WHERE'S THE MONEY FOR WEBB? Michelle Cottle's great profile of Jim Webb in this week's New Republic reminds me of a point Alec raised last month, during the Connecticut primary: Wouldn't the fundraising energy the bloggers lavished on Ned Lamont been better spent funding challengers seeking to defeat actual Republicans? Come November 8th, would they rather see Joe Lieberman looking hangdog or George Allen staring shellshocked? Like Lamont, Webb won the Democratic primary in an upset fueled in part by the bloggers� support. But a distaste for fundraising has left him with merely $500,000 on hand while his incumbent opponent, George Allen, sits atop $6 million. So, as Cottle points out, Webb may be catching up in the polls right now, but he lacks the funds to sustain the rally. What happens when Allen deploys his war chest to make Webb into a baby-eating gay marriage counselor? No progressive, no matter how much they hate Joe Lieberman, can reasonably claim that he's nearly as odious as George Allen. So wouldn't focusing the Netroots on Dems in close races who aren't independently wealthy, like Webb, have made more sense?
--Ben Adler
