lot of money from around the country to regional candidates in important races. It’s actually a fascinating process to watch, a crowd trying to figure out what it believes and the best way to achieve it.
