Netroots: 60 or Bust

As I predicted the other day in my post on Obama's FISA "betrayal", the netroots has doubled down on a goal of 60 Senate seats.

On Tuesday afternoon, prominent Democratic blog MyDD launched its “Road to 60” campaign on ActBlue, the online Democratic fundraising vehicle. The goal is to “turn long shots into competitive races and competitive races into top tier ones,” MyDD contributor Josh Orton wrote in the introductory post. The group is looking to douse the Republican firewall by directing money to the lower tier of Senate races.

The MyDD effort mixes Democratic challengers in top-tier races, such as Mark Begich (Alaska), with longer-shot candidates, such as Jim Slattery (Kansas), Kay Hagan (North Carolina) and Rick Noriega (Texas). Noriega has already received significant attention from Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of the DailyKos Web site.

As I said before, Good luck with that. Their poster child is Rick Noriega, who trails by 13.

If there's anything that will motivate now-slumbering conservatives to come out, it's the prospect of giving Barack Obama undivided control of the government. Public opinion is against lopsided one party control, and smart Republicans will get in gear with that message pretty soon.

That they're proclaiming 60 as a benchmark so openly, and setting themselves up for failure should their once-in-a-lifetime shot at progressive nirvana fall short, is very good news.