So my State Democratic party now has it's own master card.  Yours probably does too.  For each $100 worth of debt I accumulate $1 goes into the CT Dem coffers.  What a great way to live the American dream and support the Democratic party! Would you prefer to go into debt for the DNC? Visa has you covered.

I know these offers aren't new but I find the concept of a credit card for Democrats contrary to our party's values. In an email encouraging supporters to sign up for the card CT Dem State Chair Nancy DiNardo promises that: Democratic leaders will fight for Connecticut's working and middle class families. How can our elected officials fight for fair lending practices, a big issue for working and middle class families, when our national and state party organizations are essentially benefiting from credit card debt?

To be fair I'm more annoyed by the symbolism than the card itself. Democrats do accept money from the banking industry, and I don't see that ending anytime soon. Is that along the same lines as issuing a credit card? I don't think so. Accepting donations is one thing. Helping banks sell a credit card is quite another.

There's more...

Yesterday, in a longer post about class and progressive activists, I hoped that the anger in the netroots over Paul Hackett demonstrated to the established news media are more partisan than ideological, and certainly are not hard left. Later yesterday, I wrote a post arguing that what the progressive netroots wants in Democratic candidates is also what the general public wants. Now, I would like to point out that the topics and issues the netroots focuses on are the same issues on which the general public and / or the Democratic Party is focused.

To demonstrate this point, just check out the most popular subject tags at Dailykos:

• 1. George W. Bush (4717)
  
• 2. Iraq (3482)
  
• 3. Samuel Alito (1362)
  
• 4. Democrats (1161)
  
• 5. 2006 (1151)
  
• 6. Republicans (1138)
  
• 7. Dick Cheney (1121)
  
• 8. Supreme Court (1079)
  
• 9. Karl Rove (909)
  
• 10. Congress (879)
  
• 11. PlameGate (863)
  
• 12. Senate (833)
  
• 13. NSA (827)
  
• 14. media (821)
  
• 15. war (819)
  
• 16. Jack Abramoff (800)
  
• 17. Patrick Fitzgerald (750)
  
• 18. torture (742)
  
• 19. scooter libby (734)
  
• 20. Hurricane Katrina (731)
  
• 21. Valerie Plame(729)
  
• 22. Recommended (699)
  
• 23. ELECTIONS (641)
  
• 24. Tom DeLay (620)
  
• 25. filibuster (565)
  
• 26. corruption (555)
  
• 27. impeachment (545)
  
• 28. Iraq War (543)
  
• 29. Bush Administration (492)
  
• 30. CIA (473)

Dailykos has long been the best place to go in order to get a sense of what direction the netroots are taking. What strikes me about this list is how utterly normal it is. This list shows a particular emphasis on five topics: general Bush administration, elections, Iraq, the judiciary and corruption. In the world of politics, it is difficult to get any more normal than that. Everyone knows that Iraq is the number issue on the mind of the electorate, and had been for some time. Everyone has also known for some time that Democrats are going to run on a "culture of corruption" theme. Also, talking about elections and the Bush administration is just par for the course in politics these days. Perhaps the progressive netroots are far more focused on the udciary than the electorate as a whole, but we are still nowhere near as focused on it as conservatives and the conservative netroots are.

Mainstream issues, mainstream candidates, and mainstream ideology. For all our carping about the "MSM" (and I really hope we can all dump that term), it turns out that within the world of politics, we, the progressive netroots are as mainstream as any institution comes.