MOVE-ing ON
The world never runs out of stupid.
Eli Pariser of MoveOn sent me an e-mail at 12:10PM [my time] on 01/31 with this message:
Dear MoveOn Member,
We have a big decision to make. Yesterday, John Edwards left the race for president, leaving just two major Democratic candidates. And next Tuesday, over half of MoveOn’s members will go to the polls in the biggest primary day in American history.
Right now, we have an opportunity to influence who our next president is–3.2 million MoveOn members together. When we surveyed over 200,000 MoveOn members yesterday to see if we should go forward with an endorsement process, a big majority said “yes.”
OK, they talked to 200K from a 3.2M membership and decided to take this step, something the organization has never done before, and give the membership 24 hours to decide. I didn’t get the message until 10PM, along with a second message telling me that time was running out.
Today I sent Eli a message – to remove me from his lists and forms and never darken my in-box again. They had better be praying that Obama wins, because if he doesn’t, they have totally destroyed any chance of having influence on a Clinton administration. That is why you don’t endorse people in a primary unless they have proven their value to your organization or you are positive they will win.
I was one of the originals. I went back to the impeachment of Bill Clinton when MoveOn started. The name is derived from the original goal of the group “censor him, and move on”. At the time it was a gathering from all segments of the political spectrum who felt that the circus being conducted by the Republicans in Congress was a waste of time and resources.
MoveOn had shifted into a issues organization and I have signed petitions, written letters and faxes, sent e-mails in support of most of their issues. No more. They have become a partisan political entity attempting to become a power broker in the Democratic Party, and that isn’t part of their skill set. I was a union treasurer which made me an ex officio member of the union’s political action committee [I had to sign the checks, so they needed me]. This isn’t how it’s done – you don’t gamble with your organization’s ability to influence politicians.
5 comments
I am also a MoveOn member. One who has sent them money, signed petitions, written letters, email, etc for them.
I was a bit confused by that email. I don’t get it. Maybe they are getting swept up in the Obama Momentum. Whatever their reason, I agree it’s a mistake.
I agree it was a big mistake and I will no longer support them because of it.
OT – you are still having some kind of DNS problems.
It smells like a well orchestrated move by the Obama supporters, especially looking at the vote totals and given the short notice of the decision. I check my e-mail the first thing in the morning and last thing at night, so I was essentially out of the loop. I don’t make decisions about supporting someone for President of the United States in a day – I think it’s a little more serious than that.
OT – I’ve narrowed it down to the .US name server, but it seems to be getting better. I would like to grab another suffix, but they are occupied by relatives near and far and Slavic political groups. whynow.nfshost.com is an alias and it works consistently to get to the front page.
I supported MoveOn for a while after the Clinton impeachment, and participated in a couple of their distributed mailings to the current White House, but eventually I found them taking so many positions on so many issues that I could not wholeheartedly support what they were doing. I suppose I dropped out and even left their mailing list about five years ago.
OT, clearly, Bryan, you are not king in your own domain. But the troubles are ongoing, including this morning. I guess it’s no surprise that when it comes to .us vs .them, we are classified as .them. 🙂
In a way they are victims of their own success, but they should have left the political advocacy to their PAC.