Reply #8: this much is true

[wyldwolf]

The Internet may be giving angry, protest-oriented activists the rope they need to hang the party. The vaunted new medium for grassroots political organizing may in fact be contributing to the Iowafication of the nominating process, disproportionately magnifying the voices of the activist groups with the loudest, most combative, and populist voices.

Did we not see that happen? Because Dean supporters spoke the loudest, there was (what turned out to be) a false impression that Dean was the shoe-in to win the nomination, cauceses and primaries be damned. Even now on DU, hardly a week goes by without someone implying the cauceses and primaries were somehow rigged, the reason I can only assume being that Dean was supposed to win because his people made better use of the net and spoke the loudest.

The paragraphs you quoted above were very accurate, but you're misleading. First, you added something into the title of the piece ((their very ugly look at how we were going to ruin the party.) Also, the piece does not slam activists but, rather, discusses how pinning one's hopes completely on internet activism could doom a candidate (Dean, as we saw) and the party as a whole.