Both SavetheInternet.org and ItsOurNet.org are desperately trying to convince any reporter or media outlet they can -- that their perception of political "momentum" on net neutrality -- is in fact reality. Read below for evidence why they are delusional and believing their own spin.
Let's review reality and the facts of the supposed "momentum."
Remember, Net neutrality proponents need Congress to pass a new law in order to win and achieve their purposes. In May, the Markey NN bill failed badly in the House 269-152. In June the FCC rejected calls for NN to be required in approving the Adelphia purchase by Comcast and Time Warner. In July, NN failed again in the Senate Commerce Committtee 11-11 on a straight party line vote, however after that defeat, four of the Commerce Committee Democrats abandoned NN and voted to support the Stevens Bill 15-7 -- without the Snowe-Dorgan Bill. In August, the FTC Chairman gave a very detailed speech seeing no need for additional NN legislation and chided the NN proponents for not being able to define the problem or for not submitting any formal complaints to them or providing any real evidence of a problem.
Now lets review SavetheInternet.org's bogus and obviously biased attempt at a Senate Vote Count.
First, they say as of today that 26 Senators support NN (one Republican Snowe (R-ME)) and fourteen against NN. Now that 26 is overstated becuase it includes the four Senate Commerce Committee Democrats that abandoned Snowe-Dorgan and voted for the the Stevens bill in the 15-7 vote -- meaning that they support NN only if it doesn't bring down the Stevens Bill. That means they may have 22 solid votes for Snowe Dorgan. 22 votes is far cry from the 51 minimum they need for NN to have any chance to go to conference with the House -- where they would be outgunned 2-1 -- becuase both the House and the Bush Adminstration strongly oppose the Snowe-Dorgan NN approach. (Furthermore, they know a Senate vote for NN would doom the Stevens Bill.)
Second, they imply that 40 Senate Republicans are "unknown" on NN. Hello?! 95% of House Repubicans voted against NN in May, all eleven Senate Commerce Committee Republicans voted against Snowe Dorgan in July, including two leading likely Republican Presidential candidates McCain (AZ) and All (VA). And the Bush Administration strongly opposes NN.
Moreover, anybody who knows politics knows that no Republican in their "right" mind is going to go out of their way to help liberal group Moveon.org, the well-known real force behind SavetheInternet, with a Senate vote tally on anything! Does SavetheInternet thinks they are fooling people that by claiming that 40 Republicans are "unknown" on NN and thus are possibly "gettable" by the neutr-elitists? Their hubris and sleight of hand on this "Senate Tracker" is amateurish, laughable and downright bogus!
Third, after the Committee vote in which they lost four Senate Democrats, they haven't proven they can get the Senate Democrats to vote lockstep on NN. Remember a third of Democrats in the House voted against the Markey NN bill which is very similar to Snowe-Dorgan. And remember that roughly two thirds of Senate Democrats are not up for reelection this November.
The funniest part of the tracker is that it has Senator Leiberman (CT) down as "waffling" on NN! Does Moveon.org still hold hope that Sen. Leiberman will forgive Moveon.org for knocking him off in the Democratic primary and then make nice and go out of his way to help Moveon.org on NN?
Fourth, after all of the fearmongering and misrepresentation the SavetheInternet crowd has done on NN, they expect people to take at face value their "Momentum Tracker" which allegedly tracks petition signers, coalition members, blog links, and MySpace friends. Has anyone verified these petition signers as registered voters, americans, real people and not just internet addresses or blogging aliases? Has anybody asked these petition signers and coalition groups if they have heard both sides of the issue? Has anyone asked the suppposed SavetheInternet "grassroots" people that are delivering these unverified petitions to Senators' offices -- if they are paid political operatives affiliated with Moveon.org?
Finally, when a group in the political process represents that its momentum proxies are the equivalent of votes in the political process, they have to do more than make claims. We should see third party verification of the validity of these petitions, and that the coalition supporters recieved no money or resources whatsoever in return for their support of Moveon.orgs pet fundraising project, which they have slyly called "net neutrality."
