MoveOn And Top Bloggers To Launch Campaign Pressuring Hillary And Obama To Back Dodd On FISA

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MoveOn And Top Bloggers To Launch Campaign Pressuring Hillary And Obama To Back Dodd On FISA

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/10/moveon_to_launch_campaign_pressuring_hillary_and_obama_to.php

MoveOn And Top Bloggers To Launch Campaign Pressuring Hillary And Obama To Back Dodd On FISA
By Greg Sargent - October 23, 2007, 4:20PM

Another interesting twist in the Dodd-FISA story.

In a move that will up the pressure on Hillary and Barack Obama to stand firm against the Senate telecom immunity FISA bill, MoveOn and a dozen top progressive blogs will launch an all-out campaign tomorrow to pressure the two Senators into publicly declaring their support for Chris Dodd's threat to place a hold on and filibuster the bill, Election Central has learned.

MoveOn spokesman Adam Green tells me that the group will send out an email to "thousands" of its members tomorrow morning, and thousands more throughout the day, asking them to call the offices of Hillary and Obama and demand that they publicly affirm their support for Dodd.

"We'll be asking Obama and Clinton to publicly get Chris Dodd's back and say in a statement that they will explicitly support his hold and filibuster," Green tells me. "Pretty much this is the exact same ask made to Joe Biden in a Washington Post chat. The question was, Will you join Chris Dodd? He said Yes."

If Hillary and Obama don't comply, Green added, "it would send an unfortunate signal to Democratic voters about whether they're willing to stand up to George Bush. The idea is to get Democrats to stand on principle and exercise the powers of their office to stop Bush from covering up how far he went in illegally spying on the private emails and phone calls of innocent Americans."

In another move that points to the significant degree of coordination among the top liberal blogs on the FISA issue, Green says that the following bloggers will also be directing their readers to call Hillary and Obama's offices and press them on this:

DailyKos, Atrios, OpenLeft, Firedoglake, MyDD, Glenn Greenwald, Crooksandliars, AmericaBlog, Digby, Taylor Marsh

I've checked in with these folks, and virtually all have gotten back to me confirming their involvement.

In the long run it's unclear whether Dodd's hold and filibuster threat, whatever backing it gets from Hillary and Obama, if any, can really hold up the FISA legislation. Advisers to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have said that while they're willing to work with Dodd to assuage his concerns, they expect that the bill will go to the floor despite his objections. It's also unclear what the final bill will look like; the bill has only just emerged from markup in the Senate intel committee, and there's some opposition to telecom immunity among members of the Judiciary Committee.

Either way, opposition from Hillary or Obama, or both, could throw some significant obstacles in the way of the bill. And even putting aside whatever long term impact this has on the legislation itself, such a campaign by MoveOn could at the least make telecom immunity an issue in the Dem Primary.

We've checked in with the Hillary and Obama campaigns for comment and we'll bring you their responses when we get them.