My dear friend Marshall Wittmann talks about the future of the Democratic party:

Marshall Wittmann: It’s important to look at this in a historical context. I can remember the McGovern campaign back in 1972, and at that time people thought that the great innovation in politics was direct mail, and that this would transform the Democratic Party and indeed American politics, and to a certain extent it did. I think in many ways the left‑wing blogosphere, at least, is very much a reflection of that McGovernite tendency that emerged in the Democratic party in the late 1960′s that was generally highly educated, middle to upper middle class, very much motivated by their opposition to the war, and generally ideologically left‑wing.
Marshall Wittmann: Now I think, in political terms, the problem for the Democratic Party for the last 40 years is that the party’s been perceived as weak on national security, and I think, if anything, the left‑wing blogosphere, who in large part I refer to as “McGovernites with modems,” have increased the tendency in the Democratic Party to move to the left, particularly on national security issues. As far as Connecticut is concerned, in large part the candidacy of Ned Lamont would not have existed if not for the efforts of the left‑wing bloggers in alliance with the left‑wing interest groups such as oveon.org and Howard Dean’s old political action committee, that have essentially taken an unknown politician he wasn’t a politician a businessman, and given him national significance, and an issue the war which has really generated this challenge to Senator Lieberman.
Marshall Wittmann: At the end of the day, I think it’s a very unhealthy phenomenon for the Democratic Party, just like the rise of McGovernism was unhealthy for the Democratic party because it moves it away from the political center and it particularly underscores the weakness in the Democratic Party on national security. I would point out that, almost 40 years ago, that McGovernism emerged out of opposition to an unpopular war, and the paradox of the moment is that even though the war was unpopular, the Democratic Party was perceived as weak on national security. My sense is that the blogosphere will push the Democratic Party to the left and particularly if Lamont is successful in this primary. I don’t believe he will ultimately be successful in the general election, but if he’s successful in that primary, the blogosphere will use that victory to drive the Democratic presidential primary in 2008 to the left, and this will be exploited by the Republican Party for years to come.
Marshall Wittmann: Chip, I don’t want to be a senator and wage a filibuster here, but let me just also add that one of the reasons that the blogosphere, I think, has emerged as so significant within the Democratic Party and less so in the Republican Party, is the absence of institutions within the Democratic Party. In other words, in some way the blogosphere is filling a vacuum. In the Republican Party, you have business interests, you have the religious conservatives, you have talk radio, that are institutions, whereas in the Democratic Party, particularly with the decline of the labor movement, the blogosphere has filled this vacuum. Consequently, you have a situation where the Democratic leader in the Senate goes to a blogosphere convention as he did in Las Vegas a few months ago. Democratic Party leaders regularly participate in the blogosphere, again, because it is one of the few major institutions in the party. It’s great to have institutions, it’s great to have energized voters. However, if the net effect is to move that party to the left, at the end of the day I think it has a very deleterious effect on the Democrats.
Chip Griffin: Marshall, I think you touched on this a little bit, but I’d like you to expound upon it a little bit, and that’s the influence that the DailyKos, in particular, has. Obviously he’s had a convention out there in Vegas as you alluded to, and he’s probably the most prominent liberal blogger out there. How much influence does he have in the real world and how much influence does he have among the liberal blogosphere?
Marshall Wittmann: It’s interesting that you say the real world. If you go into your neighborhood Denny’s or Applebee’s or if you’re on a bus and ask people next to you “Have you ever heard of a blog?” chances are they’ve never heard of it. It’s a very small phenomenon at the end of the day and I think it’s important to keep that in mind, that most regular people do not read blogs, do not even know that they exist. But to get back to your question, I think that the whole, that Kos is sort of the kingpin keyboarder and he has had a particularly pernicious effect on the Democratic Party, again, because he’s driving it to the left. As much as his protestations that he’s non‑ideological, at the end of the day he’s moving the Democratic Party on to the left on the key issue of the national security. That is where it becomes very dangerous, and when Democratic Party politicians pander to a blog like that, they’re only sending a signal to the general electorate that the Democratic party is marginalizing themselves.
Marshall Wittmann: Again, I think it’s very, very important to underscore the point that blogs are a very narrow phenomenon, that people who read blogs particularly on the left and, probably for that matter, on the right as well, are highly ideological. And the problem for the Democratic Party in the last three or four decades is that they were perceived as a left‑wing party. The great success of the Democratic Party was Bill Clinton when he moved the party to the vital center and they were able to win the White House twice. My fear is that the combination of the Koses of the world and his colleagues will have the net effect of pushing the party to the left on the central issue of our time, national security….

Read the whole interview here .