Blogometer Update: Listen Up, Edwards Campaign

The controversy surrounding past criticism of the Catholic Church by progressive Pandagon blogger Amanda Marcotte is shaping into a make or break moment for John Edwards young campaign.

Already on the defensive from his netroots base for “hawkish” rhetoric on Iran, if Edwards relents to MSM pressure to fire Marcotte, his lefty blogger credibility will be destroyed.

In a 12/18 post called “The Bar Fight Primary” MyDD’s Matt Stoller wrote: “The way to gain my support in 2008 is to show that in a bar fight, your sympathies are with liberals and are set against the bullies that have been running the country for so long. You can run on anything you want, you can talk of unifying the country or any sort of conventional wisdom chatter. … But you have to speak on some critical point, some piece of entrenched power, and promise that you are going to gore that conservative ox.”

Todayt, Stoller makes clear Marcotte is Edwards first “bar fight” moment. Fellow MyDDer Chris Bowers asks Edwards: “Are you willing to point out the double standards and hypocrisy behind this story, or will you cave to even the mildest pressure from the Republican Noise Machine?”

But Bowers also sees opportunity for Edwards: “Whether he stands up or backs down will be a turning point for his campaign online. Either way, he won't be tied with Barack Obama in Dailykos straw polls anymore. It will be hard in one direction or the other.”

Daily Kos diarist wilbur also sees “an extraordinary opportunity” and urges Edwards to “rally the netroots troops and hit back hard.”

If Edwards understood what he was doing when he hired Marcotte, he must follow the advice of Bowers and Wilbur. When Edwards hired Marcotte he signed up to a hard hitting unapologetic movement, a movement whose rhetoric is, shall we say, not always appreciated in the mainstream. If he backs off the ethos now, he can kiss their support away forever.