Identity politics.

Chad from The Left Shue, a Mark Wilson supporter, comments in response to my post about Maria Cantwell's imposing lead in ActBlue contributions over his candidate and offers some creative accounting...

Take Back the Congress in 2006!
Barbara Boxer's Pac for a Change 2265 $84,101.32

The vast majority of Cantwell's donors and dollars are coming via a link from Barbara Boxer's PAC. And then there is this:

Give 'Em Hell Harry
Harry Reid 10 $180.00

So let's see, if somehow the establishment Democrats weren't busy stacking the deck to protect their incumbents (I should mention that Reid is also raising money for Joe Lieberman), I think the score would look more like this:

Cantwell - 8 supporters; $415
Wilson - 37 supporters; $2432

Wow. 2275 people 'disappeared' for the ideological sin of responding to fundraising appeals by "establishment Democrats." (As Minority Leader, I suppose Harry's the definitive establishment Democrat, but back when Boxer joined the Congressional Black Caucus in challenging the Ohio '04 Electoral College ballot, for instance, she seemed like anything but.)

Which leads to my persistent reservations about the notion of the 'netroots,' anyway, unless by the term you mean the managers of BlogPAC and the contributors to the official Netroots ActBlue page (have I mentioned Darcy Burner lately), but that's not really all that many folks. If over 2000 people respond to an email or website appeal from Senator Boxer and make modestl donations (average under $40) via a grassroots web tool like ActBlue to register their response, aren't they a part of the 'netroots' too?

Nice try, Chad, but those 2275 contributors are real people, not straw men, and can't be eliminated with a wave of the 'anti-establishment' wand.

Regardless, now's a fine time to up Maria's tally at the Upper Left ActBlue page.