Hubris is arrogance so great it offends the gods. When some kid suddenly appears on the political scene in Brooklyn and anoints himself king of the reform movement, and declares himself the "top of the pack" in a crowded City Council race where no one even knows his name, THAT is hubris. It also is political suicide.

I think it is about time I admit I was probably wrong about Doug Biviano when I described him, when he first appeared on the reform scene in Brooklyn, as an up and coming guy who many of us would be proudly supporting in later years...just not this year when he came on the scene too late with too little to offer an already crowded field. Now I am seeing him as a self-important brat who may never have anything to offer progressive and reform politics unless he gets his act together and stop pretending he knows everything.  read more »

Metro newspaper just published Voices: Spitzer floated on air, but lack of roots did him in, my Op/Ed on the Spitzer debacle.

Here's the money quote :

For netroots activists like me, who have had the chance to take a peek at the mechanical beast, the New York State Democratic Party, Eliot Spitzer was nothing but a political insider’s rock star that only needed “The (little) People” to vote so the “politics as usual” could rock New York and roll into Albany. Yet there’s a reason why “politics as usual” is losing the fight in the Democratic Party’s presidential primary.

Eliot Spitzer’s weakness has been the lack of a true grassroots base. He never had his feet held to the fire by his own party base, by The People who ended up voting for him. The Republicans have known this all along, and it’s not a coincidence that they tried to scare him last year by astroturfing the Internet with fake attack blogs.  read more »