Tom Edsall reports on the reception our pressure on Democrats is generating. Insiders are not happy.
A House Democratic leadership aide told the Huffington Post, "We understand their frustration, but we need to elect more Democrats in order to affect real change on Iraq." Another top Democratic leadership aide said, "What in the world are they thinking? All this is going to do is increase the possibility of electing more Republicans. Instead of going after Democrats, they should be focusing their efforts on pressuring Republicans to break with the president.
In private, many in the House and Senate leadership contend that if more liberal candidates defeat incumbent conservative and centrist Democrats in primaries, many of them representing Southern and Midwestern constituencies, the chances of a Republican victory in the general election sharply increase.
The MoveOn survey comes on the heels of the anti-"Bush Dog" campaign on the Open Left website created by Chris Bowers, Matt Stoller and Mike Lux.
The "Bush Dogs" -- a play on the "Blue Dog" Democrats, a caucus of center-conservative Democrats -- is made up of the 39 House Democrats who voted on May 24 in favor of the Iraq emergency supplemental appropriation and on August 4 in favor of the "Protect America Act" expanding the administration's power to use warrantless wiretaps.
It's instructive that Edsall couldn't get anyone to on the record using their own names. Then again, activists do love being attacked by anonymous insiders enmeshed in a bureaucratic hierarchy.
