Clinton & MoveOn.org

First, in 2008 (and forever more) if there are more than three people in a room, no candidate is ever not on-the-record. This goes double if the people in the room are "voters" who don't have an editor or a vested interest in making sure the candidate stays happy with them.

Welcome to the Digital Information Age everyone.

Second, yes, the Huffington Post article makes Clinton look like a panderer/hypocrite on the subject of MoveOn.org. And, Senator Clinton almost certainly is in this instance.

But what Hillary Clinton said about MoveOn at the fundraiser is no different than what we've heard serious policy/political Democratic staffers say to us on several occasions in the past (those same staffers have similar complaints about Daily Kos and Kos satellite websites).

That is, the Democratic Party helped empower certain activist groups and now those groups have become Frankenstein, pulling the Democratic Party too far to the left and out of the mainstream.

We agree. And we think the Republicans have a similar problem with talk radio.

Now, while we think that Republican talk radio/Daily Kos/MoveOn are powered (more than less) by absolute nuts who don't really represent anybody but the other nuts, those groups would argue that their politics represent a "purer" strain of Republican/Democrat values, which is why they seem to connect with lots of voters.

Maybe, but we doubt it.

In any event, Republican talk radio/Daily Kos/MoveOn are political forces (anger and partisanship writ large usually is), especially in primaries.

But so are a lot of other things. And those "other things" don't carry the general election baggage that those other three almost certainly will.

Candidates might want to think about that moving forward.