Open House... of Scandal

by Kagro X

Democrats, both the Congressional and blogosphere varieties, have been licking their chops in anticipation of running a national campaign hanging the scandal-plagued Tom DeLay around the neck of every Republican running in '06.

And in one of the clearer signs that the DCCC may in fact "get it" when it comes to the power (as well as the needs) of the online warrior, Chairman Rahm Emanuel and online communications chieftain Jesse Lee have introduced Tom DeLay's House of Scandal.

Jesse Lee has done an admirable job in putting together a single and easily navigable online source of information for everything you ever wanted to know about exactly how broad (and deep) a slime trail Tom DeLay has left behind him, but were afraid to ask. And the beauty is that it's built for bloggers, or at least for blogging community participants. Readers are immediately presented with a graphic showing the wide web of DeLay's influence, the people he's tied to, the scandals that dog him, and the public policy disasters his Republican Conference have inflicted on the American people. (Indeed, in a tip of the hat to the 99.9% of the "real world" who aren't blog addicts but might use the Internet once in a while, they've included a section on "How DeLay's House of Scandal Hurts You.") Click on any one of the scandals or people involved, and you're provided with a diagram plotting the interconnections, plus a pop-up description of their role in the House of Scandal. All documented. With links. The way you like it.

Also included is an easy reference tool that gives readers a quick rundown of the ties of almost any Republican House Member to DeLay -- how much money he's slipped them (and how much they've kicked back to his legal defense fund), how often they've voted with him, and to what lengths they've gone to shield him from ethics investigations.

Emanuel is quick to admit that there are no revelations here, and I'll agree. This is a collection of known stories about DeLay, and informed readers will know most of what's contained in the site's current database. What's new about it is that it represents one of the first attempts of an official Democratic Congressional campaign organ to keep its online community well-stocked with facts at their fingertips. In a proposed phase two of the project, the other side of the two-way street opens up, allowing readers with local knowledge to contribute to the ever-expanding database. Until then, the site remains a useful source of information on the increasingly difficult to track universe of DeLay scandal.

It's an exciting development in itself, representative of a responsiveness to repeated requests I've seen -- especially from the community at Daily Kos -- for a comprehensive compilation of solid facts with which online activists may arm themselves. It's nice to see it come to fruition, and here's to its becoming the first of many such efforts to nurture the newly energized electronic community.

Comments

[Petey]

After we take back the House in 2006, can we throw Pelosi over the side and make Emmanuel Speaker?

I've got nothing against Pelosi, but Emmanuel is the sharpest knife in the drawer. He's our Newt.

[Meteor Blades]

Yep. Golly, how nice it would have been to have this quality of information and presentation on about 30 topics prior to last November.

[Kagro X]

Well, the DCCC Chairmanship is often a stepping stone to the leadership ladder, and there may well be a vacancy in the three slot next year, if the Corzine-Menendez swap works out. And if the House turns over, well, that's something the Caucus is going to want to thank Emanuel for.

[DemFromCT]

excellent site! feel free to write them for the occasional forgotten paper (one can write your local paper from the site if it's listed).

[DHinMI]

Two non-blogging reasons this is important and valuable. First, journalists love websites. Anything that aggregates and archives information for them is appreciated; I've occassionally been surprised at how deep into a campaign website journalists have delved.

The other thing is that this may be "infrastructure building" for an advertising campaign. Polls have long shown that if you run an add that makes claims about something for which the viewer has to "take the word" of the ad, they're more likely to find the claims credible if the add includes a URL. It's not that many people actually write down the URL and then check out the site the next time they're sitting at a computer. It's just that they find it more believable if there's some semblance of providing documentation and support for the claim. So it's possible that, while this got rolled out for bloggers, it may be directed more to getting the word out (via bloggers) to local political reporters--a case of the DCCC "going over the heads" of the DC press corps--and possible as "support" for any advertising that would try to nationalize next year's election by tying Republican members of Congress to corruption through their protections for and ties to Tom DeLay.

So, the short answer on what are bloggers supposed to do with this is to do what you just did: write about it and use it as a (living and growing) resource, thus making more people aware of it.

[DHinMI]

Oh, another thing--the way they used hotbuttons on their frontpage with the circular depiction of DeLay links is brilliant. They use the word "ethics" about five times, which they amplify by getting "casinos" into the mix--who doesn't suspect corruption and casinos go together--they call it the "Republican Pharmaceutical Industry," they sneak in medicare and gas prices, there's a theme of judicial corruption...about the only missing piece I'd love to see thrown into that mix is something related to the insurance industry.

Casinos.
Corporate payoffs connected to judicial corruption, facilitated by lobbyists.
Gas prices.
Pharma.
Rampant ethical violations.
Everyone covering everyone else's asses.
Junkets.
Enron.

That's a great visual "framing" of what they need to do. I'm impressed. Jesse's done a really good job, I'm sure with some shrewd instruction from Emmanuel and some sharp politicos. This is really encouraging.

[Kagro X]

Well, I thought that writing about it was the self-evident answer to Ezra's question. In fact, he might even have framed it that way, as in "other than writing to publicize it, what are we supposed to do with it?" So that's what I did with it.

I did think there was another aspect to the story, though, which was the "DCCC gets it" angle. Which only highlights the fact that there's still no indication that the DSCC has any intention of waking up and smelling the coffee. Did they lay off the guy who recommended buying Scoop software for their blog, or what? If their online communications chief thinks buying the software is equivalent to engaging the community, we have a serious problem on our hands. Meanwhile, "The Stick" is sorta, kinda taking half measures at gearing up for a serious online and grassroots presence, but not really breaking through, either. They need to get their human and technological resources in one pool and get a plan.

[praktike]

Brilliant. Good job Jesse Lee.

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