Open Left

except they dont.

Each additional blue dog works with the Republicans ON THE COMMITTEE LEVEL to ensure that before a piece of legislation gets to the house floor it already has had the progressive life sucked out of it.

Your numbers don't work on the House level (50+ public blue dogs at present, another 20-30 that side with them in negotiations). They really don't work on the committee level where the margins and composition are vastly different.

But all of that is just numbers.  Politics is perception - to have a large groups of powerful vocal members of your own party criticizing pieces of your agenda, to have them mimicking the attacks of the opposition party is very effective in killing legislation and moving the overton window a mile the other direction.

For to long Progressives have been quiet and worked hard at playing nice and being content to get table scraps.  We need to re-learn (or in some cases learn for the first time) to be vocal, aggressive and not at all content with little bits of success.  Incremental does not work, you get an inch, if that inch doesn't show dramatic success, you end up losing 2.5 inches.  You never get the next increment.

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by: mp @ Wed Apr 01, 2009 at 21:56:21 PM CDT