Markos Moulitsas

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Family name hatnote Template:Infobox person Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (Template:IPAc-en; born September 11, 1971), often known by his username and former military nickname "Kos" (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell), is an American blogger who is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos, a blog focusing on liberal and Democratic Party politics in the United States. He co-founded SB Nation, a collection of sports blogs, which is now a part of Vox Media.<ref name="dealbook">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Kos2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early life and education

Moulitsas was born in Chicago to a Salvadoran mother and a Greek father. He moved with his family to El Salvador in 1976, but later returned to the Chicago area in 1980 after his family fled when threats were placed on their lives by communist insurgents during the Salvadoran Civil War.<ref name="Kos2"/> As an adult, he has recounted his memories of the civil war, including an incident that occurred when he was 8 years old, in which he saw communist guerrillas murdering students who had been accused of collaborating with the government.<ref name="Kos3">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

After graduating from Schaumburg High School in Schaumburg, Illinois,<ref name="Johnson">Template:Cite news</ref> he served in the U.S. Army from 1989 through 1992. He completed training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and fulfilled his three-year enlistment as a Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) Fire Direction Specialist while stationed in Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany.<ref name="Kos2"/>

By his own account, he "missed deploying to the Gulf War by a hair." Moulitsas has described the Army as "perhaps the ideal society – we worked hard but the Army took care of us in return."<ref name="AmericanProspect">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Prior to enlisting in the Army, Moulitsas was a member of the Republican Party. During the 1988 presidential election, he served as a Republican precinct captain and assisted with the re-election campaign of Illinois Congressman Henry Hyde.<ref name="AmericanProspect"/> However, during his time in the military Moulitsas began a transition in his political philosophy that would lead him to change his party affiliation from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.<ref name="Kos2"/>

After leaving the army, he attended Northern Illinois University (NIU) and graduated in 1996 with two bachelor's degrees, majoring in philosophy, journalism, and political science.<ref name="NorthernStar">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Bostonia">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> While attending, he wrote for the college newspaper, the Northern Star. Further illustrating the transition of his political philosophy, now a staunch supporter of gay rights,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> in 1993 while a freshman at NIU, he penned an opinion piece for the Northern Star denouncing efforts being made to lift the ban on homosexuals serving in the military.<ref>Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead link</ref> As a writer, he also questioned NIU's policy of spending student fee money on athletic programs, generating a negative response from school officials, and waged an unsuccessful campaign to save the school's journalism program. In 2007, he was inducted into the Northern Star Hall of Fame, an honor bestowed by the newspaper's alumni association.<ref name="NorthernStar"/>

Moulitsas attended the Boston University School of Law from 1996 to 1999, earning a J.D. degree.<ref name="Bostonia"/> He then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where he worked as a project manager at a web development shop.

Personal life

Moulitsas describes himself as a recovering Catholic, and says that while he has many problems with the Church, Salvadoran martyr and archbishop Óscar Romero is still his greatest hero and inspiration.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He has prosopagnosia, which makes it difficult to recognize familiar faces.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

As of 2007, Moulitsas resides in Berkeley, California, with his two children.<ref name="Wilson">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Career

Daily Kos

Moulitsas founded his blog, Daily Kos in May 2002, and has managed the blog as a full-time occupation since early 2004.<ref name="Kos2"/> It has become the largest liberal community blog in the United States, with over 2.3 million registered users and 8 million unique viewers per month as of July 2018.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The popularity of Daily Kos has attracted the attention of many Democratic senators, members of Congress, governors and candidates who have posted on the site, including Senators John Kerry<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Barbara Boxer,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}Template:Dead link</ref> former President Jimmy Carter,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and former President Barack Obama.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Daily Kos has also spawned an annual conference. The inaugural YearlyKos was held from June 8 to 11, 2006, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Guests included Harry Reid,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> then-Virginia Governor Mark Warner,<ref>YearlyKos: Mark Warner June 28, 2006.</ref> and Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.<ref>YearlyKos Convention 2006 Keynote Speech by Howard Dean, June 10, 2006.</ref> The conference has since been renamed Netroots Nation.

In April 2004, Moulitsas and Daily Kos made controversial comments in a blog post about Blackwater USA after some of its employees were killed and mutilated in Fallujah<ref name="Kos5">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The next day, Moulitsas defended and clarified his remarks.<ref name="Kos3"/>

On March 17, 2008, Moulitsas wrote that Senator Hillary Clinton, who was then involved in a protracted race against Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, "doesn't deserve fairness on this site" because she "fails the test of the guiding principles of this site" and because Clinton had "no reasonable chance of victory".<ref name="Kos6">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> His statement was precipitated by a "strike" conducted by several pro-Clinton diarists, even though none of these posters was paid or in any way officially linked to the site.<ref name="NYTimes">Template:Cite news</ref> Moulitsas responded directly to the "strike" by saying that it was more like a "boycott", noting that "It's a big Internet, so I hope they find what they're looking for."<ref name="ABCNews">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Consultant and entrepreneur

In 2004, Markos and Jerome Armstrong of MyDD founded BlogPAC, a political action committee focused on progressive bloggers and politics online.<ref>"The Blogfather", Alternet.org, June 15, 2005.</ref> In 2012, he was, by some measures, the most accurate major pundit to predict the result of the presidential election.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

During the 2005 United Kingdom general election, Moulitsas was hired by the British daily newspaper The Guardian to write elections analysis for its weblog.<ref name="Guardian">Template:Cite news</ref> Moulitsas was also a regular contributor to Newsweek,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> having been hired by the magazine for its 2008 presidential campaign coverage.<ref name="Nation">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Moulitsas is a fellow at the New Politics Institute,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> a think tank of the New Democrat Network, which was founded by Simon Rosenberg in 1996. The NDN's stated purpose is to help elect centrist Democrats, and is considered by many to be a successor to the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), an organization that Simon Rosenberg resigned from in 1996.Template:Citation needed

In addition to political pursuits, Moulitsas co-founded SB Nation, a network of sports blogs, with Tyler Bleszinski (of Athletics Nation) in 2003.<ref name="DowJones">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The network now covers all major American leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL), as well as dozens of colleges and other specific sports like golf, cycling, and ultimate fighting.<ref name="WaPo">Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2011, SB Nation became Vox Media and began expanding, raising capital to acquire and develop other blog networks.<ref name="nextweb">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Vox Media now owns eight media brands covering news, technology, sports, and lifestyle.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In March 2018, Moulitsas announced the launch of Civiqs, a polling and data operation that tracks opinions on candidates, issues, and elected officials.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Contributing to the anthology Our American Story (2019), Moulitsas addressed the possibility of a shared American narrative. He concluded, "The American Dream claims that anyone seeking a better life can aspire to rise above their station, and everyone has an equal opportunity to become something better. That is our unifying narrative."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Books

Moulitsas has authored three books:

• Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People Powered Politics (Chelsea Green, 2006); Template:ISBN (co-written with Jerome Armstrong)
• Taking On the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era (Penguin Group, 2008); Template:ISBN
• American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right (Polipoint Press, 2010); Template:ISBN

See also

• Libertarian Democrat

External links

• Moulitsas Zuniga, Markos Profile Current Biography, 2007
• Party Central East Bay Express, December 2004.
• Kos makes the most of blogging, daily Contra Costa Times, April 2005
• New York Review of Books profile, April 2006
• Public events featuring Markos Moulitsas Zúniga Template:Webarchive
• Kos Call (profile of Markos on Washington Monthly)
• Template:Usurped
• Template:C-SPAN
  • C-SPAN Q&A interview with Moulitsas, April 10, 2005