The Notion

New Effort Calls on Obama & GOP to Re-Up on Question Sessions

By Ari Melber

President Obama has labored to unite different political factions with policy compromises and conciliatory speeches. But it was Obama's incisive grappling at the Republican retreat last week that really lit a bipartisan fire, drawing politicos and commentators of all stripes to call for more questions sessions for the President and the opposition party.

In "Left-Right Want 'Obama' Question Time," Politico's Mike Allen reports on what may be the first effort uniting conservative tax warrior Grover Norquist and our own Katrina venden Heuvel:

A politically diverse group of bloggers, commentators, techies and politicos on Wednesday will launch an online campaign, Demand Question Time, urging President Barack Obama and GOP congressional leaders to hold regular, televised conversations like the extraordinary exchange in Baltimore on Friday. Supporters include Grover Norquist, Joe Trippi, Mark McKinnon, Ed Morrissey, Ari Melber, Katrina vanden Heuvel ... Eli Pariser ... Mark McKinnon, Markos Moulitsas and Ed Morrissey. The steering committee is made up of Micah Sifry, David Corn, Mike Moffo, Mindy Finn, Jon Henke and Glenn Reynolds.

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February 3, 2010

Noting Setbacks, Plouffe Returns in New Obama Video

By Ari Melber

David Plouffe, the Obama campaign manager who was recently tapped for an "expanded role" advising the White House, just cut a video briefing Obama supporters on plans for the coming election year.

While acknowledging that Obama's organizing operation faced "fits and starts" last year, Plouffe argued that the White House was "still on the doorstep of passing healthcare reform," and he announced some new numbers for the Democrats' ground game. One million new people joined Obama's Organizing for America (OFA) over the past year, Plouffe said, and supporters have now pledged to volunteer 450,000 hours in the coming year. (Have the Tea Parties registered contact information for a million people?) The results are from an online survey of Obama supporters. The survey found over 70 percent of respondents want to support "education reform" and "job creation" in 2010, while over 80 percent are still fired up for health care. (If at first you don't succeed...)

Plouffe also touched on a few areas where supporters thought Organizing for America came up short, pledging to provide more detailed information and communication about legislative and political strategy.

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February 2, 2010

If It's Sunday, It's Meet The Facts

By Ari Melber

Jay Rosen, the NYU journalism professor and new media innovator, has been agitating for some fact-driven reforms to the Sunday political talk shows. This Sunday, he got some traction.

Rosen suggests a weekly accountability segment, to check the pols and pundits who populate the pulpit on Sundays. "Fact check what your guests say on Sunday and run it online Wednesday," he advised. Then the factually challenged would face consequences -- done right, this kind of segment could create its own news on Wednesday -- and repeat offenders might even lose their status as repeat guests. Rosen explains:

Now I don't contend this would solve the problem of the Sunday shows, which is structural. But it might change the dynamic a little bit. Whoever was [BS]ing us more could expect to hear about it from Meet the Press staff on Wednesday. The midweek fact check (in the spirit of Politifact.com...) might, over time, exert some influence on the speakers on Sunday. At the very least, it would guide the producers in their decisions about whom to invite back.

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January 11, 2010

Journalist: Newspaper Articles Too Long, Boring

By Ari Melber

Shorter Michael Kinsley: Newspaper articles are too long. And don't blame the net.

His new, punchy Atlantic essay tackles several odd conventions that still rule print journalism.

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January 5, 2010

Axelrod Walks Back Insanity Defense on WH Blogger Call

By Ari Melber

The White House swiftly organized a blogger conference call on Thursday evening to rally support for health care reform, in a bid to stem fallout from progressives over recent compromises in the Senate. Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod devoted most of the time to taking questions, as bloggers from OpenLeft, Daily Kos, Crooks and Liars and Huffington Post pressed for answers on why recent concessions seemed so one-sided.

MyDD's Jonathan Singer said he was channeling another blogger, Duncan Black, to ask whether Axelrod's recent "insane" remark about Howard Dean's position also applied to Ben Nelson's willingness to scuttle the entire bill. "I'm not professionally qualified to judge insanity and maybe I should have used a different word," Axelrod said, and he noted that "everybody's a little on edge at this point" in the long legislative battle. He also stressed his respect for allies in the "progressive community," but reiterated his view that it would be "wrongheaded" to squash all of health care reform at this point, which is "infinitely better" than the status quo.

Asked about a dip in polling by Huffington Post's Nico Pitney, Axelrod reiterated his argument that the White House was focused on legislative progress, not polling or approval ratings. "We're not here to husband our poll numbers like a trophy on a shelf," he responded, and essentially rebuffed the argument that White House compromising has reduced enthusiasm and support from Obama's base.

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December 17, 2009

Breaking: Bill Clinton Warns of "Colossal Blunder" on HCR

By Ari Melber

Former President Bill Clinton reengaged the health care debate on Thursday afternoon, amidst mounting progressive criticism of compromises in the Senate, saying that abandoning health care reform now would be a "colossal blunder."

In an official statement released by his office, Clinton said that while the current bill is not written exactly as he'd like, the "only responsible choice" is to move forward.

Full statement:

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December 17, 2009

Court Stops Congressional Attempt to Defund ACORN

By Ari Melber

ACORN finally won a round in its battle with Congress and the Obama administration on Friday, as a federal court ruled the United States acted unconstitutionally by targeting the organization in an attempt to withhold funding.

Judge Nina Gershon found that Congress' attempt to limit ACORN funding violated the Constitution's ban against government action that specifically singles out a person or group. That clause, officially known as a ban against "Bills of Attainder," is based on the idea that the legislative branch must not act like a court or jury in punishing individuals.

"The plaintiffs have raised a fundamental issue of separation of powers," writes Judge Gershon in the opinion. "They have been singled out by Congress for punishment that directly and immediately affects their ability to continue to obtain federal funding, in the absence of any judicial, or administrative, process adjudicating guilt."

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December 11, 2009

Change Comes to BarackObama.com

By Ari Melber

An Internet strategist for President Bush's reelection campaign and one of the few new media leaders for the GOP, Patrick Ruffini, cut a video Friday analyzing some new recruitment tactics over at BarackObama.com. Ruffini reports that Obama's website is carefully testing several messages and images to recruit new email registrations, using a splash page "for the first time since the election."

Tracking Obama's online marketing is likely to interest only junkies and insiders, of course, but Ruffini speculates that the move may indicate that Obama's aides are working harder to replenish his 13 million person email list. "It might actually be a sign that their subscription rate has certainly gone down," he says, suggesting that "the President's core supporters are maybe not as enthused by the lack of progress ... on health care reform or on Afghanistan."

While Obama supporters may be concerned about Afghanistan policy, the email list has not shied away from presenting the argument for more troops. This week, Vice President Biden emailed millions of Obama supporters a video of Obama's Westpoint address, asking them to watch and share the footage. "It's a clean break from the failed Afghanistan policy of the Bush administration," he wrote, "and a new, focused strategy that can succeed."

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December 4, 2009

Poll: Young People Back Obama, Disapprove of His Major Policies

By Ari Melber

A new Harvard poll finds that President Obama is holding on to his strongest supporters, voters under 30, though they overwhelmingly oppose sending more troops to Afghanistan.

About 58 percent of young voters approve of Obama's job performance, while his approval among all voters recently dipped below 50 percent for the first time. About 66 percent of young voters oppose a build-up in Afghanistan, though this survey was in the field before the President's Westpoint speech.

In fact, the most striking part of the new poll is how young voters disapprove of Obama on issues across the board, yet still support his overall job performance. A briefing from Harvard's Institute of Politics (IOP) crunches the numbers:

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December 3, 2009

With Harvard's Help, Congress May Keep Bloggers Out of Jail

By Ari Melber

It's hard out here for a blogger.

And hard for online journalists, unemployed new media producers, and just about anyone else dabbling in journalism without professional backing.

Beyond the basic financial challenges, there is scant legal help for members of the new media, even though they face the same complex, pricey legal threats as traditional media. Plus extra threats -- like government attempts to out anonymous bloggers, which can cost a lot to fight in court.

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November 19, 2009