Author: Bob Brigham

I doesn’t seem like it was that long ago when Swing State Project celebrated the Democratic Sweep in Montana that elected Brian Schweitzer Governor. But next spring will be Governor Schweitzer’s last legislative session and due to term limits the seat will be open in 2012.

The great news is that former Congressman Pat Williams is considering a run for governor!

Pat Williams, like his cousin Evel Knievel, came up on the rough and tumble streets of Butte, America. But he was such a fierce advocate as a public servant that the Williams family is now widely considered to be the first family of Montana politics. After choosing not to run for re-election in 1996, he became one of the most popular professors at the University of Montana. In honoring Williams just last week, UM President George Dennison said Pat Williams, “embodies the ideals of civic engagement.”

If Williams runs, it would be a very exciting race. He was famous for running bigger door-to-door campaigns than Montana had ever seen before (or has seen since). In 1992, when Montana’s two congressional districts were combined into a single at-large seat, Williams beat another sitting congressman in the most legendary statewide campaign in decades. While respect for Williams runs wide across Montana, his bold progressive stances have earned him a depth of support that runs deeper than can easily be explained.

Keep an eye on this one.

UPDATE: The Montana blog 4&20 Blackbirds says:

Like Pogie, all I need to know is “Where can I donate? Where do I sign up to volunteer?”

Indeed.

UPDATE II: Chuck Johnson got him on record:

“My phone’s been ringing again, really for a year, but especially since the story on the Internet,” he said in a telephone interview. “I’m honored that this is the third time that Montanans have generously asked me to run for governor. If I ran, I’m convinced that I’d win the primary by a good margin and then the general by a smaller but safe margin.

“I’m 72 years old, and I am more knowledgeable and wiser than I was at my so-called prime at 35. The other thing I know is that there will be a lot of good candidate on both sides, Republican and Democratic, but I will not be one of them.”

I believe I used a Prodigy email address to sign an online petition calling on congress to “censure President Clinton and move on” back in 1998. As I’m sure you know, out of those efforts rose the organization MoveOn, which sent emails to my Yahoo account for years and to my gmail for the last six years or so. It has been one of my favorite organizations, through their ups and downs, for a decade.

Which is why I simply can’t fathom the blunder they made yesterday, thrusting themselves into the California Attorney General’s race to fluff former Facebook Chief Privacy Officer (best oxymoron ever) Chris Kelly. In the final days of the campaign, no less.

MoveOn’s fluffing of Kelly began yesterday morning when staffer Marika Shaub posted a link on MoveOn’s FB Group, “Facebook, respect my privacy!” Shaub urged the 180,000 members to share a note from Chris Kelly with all of their Facebook friends and later MoveOn sent an email to an unknown number of members of MoveOn’s giant list with Chris Kelly’s message (I received it twice).

As I long-time Moveon member and devoted supporter, I was shocked that MoveOn’s current leadership seems to have so little understanding of the dynamics and history of the battle for privacy. It was only back in 2007 that MoveOn went to war with Facebook, scoring a major victory for privacy by leading the organizing to shut down the infamous “Beacon” program. MoveOn was attacked repeatedly in the press by…Chris Kelly — who was not defending privacy, but defending Beacon. In fact, Kelly made so much money eroding privacy at Facebook that he’s dumped over $12,000,000 into his attempt to buy the California Democratic Party nomination for Attorney General.

If, like MoveOn apparently, you have forgotten how Chris Kelly fought MoveOn to defend Beacon, follow me after the jump. If you remember the history better than MoveOn, feel free to check out how Chris Kelly’s campaign is already using MoveOn as a validator — against attacks on Beacon, in the LA Times.

Here’s a reminder from The New York Times Chris Kelly fighting MoveOn to defend Beacon:

MoveOn’s demands could be satisfied by making the Beacon feature “opt in.” Right now, users who don’t want the information displayed need to opt out after purchases at each participating external site.

However, Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer, said MoveOn is “misstating the way this process works.”

He said the purchase appears only in the news feeds of confirmed friends and on the individual’s profile (users have control over who can see their profiles), not to the “world.” Mr. Kelly also pointed out that two ways to opt out, at the point of purchase on the external Web site, via a box that pops up, but fades away in under a minute and the next time they sign into their accounts. If users ignore the notification, the purchase information will be displayed, but nothing happens until the user signs in.

Chris Kelly was mocked for this over on ABC News’ site:

The argument made by Facebook in support of this is disingenuous, and uses that old trick I learned in my PR days of isolating one error in the opponent’s claim and using that to dismiss their entire argument. In this case, Chris Kelly, Facebook’s “chief privacy officer” (one of those new corporate titles that’s going to come back and bite companies) told the New York Times that MoveOn is “misstating the way this process works.” In particular, he said, the purchase is only shared with confirmed friends and on the user’s own profile, not to the “world.” At the same time, he does confirm, that if the user ignores the notification and fails to opt out, the purchase information will be automatically displayed.

And this coming from the Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook.

Chris Kelly’s attacks on MoveOn to defend Beacon made the hop across the pond, getting picked up by The Times:

A Facebook spokesperson said that MoveOn.org was “misrepresenting how Facebook Beacon works”.

He said: “Information is shared with a small selection of a user’s trusted network of friends, not publicly on the web or with all Facebook users. Users also are given multiple ways to choose not to share information from a participating site, both on that site and on Facebook.”

Earlier this year, Facebook shrugged off privacy fears when Chris Kelly, the group’s chief privacy officer, told The Times: “We have always said that information [submitted by users] may be used to target adverts.”

“Shrugged off privacy fears”?

Of course, Chris Kelly was mocked, MoveOn was right:

So far, about 13,200 out of over 55 million members have joined MoveOn’s protest group and Facebook is standing by the statements of chief privacy officer Chris Kelly, who told The Wall Street Journal that the company has been transparent with users and that it welcomes feedback from those who have concerns. According to the Journal, Kelly acknowledged that the company could change its policies based on customer reactions but that so far he says reaction has been “fairly muted.”

While the Beacon scandal was the most extreme example, the fact of the matter is user privacy was continually eroded at Facebook during the time Chris Kelly was in charge of privacy. Play with this interactive chart, click on the different years to watch what happened to privacy at Facebook.

Chris Kelly got amazing rich eroding privacy at Facebook, which MoveOn honorably fought. Until yesterday, when out of incompetence over the history of their own campaign and cluelessness over progressive politics in the largest state, they came to the aid of Chris Kelly during the final days of his $12 million vanity campaign.

Californians don’t want an Attorney General doing for Justice what Chris Kelly did for privacy. It would be nice if MoveOn were leading the charge against Chris Kelly, instead of giving him cover to defend himself against ads criticizing Chris Kelly for his role in the Beacon scandal…when he fought MoveOn.

Already this is being mentioned as an issue for November is California Democrats agree to allow Kelly to buy the nomination. Hopefully, that won’t be an issue after Tuesday.

Last week’s Virginia Governor Democratic Primary Cattle Call

With only 129 days until Virginia’s June 9th Democratic gubernatorial primary, the race is in full swing. The good news for political junkies is that the race has been receiving a good deal of attention. For those looking for a fix, on Tuesday Public Policy Polling* will release head-to-head and favorability numbers for the Democratic Primary. Some people think that Tuesday’s Sharon Bulova result will be important. But it is an all hands on deck for all the campaigns and the only candidate trying to up the ante is Terry McAuliffe in his attempt to smudge the fact he hasn’t helped down ticket Commonwealth Democrats by glossing over with cash.

What’s happened in the last week?

Terry McAuliffe ~ Big week for Terry McAuliffe, but that is both a blessing and a curse. And that will be the story for as long as he hangs around. Terry McAuliffe can raise big money to put his face on TV, but what comes out of his mouth when he is in front of the camera inverts the principle that more media is better.

Terry McAuliffe Money Everyone knows Terry McAuliffe is best known for escalating transactional politics and thus will be able to raise big cash from interests who appreciate pay-to-play. The GOP is already salivating over what looks like a $25,000 of sketchiness. And the $350,000 Park Avenue event is likely to cause some trouble when the next finance reports are released on Tax Day and people see where their Wall Street bailout is going. Optics aren’t pretty:

McAuliffe then stated his case – business savvy to turnaround Virginia’s economic woes – to a crowd with a zero percentage of Virginia residents. Still, the cream of New York’s bundler society present at the dinner could be said to account for McAuliffe’s financial base.

Not a cool base, but he will have lots of money, which brings him to the problem that he’ll spend it putting his face on TV.

Terry McAuliffe on TV

The big money let McAuliffe air a Super Bowl ad, but does it help to brand his face on TV? Tim Craig noted:

And because he was a frequent guest on cable news programs as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, reams of footage could become fodder for a GOP advertising campaign. The Virginia GOP has compiled an extensive opposition research file on McAuliffe, GOP sources said.

Brian Moran ~ Picking p the endorsement of Dwight Jones was a major get, but again for Moran the big news was his big moves on the environment. This week, it was his Green Virginia Plan:

“Virginia can and must become a leader in renewable energy and get our economy moving,” said Moran, a former delegate from Alexandria who is one of three Democrats seeking the party’s nomination for governor.

“The time for leadership on this issue has come, and I’m committed to bold action. This plan will create tens of thousands of jobs in growing industries,” Moran said. “These investments will produce returns for years in the form of new technologies and new jobs.”

Bob Burnley, director of the Department of Environmental Quality under then-Gov. Mark R. Warner, endorsed Moran today and praised his environmental plan.

Creigh Deeds ~ While McAuliffe is putting his money on TV and Moran is again getting lots of earned media for his environmental consolidation, where is Deeds? Not only is he not making good moves, he is making mistakes. Again, he’s going to have to step it up to be more than a spoiler.

*The latest PPC poll in Ohio had no clue when it came to the electorate, so take it with a grain of salt.