An article over at Politico describes how MoveOn has shifted its priorities to better reflect those of the President-elect. Joe Trippi, the head of a multimedia company that managed Dean’s 2004 campaign and advised Edwards in 2008, sees it as a shift toward pragmatism:
“At least in the initial stages, they’re going to try to work together [with Obama] to see what parts of their agenda they can get through,” he says. And they recognize, he adds, that they will get more of their agenda passed if they don’t start trouble when they don’t need to.
If anything can be read into MoveOn’s silence on Rick Warren — the anti-gay-marriage pastor Obama has chosen to deliver his inaugural invocation — Trippi is correct.
Seems to me that MoveOn has become more about accomplishing the small things and neglecting the larger issues. Among the issues they put on the top of their priorities are health care, financial recovery, and climate change. What they neglected to work toward is campaign reform and the rights and equality of LGBT.
In my opinion MoveOn ought to be pushing the President-elect to address these issues and to force the administration to make significant progress on things like LGBT equality. Instead, they are putting these aside (maybe it’s just for the moment) in order to work toward what seems more achievable. But these goals that they have put on top of their priority list will probably be achieved (at least to some extent) anyway. Doesn’t it make more sense for a Political Action Committee to advocate priorities that politicians might otherwise forget about?
Link via Will MoveOn live up to its name? – Andie Coller – Politico.com.