Six hundred and forty-five voters decided the winners for the various categories in this year’s awards. This is noteworthy. Progressives in Florida informed the FDP Netroots Caucus which blogs, candidates, individuals, and organizations they consider laudable.
By nominating and voting in this process, Florida’s netroots have shown a level of engagement that needs to be encouraged. While these awards are not momentous, they are a good first step toward a more active participation within the community. We need to foster such efforts. Because of these awards, the finalists and winners will gain a wider audience and enjoy a greater recognition among their peers. We can hope that the people who participated in the awards process will become involved in the conversations that form around the many blogs and websites that received honors this year.
Conversations can lead to consensus, which can then lead to coordinated actions which will shape politics in our state and nation. This is one of our prime goals at FPC, and it is shared by the official Netroots Caucus of the Florida Democratic Party. This goal is why the FPC publicizes these awards, and why the Netroots Caucus conducts them.
It is important to determine a winner for each of the categories, but the culmination of an effort doesn’t always represent the full value of that effort. Nominees and finalists received well-deserved recognition for their work. Voters were encouraged to participate and were pointed toward many outstanding resources within Florida’s netroots community. Perhaps the awards are a popularity contest, but they have a greater and better purpose beyond the accolades.
There is criticism that certain recipients of this year’s awards were undeserving:
- Saint Petersblog 2.0 – 2009 Netroots Awards The Good, the Bad and the Undeserved
- The Reid Report – How to win the Florida ‘netroots’
I respect the right of the authors to air their opinions, but I find that their commentary is a bit cynical. Yes, Kenneth Quinnell works for Kendrick Meek, who won an unprecedented number of the awards this year, but that doesn’t impugn the validity of those awards. Meek won the majority of votes, for whatever reason, and Kenneth didn’t do anything nefarious to ensure that.
That Meek was favored was due to the same selection biases that control any voting process. Name recognition was a likely factor. That Meek chose to hire Kenneth for his Senate campaign may have played some role, as Kenneth actively promoted the awards on his twitter account and on Facebook. Kenneth’s numerous social media contacts within the progressive movement were certainly a sizable percentage of those who voted. Yet, it must be noted that Kenneth never encouraged his contacts to vote for Meek in these awards.
Most importantly, Meek chose to publicize his nomination for these awards to his supporters, just as many other nominees publicized their respective nominations. This was, without a doubt, the best explanation for how he could have won in so many categories. Meek has a large mailing list, and he chose to use it. Getting out the vote is one of the most important factors in any race.
If Meek took the advice of an online campaign manager to publicize these nominations to his mailing list, then perhaps Kenneth is responsible for Meek’s wins. But only in the sense that giving the boss good advice, which is then followed, makes one responsible for the employer’s success.
Let’s set aside the cynicism and focus on celebrating the winners and the participation of Florida’s growing netroots community.
[An aside to Joy Reid: To clarify a point in your post, it wasn't Kenneth, but me who helped you when your blog was hacked. Though, as tech adviser, I am one of the most active managers of the Florida Progressive Coalition, much of what I do is behind the scenes and is thus attributed to Kenny. I don't take any offense at the mistake. It is a testament to Kenneth's presence in Florida's progressive community that he has coordinated the efforts of so many to develop the FPC into what it is. Kenneth, through his own efforts, has arguably become the most well-connected netroots activist in Florida.]
I don’t think we need to go ’round and ’round on this, but, just to clarify, I wrote that Kendrick Meek deserved an award just by his hiring of Ken Quinnell. Further, I never inferred that something nefarious was afoot.
I guess I need to apologize because I was looking at these awards as if they were a true artistic competition. I have competed in (and won) Pollies and Addys for my political work and I think I may have used that experience as a frame of reference.
Because in those competitions, if a nominee doesn’t reach a certain standard, even if they are the only entry in a category, they cannot win the Pollie or Addy. In certain categories that Meek won, such as Best Use of Twitter and Best Professional Blog, the absolute lack of regular content should have prevented him from winning.
I don’t want this to sound like sour grapes. I am very grateful to have been nominated and all that jazz. I guess I am not so in love with any candidate that I think it’s an honor to be nominated in the same category as them. It’s silly to have a US Senate candidate or a state senator in the same categories as Blogger A or Activist B. Otherwise, candidate X’s popularity can sweep every category over more deserving, yet less well known Blogger A or Activist B.
Again, this is my first year, so the onus was on me to understand. But I don’t think for one second that Kendrick Meek’s tweets are noteworthy. His campaign is, and that is why he won.
Peter, I wasn’t suggesting that the criticisms weren’t valid, but rather that cynicism isn’t warranted. I accept that I may have read that tone into your post, when you hadn’t intended to convey any such tone. Such is the problem with writing criticism: Emotional tone is often difficult to convey or interpret within the informal blog format. So much of what we write contains a certain level of snark.
I half-wish that the awards were a “true artistic competition”, but as I said above, perhaps they are just a popularity contest. I recognize that the criticisms that you and Joy have offered have merit. I was only attempting to answer criticism with an explanation of how the participatory process is a major part of what the FPC and the Florida Netroots are trying to encourage with these awards.
I was also offering an explanation of why Meek’s unprecedented wins are still valid, despite those criticisms. In this, I was answering what your readers may have taken away from your posts, and not necessarily what you intended to communicate by them.
There is a question of fairness in having “a US Senate candidate or a state senator in the same categories as Blogger A or Activist B.” In this, I think there is ample reason for the Netroots Caucus to look at how the categories are currently structured. I’m not a member of the FDP Netroots Caucus, so that’s just a friendly outside opinion.
In discussions within the FPC managers group, we have looked at improving the Florida Progressive Coalition Progressive Hall of Fame award, In Kenneth’s words, we may “add a Hall of Fame inductee each year voted on by the FPC board. This way we can reward those people who have had an impact that might not be as obvious as what the average reader [...] might know.”
I know there are those who were nominated for a Progressive Hall of Fame award, who didn’t win, and yet were every bit as deserving as those who did. Popularity contests are fine, but name recognition doesn’t always do justice to those who quietly serve. The FPC has recognized this and is considering the best way to correct the oversight.
Perhaps the Netroots Caucus will look for ways to level the playing field in the categories that they award, but I must reiterate my belief that the participatory nature of this process is more important than the final accolades.
Dave,
First off, allow me to switch my thanks to you for helping me out with the spam thing. Truly appreciated, and thanks for the correction.
On your other points, I associate myself with Peter’s remarks, and I was certainly not suggesting Kenneth somehow cooked the books. Actually, I don’t want to belabor the point, since I’m not exactly up nights worrying about what awards Kendrick Meek wins or doesn’t, but I figured it was only polite to respond to what you had to say. My post was simply a commentary on the congressman’s fantastic journey from corporate Democrat to the darling of the netroots with one brilliant hire. Good for him for making that hire. Hell, someone ought to give him an award for it.
Joy, I didn’t mean to intimate that either you or Peter were actually suggesting that Kenneth did anything to cook the books. I was acknowledging the criticism and heading off any inference that a careless reader might draw from your posts. Perhaps I was less than artful in conveying this quibble. I’ve found that cynicism too often pervades our political discourse and becomes poisonous to it. Maybe I sense cynicism where none exists.
You have brought up an interesting point concerning Meek’s “journey from corporate Democrat to the darling of the netroots with one brilliant hire.” I think that is a valid perspective, but would rather have people focus on the fact that Meek drew upon the the strength of those who support him to publicize these awards. Meek reached out to his base and got many of them involved in the voting process, which may have been their first exposure to many of the netroots blogs, organizations, and individuals who had been nominated. I don’t want any of us to miss this point.
As one of the many people who have worked long and hard to make Florida’s netroots community a more powerful force in shaping our state’s public discourse, I celebrate that these awards give us the opportunity to engage a larger audience.
My first reaction to some of what I read also took it to mean that the votes were somehow rigged as well — that may have been colored by an e-mail that said as much (from an anonymous person). But after rereading Peter’s and Joy’s posts more carefully I see that they didn’t say anything to that effect.
The awards are meant to be more like the People’s Choice awards and there is no vetting of nominees beyond making sure they are from Florida, Democratic or lefty and in the right categories. That may not be the best approach to determining quality, but one of the key purposes of the awards is to promote the work of the various nominees. More than 50,000 people received an e-mail, Tweet, or Facebook message about the awards this year, which means that we all got a lot more eyes looking in our direction. That is a victory as far as I’m concerned, regardless of who won.
Peter, I think you are probably right that activists and candidates probably shouldn’t be in the same categories. Some of them are separated (such as the blogger categories), but we should probably do that for others as well. I will suggest exactly such a change for next year.
Joy Reid has some further comments regarding the above post, here: The FPC fights back against the cynicism – The Reid Report