This morning MoveOn announced it will convent three "virtual town hall meetings" for 2008 presidential candidates to discuss Iraq, health care and energy policy. The meetings will be organized from the bottom up: MoveOn members choose the candidates and questions, and then vote for their favorite. The first topic is Iraq, and MoveOn says it will encourage its members to support and donate money for the candidate "they believe will do the best job of leading us out of the war in Iraq."
The online meetings will be broadcast by Air America, which has generously offered to host both Democratic and Republican presidential campaign debates this season, and MoveOn says the major Democratic candidates are ready to participate if asked. Minor candidates are ready too - rather than wait for an invite to address the town halls, Rep. Dennis Kucinich already cut a video with his "message to MoveOn.org members" three days ago.
Standing in a jacket sans necktie before a clump of trees in Washington, Kucinich emphasizes that he is the only presidential candidate who has voted against every bill to fund the Iraq war. "I'm appealing to you to keep in mind that Congress has the power to end the war, and that's why I disagreed with my own leadership, and disagreed with MoveOn's leadership, as to how we should resolve this situation in Iraq" he says. The message comes at a time when MoveOn -- and other progressives -- have been criticized for supporting Speaker Pelosi's Iraq supplemental bill. Kucinich is taking his appeal directly to MoveOn members in an effort to recruit online opposition to MoveOn's leadership, which is a very MoveOn thing to do.
One of the chief critics of MoveOn's supplemental stance is John Stauber, the Executive Director Center for Media and Democracy, who recently coauthored a widely-circulated essay assailing MoveOn as "cynical" and not serious about ending the war. He told me MoveOn is focused on "bloodying the Republicans" over Iraq to help Democrats win, instead of putting all its energy into ending the war. But many antiwar leaders argue that the timetable which the House passed, with the support of many conservative Democrats, is precisely the tangible step the country needs to ratchet up the pressure on President Bush and the GOP. It's hard to imagine how the failure of a more "pure" bill advancing immediate withdrawal would do more to end the war than the success of Pelosi's bill. As Donald Rumsfeld might say if he were a MoveOn leader, (admittedly a big IF), you end the war with the Congress you have, not the Congress you want. Of course, this debate will continue at MoveOn's town halls - the first one is April 10.
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Ari Melber writes for Campaign Matters, The Nation's blog covering Campaign '08 from the White House and Congress to the grassroots and the netroots.