So Who Is Stirling Newberry?

I haven't been posting very much lately; but I need to comment about the letter posted at DraftClark.com. It was unsigned but we now know the founder of the site, Stirling Newberry, wrote it. I don't know much about the guy other than he has been instrumental in the Draft Clark campaign, spreading good words all over the place. So why the change in tone? What made him so angry?

I did a google search trying to find some kind of biographical information. I ran across this and found it quite interesting. First dissed by Dean's organization some 18 months ago? I think what we have here is a big crybaby with a gigantic ego.

<snip>
Stirling Newberry, a 36-year-old computer consultant, is the unofficial theorist of the Clark movement, a regular blogger over at the ClarkSphere, and maintainer of Zuniga's old site, DraftClark.com.
"If you're annoyed about something in the Dean message, good luck going to Joe Trippi and getting it fixed," Newberry says. He expresses frequent annoyance with the Dean campaign, which he says rebuffed his offers of help some 18 months ago. "The Clark movement is a movement based on a person with an idea. Wesley Clark has articulated a vision and it's the job of the Clark movement to put that vision forward in a variety of ways to bring people in and say, 'We do things a certain way here, and if you do things that way you'll be welcome and your work will be disseminated to everybody.'"

http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2003_08_31_angrybear_archive.html

Clark supporters have such colorful names.

The two founders of the main Draft Clark site are named Frisbie and Birkenstock, who also sound like they should be from Burlington. :-)

We've had a long "virtual" friendship, although we've never met face to face. stirling is a smart young man who is very active on the web and is a big Clark supporter. He told me he doesn't take any money from the Clark campaign (he has purity issues, I take it).

Yeah, stirling's got some edges to him, but he's still my bud and if you mess with him, buddy, you gonna mess with ME!

maha

and explain why he's acting so childish and trying to tear something down he helped create? I really would like to know. If it's because his feelings are hurt, not good enough.

:puke:

And IMO he's got every right to be pissed off.

The Clark campaign,now besodden with old-school pols, doesn't "get" the internet thing, and the whole anarchy of the internet jungle goes beyond what a disciplined General is used to. Clark is not comfortable having these guys loose without clearance, hence the word to "shut it down".

It's a slap in the face to all the dedicated interneteers who bravely blogged on for months, including landing en masse at DU and elsewhere to slog it out with the other campaign's partisans.

Now, the inside the beltway organization men have taken the reigns, and we can expect the comfortable, non threatening message that has served them so well in the past. Through traditional sources.

Mr. Newberry can be pissed off, but his efforts were his alone, no one asked him. He should not have expected to automatically become a big gun in the campaign once Clark announced. If he really wants Clark in the White House then he continues blogging and posting - doing what he's done so well over the past several months. He needs to grow up.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

There's more to it, I understand, but you have caught the drift.

I'm curious as to what your basis is for making this assumption. As far as I can tell, the campaign has been trying to keep the grassroots folks involved.

The degree of involvement may not be what some expected. The draft folks are not running the campaign, nor should they be. However, the two guys who were running draftwesleyclark.com are involved with the campaign in Little Rock as are several other people who were draft movement leaders. They have been open with phone numbers and e-mail addresses to answer questions.

Volunteers have continued to host MeetUps, do fund raising, and work on caucuses and petition drives. Do some people think they have everything they need? No. Will they ever think they have everything they need? Unlikely.

As to Mr. Newberry, I don't want to take on Maha, so I'll just skip that one. Suffice it to say that I do not share his admiration.

even though I'm a creaky old lady and not as fierce as I used to be. But I still swing a mean frying pan when riled.

I fully don't intend to rile you up. LOL.
I did want to tell you I just visited your blog, and it is excellent. The one about the TX killer moms was very telling. And Krugman.
Good work.
I want to try a blog soon, and I am visiting a lot of them.

hell you're talking about on this one. General Clark is probably the biggest proponenet of the drafters and the internet movement in the campaign and there are many, many more too. Volunteers and drafters ARE the HEART of the Clark campaign and we will continue to be. The campaign positively relies on it's volunteers and drafters. There are traditional types in the campaign as well, it's called balance and diversification. You know, as opposed to being one dimensional, like a cardboard cutout.

I emailed stirling yesterday when I heard Donnie Fowler had dropped out of the campaign, and he told me that infighting and power struggles within the campaign were doing serious damage to the campaign, and that's what the letter on the web site is about. I've heard the same thing from other sources since (Daily Kos, for example:

http://www.dailykos.com/archives/004477.html#00447 ).

In the letter, stirling is telling the General that he's got to take charge, and I believe stirling is right. In years past there have been other very good presidential candidates who never made it out of the primaries because of such nonsense.

If you want to help the Clark campaign, don't worry about stirling and don't worry about the General. I understand the problem lies with communications adviser Mark Fabiani, and if Fabiani doesn't back off pretty soon, we can kiss off the Wesley Clark candidacy.

Third - He must bring in the intellectual elements of the Clark movement which, so far, have been left out - and even attacked and censored - on board. There is no longer the excuse of being "too busy". It is these individuals who can sink the campaign beyond repair if they are not brought on board. It is only these individuals who can provide the credibility for a turnaround of the campaign. It is these individuals who can say in an unforced manner "there were problems, they are being fixed now". He must implement open source politics, and "get religion". Without this, there will be a feeding frenzy of attacks. As it is irrevocable damage has been done: Clark could have vaulted to 40% and walked to the nomination. Now it will be a nasty hard ground war, with much heartache and blood.

From: http://www.draftclark.com/archives/004484.shtml#004484

What utter, pretentious, arrogant crap.

This whole rant reads like a seven-year-old wailing, "Do what I want, poopie-heads, or else I'll take my ball and go home. Wah!"

I think the content of Newberry's words is actually somewhat reasonable. It's in tone, style and utter arrogance where he shoots off the pier into deep, shark-infested waters.

I have reservations about Clark's campaign, too, particularly his underutilization of the Internet. But my reservations aren't going to stop me from going to an organizational meeting right now and bringing the address labels and envelopes and stamps and stationery needed to write our local Dem Reps and uncommitted Senator, urging them to endorse Clark.

This is a petulant ego trip, plain and simple. I don't need to know Newberry in order to see exactly what he's doing. It comes through loud and clear in his various writings, and in his ill-advised Prospect interview, where he was once again the pisser in the pond.

DTH

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/09/franke-ruta-g-09-25.html

Fan Friction
Hell hath no fury like a Draft Clark enthusiast spurned.

By Garance Franke-Ruta
Web Exclusive: 9.25.03

Whether jumpstarted through the goading of Clark's Arkansas friends or actively fueled by more calculating minds, by the time Clark finally did announce, the Draft Clark movement had become something genuinely grass roots and broader than any of its originators. But its two main factions were at each other's throats.

The conflict, which had simmered unbeknown to Clark or to some of the campaign pros who find themselves confronting it, is finally out in the open. Tensions did not subside last week until Donnie Fowler Jr., the former field director of the 2000 Gore-Joe Lieberman campaign and -- more importantly for a nontraditional campaign -- a former vice president of high-tech executives' association TechNet, stepped in and smoothed the ruffled feathers. Fowler is acting as Clark's campaign manager, but has not yet been formally hired, says Jacoby.

Also suddenly exposed was the fact that the draft movement's massive hype machine seems to have oversold what it could genuinely bring to a Clark campaign. "From what I understand, they basically have an e-mail list of around 200 people," one member of the Clark camp in Arkansas says of the resources DraftClark2004.com brought to the campaign. "They claimed they had this big, pyramidal structure when in fact they had branded anarchy," says a knowledgeable movement member. The list comprises potential state coordinators for a grass-roots, on-the-ground arm of the Clark campaign. Other assets of the draft movement also suddenly seem a bit less concrete. A "New York Headquarters" for DraftWesleyClark.com is actually home to a film and TV production company run by DraftWesleyClark.com leader Maya Israel and her husband, and Locus Media Inc., a New York gallery where "The Bill Clinton Show" is set to open Oct. 16.

more...

... by Mark Fabiani, because Fowler was fighting the old fogies like Fabiani who don't know what to do with the web.

Is Clark a control freak or are his campaign people just too "traditional?"

Never heard of turning down support unless it was the KKK, skinheads, or some such ilk. And I don't think he is turning down those corporate fat cats, like defense contractor types and Axciom.

People who throw a public hissy fit when they don't get their way aren't worth cultivating as supporters.

The Internet folks aren't being turned away, in any event; John Hlinko of DWC is leading the General's Internet charge. The problem lies in underutilization of resources, not an outright rejection of them.

Things will hopefully improve soon. I got two e-mails from the General today, right on the heels of all of this nonsense and my own depressed (from the recall) criticisms of last night. The Blog is being updated more frequently, too. And a webcast message for the Meetups is once again being prepared.

Still nowhere near as good as Dean's effort, certainly, but it's a start.

DTH

He posted interesting messages on tabletalk when posting at salon was free.

Like all of us, he's still recovering from the fascist coup that took over our government and anointed George.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

and there are things that are not helpful.

What SN did today was not helpful to those
of us who want to see Clark in the White House.

Furthermore, I am sick of this "internet arrogance"
as if all the rules have been rewritten.

Frankly, Dean hasn't won one election with this "internet
thing" yet so let's not strut around like a wired
cock-of-the-walk about showing
up "old fogies" and "the establishment".

balance is what is required for the long haul. We may live online but most of the country (read here voters) does not.