| Let's take Iraq. The main way the netroots view Iraq is as a problem to solve: in most cases, to generate a withdrawal in the shortest time practicable. What they look to Dem MCs for is to do all they can to implement that solution to the problem.
More broadly, they look towards building a stable, big Dem Congressional majority which will, over the years, be able to tackle this and a vast list of other problems.
The complexion of Congress, and the MCs that provide the Dem portion of that complexion, are a means to an end of solving what the netroots perceive as problems.
MCs, on the other hand, view things the other way round: the goal is maximizing satisficing their own position in a maximized satisficed Dem position in Congress [See qualification below]. And taking steps to solve the Iraq problem is a means to securing that end.
There are other differences, of course.
For example, whereas Dem MCs (their leaderships' staffs, at least) are au fait with the minutiae of Congressional procedure, and the political consequences that flow from it, the netroots for the most part are blissfully ignorant of these things.
(Or rather, most of them tend to have that little knowledge which is the proverbial dangerous thing. And - just to be clear: when I say them, I mean us. I'm not sure of the math, but, over a lot of the Knowledge-Danger Curve, a marginal increase in Knowledge results in an increase in Danger, rather than the reverse!)
This ignorance macchiato only compounds the mutual incomprehension problem: for instance, it's impossible to understand what happened to the FISA bill (S 1927) in the House just before the recess without knowing a detail of House procedure so basic to any understanding of House goings-on that it's little wonder that those without a clear idea of it make a dog's breakfast of their commentary on them.
That thing is that, by reason of his (latterly, her) control of the Rules Committee, the Speaker can, with one exception, keep any bill he doesn't like off the floor, and bar any amendments to any bill let onto the floor.
Thus, Pelosi's decision was a causa sine qua non of the FISA bill passing the House before the recess.
The exception mentioned above - the discharge rule - could not have achieved this, even if 218 reps had been eager to stand in line to sign the petition (for the detail, get Chapter 19 of House Practice here).
This was an instance where the leadership (my sense) escaped a full measure of netroots censure where it deserved it, based on netroots goals and expectations.
Rather more often, perhaps, leaderships get blamed for things that, under the rules, with the balance of forces as they are, they could have done nothing about.
The real filibuster, and ignorance of the (very good but largely unexplained) reasons why neither majority nor minority (whichever party fills those positions) is terribly keen on it, is a regular cause of anguish every time some ghastly bill slips through the Senate (or great bill fails to do so): poor old Harry usually gets it in the neck (generally, for no good reason).
Another complicating factor in MC-netroots mutual comprehension is the modes of communication between the two groups: MCs speak in media-friendly code, the bloggers harangue with megaphones.
MCs struggle to treat the netroots as on-the-team insiders (rather than mere civilians) without tainting their general messaging at best, or providing gotcha material at worst. (They, and their staffs, can talk off the record to top bloggers, but reading blind quotes from such exchanges only makes the rest of us feel even more excluded! Boo hoo...)
And - more or less the last the thing MCs would do is address in plain language and in public the issues I've been talking about.
[Further thoughts:]
There's another dimension of the relationship to consider: the regulars v insurgents conflict.
Regulars always hate insurgents; regulars have (through gerrymandering, assuring supplies of moolah, making nice with powerful folks) built themselves a permanent job out of the office which, supposedly, the voters can turf them out of every two, six or however many years.
The structures that the regulars build may or may not be legal; but they depend on inside guys not rocking the boat, and outside guys being kept outside.
The classic insurgents were the fusionists who ran against city machine candidates back in the day. Their weakness was that they were always outside the structure of the machine, lacked its organizational resources, were usually led by mugwump goo-goos who viewed the practice of government with distaste.
The fusionists usually didn't last long.
Then there was the Western insurgency of guys like Robert LaFollette and Hiram Johnson: in the party (mostly the GOP) but semi-detached.
The netroots represent, I'd hypothesize, a manifestation of the phenomenon which started off as Adlai's amateurs. Amateur, because, unlike the machine hack, they earned a living doing something other than politics.
The point is: insurgents threaten regulars' position. The insurgents are by definition outsiders who don't benefit from the machine, and are therefore beyond its discipline. They are more motivated than the average voter, usually better educated, have some kind of organization of their own, have specific demands based on research.
If they don't like the regulars' responses to their interventions in the process, insurgents can organize electoral challenges to regulars. The regulars object to their seats being put at risk, natch; but also to the injection of real politics into what should be a formality (their re-election), and the bad example this may set for other groups inside the machine and out to challenge its authority in one way or another.
Even when there is convergence on policy between regulars and insurgents, regulars will fight shy of allying with insurgents, or will take steps to ensure that the insurgents are seen as subordinate and not autonomous actors in the process, and to deny them representative status. (The regulars will say that they are the only ones with legitimacy as representatives - even though the elections on the basis of which they claim legitimacy have naturally been rigged (legally or otherwise).)
Regulars will be dubious about the benefits of cooperation with insurgents; they may well see an asymmetry in the risk of such cooperation, in that the opposition of insurgents will damage the regulars, but benefit to be gained from insurgents' support will be worth much less.
[Maximising position - a qualification]
This comment linked a useful piece on this.
The piece rightly points out, if forced to choose, pols prefer to keep their position at the cost of their organization losing, rather than vice versa.
Take the fusionist example I mention above. The typical city machine of the classic period was Irish-led, and as exclusively Irish as its leaders could make it, and still win.
In particular, the Irish did not want to admit other ethics - Italians, Jews, Poles and so on - because that would mean more mouths to feed and more leaders to accommodate.
These out ethnics would naturally join with the fusionists to kick at the machine.
The Irish leaders might in theory open the doors of the machine to these ethnics to fight off the fusionists and win.
But they knew that, once having let in the other ethnics, they'd never get rid of them.
So they preferred for anti-machine sentiment to abate (do-gooding has a limited shelf life!) and, when the fusionists got kicked out, the machine would be back, undilutedly Irish.
Thus, the reference above to a maximized Dem position in Congress needs serious work: for maximized, read satisficed.
Dem honchos in Congress want the Dems to be in the majority, because that's the way they get their chairmanships and all the other perks of majority status. And they'd rather there be a bit of a cushion.
But the last thing they want is a big draft of radical MCs (radical either ideologically or organizationally) coming in on a Dem landslide and putting their position at risk.
That puts them, in their objectives, in direct opposition to the netroots - who want policy change that will only come (if at all!) with an influx of leftish Dem senators sufficient to provide a reliable cloture vote on the measures the netroots want to see pass.
The primacy of maintaing their position also dictates their acquiescence in the sort of Gang of 14 operations we've seen in the 110th. They may (some of them) regret the tendency for those (boo hiss!) Bush Dogs to stray off the reservation; but that kind of lax discipline is just the ticket.
When a Congressional party is disciplined (Gingrich-style), that discipline can all too easily be channeled into challenges to the leadership.
Plenty of reasons for a lack of love for the netroots from the Capitol.
[Kossacks weep/wail/gnash teeth]
Acting their shoe size under the garish (if underpunctuated) hed they don't care about us and never did.
The lede:
There is a long-standing tradition in Democratic politics. It is an ugly, brutal fact. Inside the beltway they don't really much care about Democratic volunteers and activists.
Long-standing, but evidently intended as something of a revelation, at least to some Kossacks.
Now, of course, there's more joy in heaven, and all that jazz. If scales fall from eyes, however belatedly, that's a good thing.
And the advice later on in the piece to start local is sound.
But - when the guy says
We are not kooks. We all know that.
you have to wonder a bit. (Are kooks necessarily the best judges of their own kookdom?)
Unfortunately, disappointed credulity does not operate to vaccinate the sufferer against a recurrence of the disease:
If you know a politician who understands where we are coming from, someone like Darcy Burner, understand that that politician is worth his or her weight in gold to us.
Now, from what little I know about Darcy, I'd say she was a good egg, as well as more than a little yummy. But, were she able to be honest about it with the netroots, I suspect we'd find she had no illusions about succumbing to the go along to get along culture of the Capitol, if she got elected. |
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