Some Great Noriega and Watts Videos!

Over at Texas Politics, R.G. Ratcliffe has posted some great videos from Rick Noriega and Mikal Watts.

Here are a few I found on YouTube:

Mikal Watts: In His Own Words

Watts: "Universal health care is the moral issue of our day ... The question is not whether we can do it, it's whether we have the will to do it."

Lead from the Front, Bring Them Home

Noriega: "We knew that the Petraeus Report was going to show that the surge operations had not been successful."

Noriega's Sista Souljah Moment or Not?

In the story which inspired this blog, Rick Noriega offered a quote which struck me as interesting:

"We've seen talk radio become an organizing tool for the die-hard right, while liberals are credited with turning the blogosphere into a political weapon. Each of those media has a targeted demographic group and works them into an ideological lather," Noriega said.

"This, I believe, is damaging to the political culture in this country."

When I first read this, I immediately thought it was Noriega's Sista Souljah moment.

I was envisioning some campaign advisor somewhere telling Noriega that it was time for a Sista Souljah moment because there has been some discussion on the blogs (good blogs and creepy right-wing blogs as well) that Noriega may be too close to the netroots:

From a comment by Texas Precinct Chair at The Political Realm (an excellent blog) -

Mikal Watts has been a record-breaking fund raiser for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and he was strongly encouraged by the DSCC to run against Cornyn.

Rick Noriega was recruited to run by a coalition of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga at DailyKos and pro-immigration Republicans who rely in immigrant labor for home construction and who are attracted to Noriega's open immigration policies over Cornyn's closed border views.

A comment from Greg'sOpinion (another great blog) -

There's a simpler take here than Aldrete tries to spin: that material - based on Ratcliffe's excerpt - was just plain dumb. It shouldn't have been written, much less delivered. Aldrete's spin, unfortunately, is even more tragic. Going from a convention dedicated to a blogger like Markos only to follow it up by inadvertently slamming blogs in general, only to follow THAT up with a qualifier that Rick was only talking about divisive blogs? ... which somehow doesn't include DailyKOS???

At home, between Boadacia, Perry Dorrell, Nathan Wilcox, there's nothing but a divisive core at work on Noriega's behalf. That doesn't do justice to the genuinely more diplomatic bloggers who also support Noriega, nor has it been a great influence on some who have - prior to their more recent trip to the kool-aid stand - been among this state's best.

A comment from Times Are a Changin (a right-wing rant blog) -

Democrat Rick Noriega who is battling for the Democrat right to challenge Sen. John Cornyn for his Senate seat in 2008 is crying and pleading for firdoglake/nutroot forgiveness for daring to speak out of order and lose lockstep with team firedoglake.
[snip]
The last thing Texans want is a nutroot groveling liberal representing them in the United states Senate!

A comment from The Agonist (one more truly excellent blog) -

Chewing Off The Hand That Pays Your Bills and Gets You Elected: Texas Bloggers Got pwned

Rick Noriega stock plummeted yesterday when SA Express News reporter R.G. Ratcliffe quoted the wannabe US Senate candidate disparaging the one group that brought him some notoriety (even from halfway around the world, this story got my attention).
[snip]
The Noriega campaign clumsily tried to explain it away as "Noriega was not criticizing all politically active blogs, just those that engage in the 'politics of division.'" What the hell does that mean? I was for blogs before I was against them? Poppycock. I'm sorry but Noriega didn't make any distinction, a distinction that should have been made very clear to the broadcasters. If that is what he meant. He could have been pandering. But a darling of the netroots would never pander, would he?

What is worse is that many of those in the Texas online progressive movement jumped to blindly defend Rick rather than reevaluate their support for someone who took them for granted and used them. First they blamed the reporter for trying to drive a wedge between Rick Noriega and the blogs (even going at length to insult him). Then they blamed the Watts campaign. Then they blamed his speech writer and Noriega for not saying what he means. Then, that the speech taken out of context. And finally, they produced a speech with no attribution of what he may or may not have said. Politicians stray from prepared speeches and say what they want. The question is who is he pandering to?
[snip]
I don't buy Noriega's great respect for the blogosphere. He's just using it as another constituency group. Pander on dude! Cuz Texas bloggers got played. They just can't face it yet.

While I first thought that Noriega's reference to the blogosphere whipping progressive voters "into an ideological lather" that "is damaging to the political culture in this country" was Noriega's Sista Souljah moment, I am now having second thoughts.

Noriega has apologized so throughly that I no longer wonder if he was deliberately trying to distance himself from the blogs:

A Phone Call and An Apology From Rick Noriega

Today I participated in a conference call with some fellow bloggers and Rick Noriega. It was a rare moment because he did something that is unheard of in the political realm in recent years--he took responsibility for the mistake he made in his speech (LINK) and he apologized. Then we all brainstormed ways to make the campaign even better more effective.

Later this afternoon Noriega issued a statement in a live blogging session at Fire Dog Lake where he took questions from bloggers. His statement is below.

[snip]
Yesterday, the San Antonio Express News printed an article discussing the netroots and my campaign. Needless to say, I was disappointed. Disappointed in the article, but more importantly, disappointed in my own quoted statements. I own up to making those statements.
[snip]
I know what it is like to be devalued, whether it’s because of my last name, my skin color, my lack of hair, or any number of things folks have used against me in life. My comments devalued the blogosphere, and I apologize.

I first thought that Noriega's reference to the blogosphere whipping progressive voters "into an ideological lather" that "is damaging to the political culture in this country" was Noriega's Sista Souljah moment calculated to distance him from the blogs, but I now think it was just a big (but honest) mistake.

Do bloggers generate enough interest to change politics?

By R.G. Ratcliffe for the San Antonio Express-News

The left-leaning political blogosphere is lined up almost completely with Houston's Rick Noriega over San Antonio's Mikal Watts in the battle for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

The question is whether it will do Noriega much good.

[snip]

Texas' progressive bloggers in June launched a Draft Noriega movement on the Internet, built around a 7,000-person e-mail list that Richard Morrison of Sugar Land had gathered during his unsuccessful 2004 challenge to the re-election of then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

The draft movement was so closely timed to Noriega's announcement of the formation of a Senate exploratory committee that it appeared to be coordinated, something the bloggers deny.

Then Watts announced that 800 donors had given him $1.1 million in June to supplement the $3.8 million of his own money he had put into the race.

As a countermove, the pro-Noriega bloggers in July publicly set a goal of raising money from 800 donors in a month. When that did not occur, they moved the goal post to the end of the quarter, Sept. 30. As of Thursday, they had raised $53,897 from 692 supporters.

Noriega early last month went to Chicago to rub elbows with liberal bloggers at the Yearly Kos convention, and received the endorsement of Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas.

But then Noriega returned home and told the Texas Broadcasters Association that the blogs are as destructive a force in democracy as talk radio.

"We've seen talk radio become an organizing tool for the die-hard right, while liberals are credited with turning the blogosphere into a political weapon. Each of those media has a targeted demographic group and works them into an ideological lather," Noriega said.

"This, I believe, is damaging to the political culture in this country."

[snip]

While Morrison sparked the Draft Noriega movement, an Austin woman who identifies herself as Boadicea Warrior Queen managed the Web site. Boadicea agreed to be interviewed if her real name was not used.

"I already consider it successful because we are generating interest in the Senate campaign on the Democratic side," said Boadicea, who has lived in Texas about 10 years. "People generally haven't been all that interested in what was happening with the Democrats."

She said bloggers can help boost a candidate in the beginning, but she said Noriega's campaign will have to use traditional organizing and tactics to win.

[snip]

In the article above, R.G. Ratcliffe asked the question "Do bloggers generate enough interest to change politics?"

This got me thinking that I might just try out this blog to see how hard blogging is. By the end of the campaign, I hope to have an answer to R.G. Ratcliffe's question.