Amid talk of challenging Democrats from the left in primaries, unions are the new heroes at the annual confab
Progressives have often suffered for what can be called "micro-cause-ism." Meaning when you arrive at anti-war rally or the like, suddenly there are people clamoring to save the whales/polar bears, stop sexism/racism, free Tibet/Mumia and go raw/vegan/organic/local, etc., etc. Each of these causes believes it is the most important and should be accomplished first before anything else.
Which means everyone is always a little unhappy and not much ever gets done.
Every year at Netroots Nations, this takes place in miniature. There are booths in the exhibit hall vying for blogger attention and commenter praise. Every year the online liberal base of the Democratic Party (and self-professed independents) get together and argue over what issue is the biggest issue and how they've failed to win at said issue. Then they strategize how to do better. Then they do it the next year.
This year there is hallway chatter about "tea partying" President Obama: Make enough of a fuss to pull focus so that Obama is forced to move to the Left. There are calls to "primary" people. Primary Democrats who aren't liberal enough, primary Obama -- basically threaten Democrats with a force like that of the tea party, the GOP on caffeine. Mike Milkovich, the CTO of WareCorp attending Netroots, declared, "It would show that Obama really is a pragmatic moderate." The self-proclaimed small business owner added, "I don't know about you but I don't want a radical as president."