BREAKING: I Am Now A Conservative Democrat

by: OpenLeft

Fri Jan 01, 2010 at 22:00

A Chris Bowers Golden Oldie
June 22, 2009. Original HERE.

After several years of trying to "retake" the Democratic Party and make it more progressive, today I am giving up and becoming a conservative Democrat. Upon careful consideration, the benefits packages are simply too heavily tilted toward the corporate wing of the party. Check it out:

• It would be pretty sweet to be able to endorse someone other than a Democrat for President, and then have the Democratic leadership do whatever it takes to keep me in the Party. I mean, if you do this as a progressive, then you are pretty much screwed for life.

• Being a conservative Democrats gets you ten times the media mentions that one gets being a progressive. You chances of appearing on Sunday talk shows also skyrockets.

• Being a conservative Democrat gets you more money, too. You can proclaim that you are a conservative Democrat, and still have small, progressive, grassroots donors be by far your top contributors. Hard to argue with receiving both enormous big dollar fundraisers held in your honor and huge amounts of money from small progressive donors. So really, who cares if bloggers complain about you. Their readers are still going to fork over huge amounts of money.

• If you are a conservative Democrat, you get to hold up, water down, and threaten whatever Democratic legislation you want. And there are no repercussions. In fact...

• If you are a conservative Democrat, you get frequent meetings with the President and proclamations that he is one of your own. If you are a progressive, you have to stand at the back of the line, and then get threats about never hearing from the White House again if you step out of line.

• Further, if you are a conservative Democrat, you can also refuse to pay your Democratic Party Committee dues, and still receive disproportionate expenditures from Democratic Party Committees. That is just a straight up good deal.

• Being a conservative Democrat also makes you far more likely to receive a major cabinet appointment. Not even counting the Republicans, New Democrats outnumber Progressives in President Obama's cabinet by 7-1.

• Finally, if one of those crazy progressives decides to challenge you in a primary campaign, if you are a conservative Democrat you can also count on the endorsements of 95% of your congressional colleagues, the entire party leadership, and virtually every progressive advocacy organization. They will stand by you.