Labor defends Democrats’ choice of Fox as host

Michael J. Mishak

Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2007 | 7:02 a.m.

Nevada labor leaders are defending the state Democratic Party against online activists who are unhappy that Fox News will host a Democratic presidential debate in Reno.

"I don't agree with everything Fox News does," said Danny Thompson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Nevada AFL-CIO, which represents 200,000 members statewide. "It may have a conservative slant, but those are the people you want to talk to if you're going to change anyone's mind."

In the end, the scathing posts of liberal bloggers and petition drives by national Democratic interest groups were simply sucking up too much of the oxygen in Nevada's presidential caucus, local union leaders said. They responded by issuing a collective press release defending the party's decision to have Fox host the August debate.

"It became apparent that this thing was being talked about to the point that it was making us look bad," said Thompson, who was one of three representatives who went to New Orleans last year to urge the Democratic National Committee to move Nevada's caucus to Jan. 19 - the second spot on the presidential primary calendar, behind Iowa.

Organized labor is expected to play a big role in the Nevada caucus, and its defense of the state party marks the first time it has flexed its muscle in the organizational process.

The dust-up started with a few bloggers last week. Markos Moulitsas, whose liberal blog Daily Kos is read by as many as 500,000 people a day, called Silver State Democrats "dimwits" and encouraged candidates to skip the debate. ( Some prominent liberal bloggers, such as Atrios and Matthew Yglesias, declined to join the fray.)

Then, MoveOn.org, a leading liberal activist group, circulated a petition to get the state party to drop Fox as the debate's host. As of Tuesday, the group said it had gathered 170,000 signatures nationwide.

Moulitsas ramped up the rhetoric on Tuesday: "It's increasingly clear that Nevada didn't deserve to be moved up in the calendar. They apparently don't understand that Democratic caucuses have nothing to do with the Republicans watching Fox News."

Activists argue that Fox isn't a legitimate news organization, citing an instance last month in which the cable network erroneously reported that Sen. Barack Obama had enrolled in a madrassa as a child in Indonesia and studied a radical form of Islam there - then sourcing it to Sen. Hillary Clinton.

They also claim that other news networks, such as MSNBC, are better positioned to reach new Democratic voters, particularly those in the unaffiliated camp.

Thompson and other labor leaders strongly disagree.

Much of their membership, they say, watches Fox. "It's a foregone conclusion that our members are watching Fox News, and if you want to reach them you can't exclude them," Thompson said.

Beyond that, the cable news channel offers Democrats a chance to engage directly with hard-core conservatives and an opportunity to grow the party.

"There is no purity in newscasts," D. Taylor, secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union, said in a written statement. "We can all find flaws with each channel."

The party hosted a forum with ABC News and C-SPAN last week and plans to partner with CNN for another debate in November.

"When we limit ourselves to only those that we agree with, everybody loses," said Taylor, whose union, with 60,000 members, is the largest and most politically active in the state.