In 2006, immediately after Democrats took the House, Dailykos, MyDD, and Swing State Project began fundraising for Karen Carter in the primary against a very obviously corrupt Democrat, William Jefferson. Chris and I, at MyDD at the time, even paid for Tim Tagaris to head down to New Orleans and cover the race, which he did in a spectacular series of depressing and fascinating posts about a shocked and paranoid city. Karen Carter, Jefferson's primary opponent, ended up losing to Jefferson, as he used the argument that the Federal government was out to get him just like it was out to get the city itself. Jefferson got support from Democratic incumbents, though it was tepid.
This year, Jefferson lost to a Republican, Joseph Cao. Had Carter or another Democrat beaten him in the primary, Democrats would have kept that seat. In fact, with Democrats having achieved fairly dominant majorities in Congress, a constant stream of primaries is the only way to give voters the opportunity to deal with corruption or ossification within the Democratic party itself. With the current mode of operations that suggests that primaries are a 'circular firing squad' or that only safe seats should be in play, in a sense, voters don't really get to clean out corruption without radically changing the political priorities of their community, which they might not want to do. And so you have close elections like the one in which Jefferson lost, where voters clearly aren't Republicans but will choose one if the alternative is someone caught with $90k in their freezer by the FBI.
Another conclusion, aside from the notion that more democracy is good, is that the best solution to corruption is the voting booth. That is the single most legitimate way to remove someone from power and replace them. Charlie Rangel and Alan Mollohan have been faced with ethics charges, let them explain them to their constituents. And if their constituents are fine with the charges, then it should be good enough for Congress to seat them. But without competitive primaries, constituents don't get to make that choice.
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