E-Mail This Article to a Friend MoveOn confronts the future How does a grassroots power redirect its muscle? BY ADAM REILLY

ON A SUNDAY evening in mid November, 18 people gathered in a funkified Jamaica Plain office to ponder the future of MoveOn, the progressive political organization. They weren’t alone: in thousands of other spots around the country, like-minded Americans — dismayed by George W. Bush’s re-election and desperate for some kind of solace — were doing the same thing. Thirty minutes into the meeting, MoveOn’s leaders began to speak, their voices traveling over the Internet from a party on Fifth Avenue in New York.

Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn’s political-action committee (PAC), began by telling the MoveOn faithful that — in the wake of John Kerry’s loss — they had a chance to remake American politics. "I don’t mean to sound grandiose," he said, "but you represent an unprecedented political force in this country — maybe the most powerful force." Field director Adam Ruben then ran through MoveOn’s accomplishments: $40 million raised and spent on political ads during the ’04 campaign; $4 million donated to Kerry, the Democratic candidate; $5 million donated to progressive congressional candidates; 70,000 volunteers working to get out the vote. Washington insiders used to laugh at MoveOn, Ruben said, but they’d been proven wrong. Back to Pariser, who allowed himself to daydream for a moment: "You know, I often think that if a hundred thousand votes in Ohio had gone the other way, the media would all be talking about the brilliance and the amazing — how incredible the whole structure was. And I still think that’s true."

Their hubris is understandable. When the history of the 2004 campaign is written, much ink will be spilled on MoveOn. After all, the group revolutionized the political use of the Internet, propelled Howard Dean’s early ascent, and became, for many, the institutional embodiment of the embattled American left. Yet any self-congratulation on the part of MoveOn should be tempered with realism. Yes, MoveOn has won some victories in its six years. But its most ambitious goals — ending impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton, preventing the Iraq War, averting the recall of Governor Gray Davis in California, and defeating George W. Bush — haven’t been realized. With the GOP controlling the presidency, the Senate, and the House, the need for a Democratic transformation is painfully clear. What’s not clear is the role MoveOn should play in this process — and whether, in the long run, the group can live up to its considerable hype.

JOAN BLADES and Wes Boyd, a husband and wife from Berkeley, California, made their millions as computer entrepreneurs; their former company, Berkeley Systems, gave the world the flying-toaster screen saver. The pair founded MoveOn, in 1998, to achieve a discrete goal: convincing Congress to (here it comes) move on by censuring President Clinton rather than impeaching him. Congress, apparently unconvinced by the hundreds of thousands of signatures gathered on MoveOn’s Web site, ignored this advice. But Blades and Boyd had witnessed the Internet’s ability to quickly bring together like-minded individuals for concerted political action, and they pressed on. In 2000, MoveOn’s PAC raised $2 million in online contributions for congressional candidates backed by the group. In 2002, when the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law limiting donations to the Democratic and Republican PACs was implemented, contributions to the MoveOn PAC for congressional races rose to $3.5 million. Then came the Bush administration’s drive toward war in Iraq, which gave MoveOn its highest profile yet. By this point, Blades and Boyd had teamed up with Eli Pariser, a recent college grad who made his name via an online petition urging the White House to exercise restraint in reacting to September 11. Blades, Boyd, Pariser, and the rest of MoveOn’s bare-bones staff joined the Win Without War Coalition; they proceeded to organize citizen visits to congressional offices and fund an anti-war ad campaign based on a remake of the famous "Daisy" anti-nukes commercial. The US invaded Iraq anyway.

Later in 2003, MoveOn fared better in its fight against media consolidation: as part of an unlikely right-left coalition that also included Common Cause and the National Rifle Association, the group helped convince Congress not to weaken rules restricting media consolidation. But it took Howard Dean to complete MoveOn’s transformation from hard-luck lefty outfit to harbinger of a new politics. If one thing gave the former Vermont governor credibility with the Democratic establishment, it was his prodigious fundraising in the second quarter of 2003: in April, May, and June, Dean raised $7.5 million, with approximately $3.7 million coming in the last eight days. This fundraising flurry came just before and after the first-ever Internet "primary," which was held June 24 and sponsored by MoveOn. (Dean placed first, with 139,000 votes, or 44 percent of the total; next came Dennis Kucinich, with 24 percent, and John Kerry, with 16 percent.) Even more important, the Dean campaign’s embrace of the Internet to raise funds and build a cadre of loyal supporters — a move widely credited with turning Dean into a front-runner — apparently was inspired by MoveOn’s example. In an interview with Wired, Joe Trippi, Dean’s campaign manager, reverentially cited an anti-war vigil that MoveOn coordinated in March 2003: "One of the biggest questions at the time was, could you use the Internet to connect people offline? Well, they did it." Without MoveOn, Dean’s candidacy might never have caught fire — but without Dean, MoveOn wouldn’t have the credibility it does today.

By the time Dean dropped out of the race, MoveOn had solidified its place in the beat-Bush movement. During the general-election campaign, MoveOn raised more than $30 million (mostly in small donations, despite considerable help from billionaire philanthropists such as George Soros) and sponsored ambitious advertising and get-out-the-vote operations in key battleground states. A MoveOn staffer, Zack Exley, left to coordinate Internet operations for the Kerry campaign. And through it all, the group managed to make headlines, whether it was petitioning the FTC to sanction Fox for using the phrase "Fair and Balanced" or seeking, unsuccessfully, to air a devastating ad on the Bush budget deficit during the Super Bowl. The ultimate nod to MoveOn’s newfound status came the day after the election: two hours before Kerry delivered his concession speech at Faneuil Hall, he called the MoveOn staff to thank members for their efforts.

Given all this, some political observers believe MoveOn’s place in the Democratic firmament is secure. "They’re very much an asset — I couldn’t imagine anybody disagreeing with that," says University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. "MoveOn raised enormous sums of money. They got tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of people involved and invested in politics for the Democrats. And they did some very good work. It’s working. Don’t change it."

Sabato may be too generous. Rob Gray, the Boston-based Republican consultant who advises Governor Mitt Romney, credits MoveOn for its fundraising prowess. But he adds that all the attention paid to the group during the primaries and after — e.g., the flap over an entry that likened Bush to Hitler in MoveOn’s "Bush in 30 Seconds" ad contest — was damaging to the Democrats. "Anytime a presidential campaign is pushed out of the news cycle by a group that’s supposed to be helping them win the race, it’s a bad day for that candidate," Gray says. "And as a Republican, I say, great."