Barack Obama got to become president in part because he clearly defended core traditional Democratic values--including a strong defense of Social Security:
But there's deep concern that he may abandon that support in his State of the Union, despite the fact that it would be an unmitigated disaster for him to do so. After all, such an abandonment would be perfectly in line with his new-found enthusiasm for slashing regulations. But a new A Democracy Corps/Campaign for America's Future poll clearly shows what an unpopular move this would be,focusing on the two most likely forms of "compromise" that Obama is likely to consider:
I expected Obama to be a better loser, specifically to be better at losing. There were a lot of items on the table, a lot of them weren't going to happen, but it was important for the new future of liberalism that the Obama team lost them well. And that hasn't happened.
By losing well, I mean losing in a way that builds a coalition, demonstrates to your allies that you are serious, takes a pound of flesh from your opponents and leaves them with the blame, and convinces those on the fence that it is an important issue for which you have the answers. Lose for the long run; lose in a way that leaves liberal institutions and infrastructure stronger, able to be deployed again at a later date.
Ezra Klein also wrote about that post ("What sort of loser should Obama be?"), and even though he quoted the exact same passage, he somehow managed to completely ignore it. It was a short, but breathtaking performance of Versailles punditalkcrazy at its finest. Konczal's post was a shrewd reminder that politics is ultimately most meaningful in the long haul, and that true leadership never forgets this. Klein aggressively turned his back on Konczal's point, and plunged right back into tactical/pseudo-strategic muck that Konczal was trying to lift us out of. After quoting the same passage I did, Klein wrote:
I think the White House's reply would look something like this: Successful governance is about getting 60 votes for things that move the ball forward. The people who tend to control the 55th through 60th votes on any given issue are not like you and me. They are driven by a baffling combination of raging egomania and crippling terror. They want to be treated like statesmen even as their decisions are based on a paralyzing fear of contested elections, primary challenges, Fox News and party pressure. They have few opinions on what good policy looks like, what opinions they do have on the subject change frequently, and they're not willing to risk very much on them anyway. Taking a pound of flesh from these people -- or even their allies -- would mean never getting their votes. Want to see what we mean? Look at Don't Ask, Don't Tell. In the end, it got done because Murkowski, Brown and Collins let it get done. Alienating them would've been satisfying, but unwise.
Now, Klein gave us a very savvy and delightful description of the lunatic center in the Senate--one that we'd never actually get from the Obama White House, of course. But the rationale he presents is entirely unresponsive to Konczal's point.
Still, Klein does have a point here: If forced to respond to Konczal's post, the White House certainly would respond by ignoring it, and instead focusing on the lunatic center in the Senate as if Lieberman, Bacus & Co. were immortal Greek gods. But so what? We already knew that. That's what Konczal was criticizing in the first place. Worse still, Klein advances the White House position not to criticize it, but to legitimate it. And he does so by pairing it not with Konczal's actual point about the transcendent importance of building political power for the long run, but with an imagined liberal response that while valid is but a subset of the larger point that Konczal makes:
And I think the liberal reply to this would be, yes, you're right that these people are driven by fear. But they're afraid of the wrong thing. You have senators in states that went blue in 2008 who seem unconcerned with crossing the president or his massive list of volunteers and supporters. Instead, they're terrified of the Club for Growth, or Fox News, or they're terrified of them not because they have so much power in their state but because they're willing to use that power aggressively. If the president had been making frequent trips to Maine, he might find that Maine's senators were a little more interested in partnering with him on his agenda.
All that is true, and I even made a stronger version of that same argument myself, saying that Obama should have done town meetings in Maine with schoolkids, teachers, parents and schoolboard members, attacking Snowe and Collins as enemies of America's schoolkids for their insistence on drastic cuts of state aid from the stimulus. But this leaves out of the picture Konczal's larger point about the long-term political future, and the impossibility of winning it if one does not even begin to fight for it. And it's precisely by cutting out the heart of Konczal's argument that Klein is able to adopt that treasured Versailles pose of standing in the middle, above both sides, looking down on them from above:
I find both arguments fairly convincing. But not at the same time. The White House's argument made a fair amount of sense given the Democratic tilt of the 111th Congress, which offered unusual possibilities for getting things done, and so made strategies that would alienate even a couple of votes fairly risky. But the liberal argument makes somewhat more sense going forward, as the mixed composition of the next Congress makes getting things done through deals and patience somewhat less likely, while the upcoming election where the president is on the ballot makes the need for an excited base more acute, and makes the consequences of crossing that base more serious for both the White House and swing senators.
By ignoring the iceberg that the Democratic Party is headed toward-which is, after all, the subject of Konczal's argument, Klein is able to pose as the wisest of sages in how to rearreange the deck chairs on the Titanic. In this move, all of us are losers except Klein. He is the perfect model of the modern Versailles Democrat.
This is Klein at his very worst. Which is particularly galling, because at his best he can be very, very good. He could have been very good here, simply by echoing Konczal's point, rather than burying it.
Last Thursday, Brad DeLong excerpted my diary, "Obama's time-warp" as one of a trilogy he dubbed "Coalition Maintenance". There were a number of predictable Versailles talking points in the comments, but the one that struck me was the following, both because it's couched in terms of general agreement with me, and because it is so fundamental to the delusional Versaille version of the world [emphasis added]:
Ebenezer Scrooge said...
I pretty much agree with Rosenberg's thesis, with one reservation.
Clinton's presidency was not about policy, either liberal or Third Way. It was about reviving the Democratic Party as a credible party of governance. He succeeded in doing so, at the cost of letting public discourse creep to the right. But he did purge the Democrats of their silly wing. (And I'm not using "silly" as a euphemism for "left." Today's left Democrats aren't silly anymore.)
Obama does not have Clinton's excuse. The Democratic Party is a credible party of governance now. As a matter of fact, it is the only credible party of governance, the 2010 election notwithstanding. (2010 was all about the Great Recession.) So nu, Barack? Stop triangulating, and govern already!
I have no idea what the poster means by the Democrats "silly wing", especially if it's explicitly not a jab at the left. But this is the sort of Brooksian nonsensical way that Versailles narratives are made. And why in the world should Clinton's presidency not be "about policy, either liberal or Third Way", just because it's claimed that "It was about reviving the Democratic Party as a credible party of governance"? In earlier versions it was explicitly stated the other way around--Clinton's presidency re-established the Democratic Party because of the policy shift to the Third Way. More recently, this form has become more popular--nothing to do with each other. But why? It's both arbitrary and nonsensical.
But the real Big Lie here is that Clinton somehow revived the Democratic Party--in terms of seriousness, legitimacy or whatever spin you want to put on it. But, then how to account for a "revival" in which Democratic Party power was decimated across the institutional spectrum, from Congress, through statehouses and state legislatures across the land?
The Democrats had had their ups and downs before, especially in the Senate in 1980, when the combination of then-unprecedented stealth outside money and Jimmy Carter's early concession helped produce an unprecedented loss of Democratic seats. But the Democrats re-took the Senate in 1986.
It was not until Clinton gained the presidency in 1992, and then abandoned the traditional Democratic stance of economic populism (which, of course, Clinton had run on) that Democrats suffered sweeping losses at all levels--losses they did not start to recover from until 2006, when conservatives' disastrous mismanagement finally started catching up with them.
Now, of course, Obama is starting the Clinton cycle all over again--with sharp drops that are even worse at the state legislature level. Which is why the Big Lie of Clinton's political awesomeness is so important for Versailles. By denying the actual history of the 1990s, they lay the groundwork for the denying the reality of today, which is, simply put, that "Third Way" neo-liberalism is as anti-pragmatic in political terms as it is realworld results terms.
In the 2000 presidential election, Vice President Al Gore came within four percent of winning Tennessee.
Ten years later, according to reporter Ken Whitehouse of the Nashville Post, the Tennessee Democratic Party died. To mourn its passing, Mr. Whitehouse wrote an obituary chronicling the party's storied history.
The obituary is quite a humorous read for those with an interest in politics.
A sweeping loss, and two years of angst and frustration after people felt so hopeful, generates a lot of interesting conversation (as well as quite a bit that isn't interesting at all- but I'm not here to talk about that). There is discussion of how to come back; discussion about shaking up leadership at the White House or Capitol Hill; there is all the positioning palaver I have written about (although that is mostly in that uninteresting category); there is talk of the need for a new economic strategy. And on the edgiest side of things, there is talk about a primary challenge for Obama, and even a 3rd party effort. A lot of this is just blowing smoke, of course, getting people's frustrations off their collective chests. But some currents are interesting and worth exploring.
On the 3rd party issue, the fascinating thing is that I am hearing very little of this discussion coming from my lefty friends, who the conventional wisdom would leap to assume would likely be talking about it. I think Nader actually getting enough votes in Florida to elect Bush was an experience that has definitively shut the door on 3rd party challenges for at least another generation, as it became real damn clear after that election that, yes, there would have been some differences between Bush and Gore on a few key issues. The 3rd party stuff is coming instead from a certain kind of centrist. Michael Bloomberg is the most likely candidate (and arguably the reason for a lot of the conversation). This kind of 3rd party centrist is far removed from the Ross Perot style of centrist, although like Perot, Bloomberg would be a big self-funder and would probably talk a lot about deficits. Perot was more of a populist, though, with his opposition to NAFTA and his appeal to working class white men. The chatter about 3rd party challenges now comes from what Matt Miller, one of its leading proponents, describes as "fiscally conservative, socially liberal" types. I'm not sure what exactly is meant by fiscally conservative. I consider myself one because I don't like wasting government money on stuff like no-bid contracts, subsidies to agribusiness, and loopholes for bankers, but I'm guessing my kind of fiscal conservatism is not what Matt has in mind.
This kind of 3rd party challenge is of the high-minded "politics-is-broken" school. I'm thinking of people like Bloomberg himself of course- a corporate CEO type who is a liberal on issues like gun control and abortion rights, but doesn't mind the anti-middle class stuff the deficit commission co-chairs are proposing. Come to think of it, Deficit Commission co-chairs Bowles and Simpson would be the kind of folks at home in this party. I'm also thinking of people from the past and present such as Paul Tsongas, Lowell Weicker, Bill Bradley, Bob Rubin, Lincoln Chafee (and his father John before him), Charlie Crist, Joe Lieberman, Olympia Snowe, Gray Davis and his successor Ahnold, Peter Orzag, Tim Geithner. I think such folks could all be very happy in a political party together.
A centrist party like that would be the ultimate test of Mark Penn's old theory that the most important demographic group in American politics, the premier swing voters who all politicians should try to appeal to, is the "office park dad"- upper middle income suburbanites who aren't very angry at corporations because they work in management positions at them, or are lawyers and sub-contractors for them, and whose biggest issue is caring deeply about balancing the budget. This has for at least a generation been the DC centrist version of the middle, precisely because the power brokers in DC fit with this demographic so well. Many of my friends argue that such a third party would hurt Democrats, but I'm a lot less sure about that simply because having such a party would clear the way for pretty much forcing the Democratic Party to become one that would once again unapologetically be for the middle class, which is where I think by far the biggest swing vote segment in American politics actually resides.
In my mind, being for the middle class is not exclusive of being for poor people - I am for helping everyone in the other 98%, as my friends at MoveOn would put it. But I am for having a party that is unapologetic about focusing on helping expand and build and promote the American middle class. I am for expanding poverty programs and raising the minimum wage and a strong public education system in poor neighborhoods and a path to citizenship for immigrants because I want them able to join the middle class. The greatest years in American history in terms of the living standards for most Americans were the three decades after the New Deal and World War II. In those years, the labor movement, the GI Bill, the financial stability caused by FDR's financial regulation, the minimum wage, Social Security and the rest of expanded safety net, the building of the interstate highway: all of these things promoted steadily rising prosperity and the biggest, most stable and secure middle class in the history of the world.
My party, the political party I happily associated myself with and worked to promote before I could even vote, the Democrats, were the party that promoted the idea of a strong and secure middle class, and a hand up to the poor so more of them could join in that American dream. But right now, there is no party whose clear and abiding mission is to promote and support and fight for that American middle class. The Republicans do their faux populist anti-intellectual schtick to get working and middle class votes, but all of their policies are unapologetically on behalf of the wealthy and powerful. The Democrats are split down the middle between the Rubin economics acolytes who believe that the best way to build a good economy is to make sure the big banks are healthy, and those of us progressive populists who fight on behalf of the middle class and the poor- that other 98%.
The nice thing about Bloomberg running, and spending 200 million or whatever to do it, is that it would force Democrats to make a choice, and with Bloomberg taking up the pro-corporate space, open things up for a full throated campaign on the side of middle class workers and families. But whether Bloomberg runs or not, the Democrats don't have much hope unless they choose the side of the middle class. The exit polls could not have been clearer that the voters we lost in 2010 were primarily those working and middle class voters who have been hammered by this recession, and they are going to keep voting against the party in power until they find someone who will start fighting heart and soul for a better life for them. This mushy sometimes-with-the-bankers, sometimes-with-the-middle-class thing isn't working, and the real swing voters, as opposed to whatever it is the DC centrists are talking about, are the populist working class folks.
The high school I went to in Lincoln, NE, was 3 blocks from the biggest factory in town, and we were known as the gearhead school- the kids who loved cars and knew how to repair them, kids who went hunting with their dads on the weekend, kids who were going to work at a factory or construction job, or maybe join the armed forces, when they got out of school. They are now in their early 50s, most of them having worked hard their whole lives, with little saved up for retirement and a house that has droped in value. Their most fervent hope is to be able to keep working until they are 65 so they won't be a burden on their kids, because their kids are struggling to fine economic security as well. I want a political party that unapologetically fights for those kinds of folks, that puts their economic needs at the core of their party's agenda, and that will prioritize what they need over what the big money lobbyists in DC want. And here's the deal: that kind of party, the party the Democrats were in their heyday in the years after the New Deal when their mission was building the middle class, would actually win a lot of elections. Is becoming that party again, unequivocally and passionately, too much to ask the Democrats for?
Two years ago, a post-Bush Republican Party that couldn't find itself on Google Maps was thoroughly thrashed for the second time in as many elections. The GOP had lost over 50 House seats over two election cycles, scores of state legislative chambers, governorships, US Senate seats, and the presidency to a guy named Barack Hussein Obama.
The latter, something most observers thought wouldn't happen in the United States until some time between the next arrival of Haley's Comet and when Kevin Costner evolves into a fish-humanoid hybrid to live on an Earth covered by H20.
It's amazing what can happen, however, when you have a Democratic president who doesn't live up to many of his core progressive promises, who blames his base for asking him to, and whose communications people, to quote Democratic National Committeeman and CNN Contributor Robert Zimmerman, "... couldn't sell cocaine to Charlie Sheen."
The results were on display this past Tuesday, when an American public tired of being unemployed, scared about their future, and looking for some kind of leadership, handed over the US House - in stunning fashion - to a coterie of cranks who have to put corks on the end of their forks not to jab their own eyes while eating. Think Steve Martin's Ruprecht from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and you get the basic picture of some of the Tea Party proxies we elected to Congress last week.
Much has been written about how Jane Kim beat San Francisco's "progressive machine" last week to win the District 6 Supervisor race. But a precinct analysis of the election results tells a far bigger story, and explains how she pulled it off. Just like Howard Dean's Fifty State Strategy helped Democrats win nationwide, Jane Kim was everywhere - and conceded no part of District 6. Debra Walker carried the North Mission and a few progressive pockets, but racking up margins in some core precincts is not enough when your opponent actively contests every neighborhood. Kim beat Walker in the Tenderloin (where she had a better operation), and easily won the Chinese precincts - but also carried places like Treasure Island and the Western Addition. And as Jane's field coordinator for condos in Eastern SOMA, I'm very proud she won those precincts by a landslide - as we were the only campaign to show up. These were the Rob Black voters of 2006, but Kim proved that even a progressive can win those neighborhoods - if you bother to talk to them.
Republicans have not even popped the corks of their celebratory champagne bottles yet and already there is a anti-Tea Party coup in the works the goal of which is to torpedo the presidential aspirations of Sarah Palin before her campaign even gets underway. A damming article from Politico which broke just yesterday revealed a concerted if uncoordinated effort taking shape among Republican leaders to see that Palin does not secure the 2012 Republican nomination for president. Quoting Politico:"Interviews with advisers to the main 2012 presidential contenders and with other veteran Republican operatives make clear they see themselves on a common, if uncoordinated, mission of halting the momentum and credibility Palin gained with conservative activists by plunging so aggressively into this year's midterm campaigns...There is rising expectation among GOP elites that Palin will probably run for president in 2012 and could win the Republican nomination, a prospect many of them regard as a disaster in waiting..."There is a determined, focused establishment effort ... to find a candidate we can coalesce around who can beat Sarah Palin," said one prominent and longtime Washington Republican. "We believe she could get the nomination, but Barack Obama would crush her." Thus it would appear that the trains are already on the track for what will be the first train wreck between the G.O.P. esthablishment and the Tea Party Movement.You can add to this developing drama the existing controversy between Ms. Palin and Tea Party star Joe Miller, the current Alaska Senatorial contender whom Palin backed against Lisa Murkowski only to have Miller short change Palin when it came time to endorse her presidential aspirations. This G.O.P. esthablishment - Tea Party friction has been below the surface since the movement gained traction during the 2009 health care reform debates. Appearing on Fox News with Greta Van Sustern in the summer of 2009, Rush Limbaugh was nothing if not emphatic in his denunciation of the Republican leadership and the veiled contempt that they have for the Tea Party Movement generally and Sarah Palin in particular. Tensions only grew more intense as the Tea Party Movement knocked off several Republican veterans and hand picked contenders during primary season. Thereafter the movement went on to put a number of Republicans not currently running for re-election on notice that they too were in the movement's cross hairs.
In an interview with the National Journal, Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell said: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," Is McConnell's rhetoric aimed at placating the Tea Party or does he actually believe that in the depths of the Great Recession, this is the single most important goal for a victorious Republican Party? What happened to the never-ending Republican cry: "Where are the jobs?" What became of all of the talk of reducing the size of government, of tax policy and talk about how to "grow the economy."? Now on the brink of victory the Republican elites have shown their hand and it consists first and foremost of political priorities aimed at winning the 2012 presidential election and making sure that Sarah Palin isn't around to screw things up. What happened to the G.O.P's big effort to "listen to the American people" this past summer? Thus we see just how important the dire state of the economy is to the elites who fashion Republican political strategy. Have McConnell and his lieutenants already misread the election's outcome, taking it to mean that they have a mandate in spite of the fact that they are polling at lower favorability ratings then the Democrats that are about to be turned out of office? Have they misread a vote of protest for an endorsement of the Republican Party line which it can't possibly be given the G.O.P.s historically low standing among voters? That said, how long would it be before the voters come down with that old sinking feeling of buyer's remorse? Surely if the immediate follow on to the midterm elections is the out break of an intra-party civil war within the G.O.P. what else could a weary and disgruntled electorate feel but buyer's remorse, dismay and disgust. The election's outcome will certainly cause the Democrats to circle the wagons and try to regroup for 2012. But it already seems like the G.O.P. and the Tea Party are in the process of circling the rifles into a circular firing squad and that can't be good at a time like this when the country is desperately in need of solutions to deep seated problems of long standing. The final question from all of this is: Has the Republican Party gotten more than it bargained for in its marriage of convenience with the Tea Party and is it too late to unwind the relationship before it tears the G.O.P. to shreds in an intraparty conflict that could end the Republican Party as we presently know it?
This was a reply to a comment in a GOTV diary called Suppose Your Actions Swung the Election. I compare what I saw happening (and not happening), to what could have happened, that would have made a big difference.
The Democratic Party is spending nearly 100 million dollars raised in part from foreign contributions to help elect more immigration reform minded men and women to Congress.
If you happen to be a conservative of the Grand Old tea Party variety, how does such startling "amnesty" related news make you feel?
Suspicious? Fearful? Angry? Perhaps even more xenophobic than usual?
Each of those emotional responses would be expected from tea partiers had the Democratic Party actually taken this foreign money -- it has not.
The "U.S." Chamber of Commerce however, is a different story entirely.
All the various kinds of professional leftist I know, are not sitting on their hands. No sirree. They are standing on their feet handing out campaign lit for Democratic candidates. They are on phones trying to get other Democrats and Democratic leaning independents to vote for Democratic candidates. They are toiling away at their computers sending out Dear Neighbor letters and emails to get those very same folks to come out on November 2nd to vote for Democrats. They are even, within their means, at fundraisers for Democrats.
THEY ARE OUT THERE DOING PRODUCTIVE ELECTORAL WORK. Why? One because they are always there, but this year they know the right is just populated by nuts who think the 19th century is too progressive. Because they are devoted to the issues that represent the Democratic party. Because they believe those principles can be used to animate people enough to go to the polls. Though, sadly at this point in time, it must only be to preserve what has already been accomplished. Some of it great like Social Security, yes, and even the not nearly good enough the health care bill. We know that these accomplishments may not be sturdy enough to survive the right wing Sherman's March to the sea. Without electing Democrats and keeping Democrats in control of Congress, they could well be gone with the wind.
Republicans continue to prove over and over again they are not at all embarrassed by stuff like this [Running on Democratic legislation they've opposed]. Democrats, on the other hand are proving themselves to be afraid of their own shadows. they're essentially refusing to campaign. that's a surefire way to win. What could they campaign on? Well, Republicans apparently think that democrats could be campaigning on reforming the health care system in this country, because a ton of the stuff that Democrats did in the health care bill Republicans put in their new "Pledge to America" and are running on that as if it is their own record, as if they're not talking smack about health reform. They're running on those ideas, because they think the American people will like those ideas. Democrats, on the other hand, actually implemented those ideas and they're refusing to run on them. With the stimulus, it's the exact same thing. Republicans are trying to bring home to their constituents all the economic benefits of the stimulus plan, all of the jobs that it will create. while talking all sorts of smack about the stimulus saying it doesn't work, it's a waste, trying to take credit for the fact it does work. Republicans have no problem running on the Democrats' record. But Democrats apparently will not. As we said on this show last night, Democrats have a weird inferiority complex when it comes to campaigning. They like their own ideas better, but they like the way Republicans run for office better. Well, The way they're fronted for office this year is running on the achievements of this year. Democrats, if you don't believe enough in yourself, just copy what the Republicans are doing, because they're running on your record.
I feel compelled to make a quick comment about the Axelrod/hippie punching moment in the blogger call yesterday, because I have been in Axelrod's shoes and know how tough those moments are.
I'll say at the outset that I have been extremely critical of the Obama political strategy much of the time over the last couple of years, including in a sharply worded post just a couple of days ago which Susie referenced in her question to David. I have been angry at the "left of the left" and "professional left" type of insults thrown out too often by this White House, not because I was personally offended but because I thought it was stupid politically and I want this President to succeed. I think the White House needs to expect these kinds of questions from bloggers when they dish out the insults themselves.
Here's the deal though: when your job is to speak for the administration, and defend it from attacks, you can't be passive when asked a question like that. Axelrod has been criticized for pushing back on Susie's question, but I don't think he had many options. I was on the call and all the questions up until then had been more traditional sounding questions in topic and tone, and then Susie went for it. I don't blame Susie for the question, not at all- like I said the White House needs to understand they will get these kinds of questions from bloggers. But I think David didn't have many options but to try and push back a little, try to form some common ground (with his "you're right, on both sides" line), but also to defend.
Look, a White House spokesperson can't just say "you are right, we suck" in reaction to that kind of question. And I have been in his situation, being forced to take the heat for things done by other people in that building. The irony here is that, admitting some bias here because David is an old friend, I think Axelrod is one of the good guys inside. From everything I have heard, he has been on the right side of most of the debates inside, has pushed back pretty consistently against folks like Geithner on policy and personnel decisions, and has been the leading advocate for a more populist message and policy. By all accounts, he was the leading advocate for bringing Elizabeth Warren in. And I am fairly sure I know who has done most of the anonymous left trashing talk, and it has definitely not been David, who I am consistently told is the leading advocate for reaching out to the base.
David's answer to Susie wasn't eloquent. The tone wasn't just right because he was caught by surprise. Having been in his shoes, I know these moments are tough. But I do hope people will cut him some slack on this, because I think he is one of the good guys in that building on Pennsylvania Avenue.
So the word is that given a chance to really put the GOP on the spot - the chance to force a vote on extending only the middle-class tax cuts, forcing Republicans to vote no in order to save their beloved tax cuts for the rich - Democrats will ... punt.
Although the exact micro-mechanics are not clear to me--it looks like Senators who aren't on the line this year (Ben Nelson, perhaps?--he suggested paying for rich folks tax cuts with not-yet-spent stimulus funds) may well have been the key players in all this, the overall long-term dynamics are well-nigh impossible to ignore, and Congressional Blue Dogs could easily have pulled out of the nosedive well in advance if they'd had the least bit of inclination to do so.
They didn't. And, of course, they are likely to be the most vulnerable to defeat, on average, as the result of overall Democratic ineffectiveness, which they have largely contributed to, as well as this last-minute failure to take a defining stand.
No doubt there are myriad "good reasons" for this--their donor bases, their friends, their money-making career ambitions after leaving Congress, etc. But when push comes to shove it all basically comes down to this: they were less interested in winning as Democrats--their primary public identification--than they were in other things.
This is hardly news, of course. They've been doing this sort of thing since before they were even called "Blue Dogs". And what it simply means is that they are more defined by hatred for other Democrats than they are by anything that should bind them together.
But what struck me at this particular time was the parallel between their thinking on the right and the thinking on the left we've seen expressed here lately by some folks who seemingly would rather see the Democrats defeated this election, to punish them, regardless of what happens to the nation as a response.
Now, I don't want to put myself in the position of making any specific accusations--particularly since (A) I generally find these sorts of "both sides do it" arguments to be both lazy and sloppy as well as pernicious and (B) I'd rather be proven wrong. So I'd like to hear from people who are not inclined to support Democrats right now (not just folks like me who are highly critical of them, as I am) and I'd like to hear them explain to me how they are not like mirror images of the Blue Dogs.
I'd really like to know how they see things differently than that. How is your hatred of Blue Dogs (and other Dems as well, from what I've heard) and willingness to see Dems defeated this year not a mirror image of the Blue Dogs, and how is this not a contest to see who's hatred is stronger?
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