Perhaps because the Republicans eat their own if they aren’t hardcore enough (Lisa Murkowski and Mike Castle as recent examples), and the Democrats see that their tent is big enough for everyone (even DINOs like Lincoln)?  It goes along with the whole liberal philosophy, but it sure makes the D’s look weak.  Always the same argument: how do you defeat the bad guys without turning into the bad guys?

</rhetorical questions>

Maybe the so-called Blue Dogs vote a certain way because they believe they should.

Call me naive, but I don’t automatically assume that every time a politician doesn’t vote the way I want him or her to, it means he or she is following some cynical political calculus.

The Democratic Party is truly more inclusive than the Republican, which means there’s going to be a lot more disagreement and a lot less voting in lockstep. Yes, that can be frustrating when you’re up against a seeming monolith, but it’s the price you pay for inclusiveness.

You could even maybe say that this dichotomy is a microcosm of democracy vs. totalitarianism. Totalitarian governments are more “efficient” than democracies because they stifle dissent and leave the decision-making in the hands of a relative few (or one person). But by their inclusiveness, democracies incorporate a self-corrective feature that tyrannies lack. This is why democracies tend to endure, while tyrants usually end up leading their nations, very efficiently, off a cliff.

The congresscritter—> lobbyist pipeline doesn’t help.

There’s no need to fear losing your seat when losing it means a fat income as lobbyist.

Basically I’m with David Sirota on these issues. Forget about Dems and Reps. It’s all about the people party which is perhaps half of the Democrats and then there’s the money party which is the rest. These Blue Dogs might lose their seats in congress, but that only means their real careers can start with a cushy job as a lobbyist or on some board of directors somewhere. I do wonder about the psychology behind it all to be sure, but in the end it’s all about the money.

Part of the reason that blue dogs act like Republicans is because they are elected by Republicans. Arkansas went 60% McCain, so that means that Lincoln has to vie for the most liberal 17% of Republican voters. Blue dogs aren’t endangered because they are blue dogs, endangered incumbents are blue dogs because they are endangered.

You can argue that Americans know nothing about policy and she will get painted as a socialist anyway so why bother, but I don’t think that Blanche is in some sort of bubble where she never found out that Arkansas is secretly liberal. The only way to get rid of blue dogs is to do like republicans and “eat our own” as well.

Laughing right now at the idea that BushCo were the masters of finance and diplomacy…

To be fair, they are much more lefty than the Republicans in their state. There actually used to be Republicans like this from the other side—there were Republicans from MA who were much more liberal than most southern Democrats (I’m thinking of Ed Brooke). They’re pretty much all gone now (although New England Republicans still tend to be better than southern and western ones).

Awkward, Nate Silver did a good job quantifying when a blue dog is useful http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/2009s-most-valuable-democrat-is.html

Basically we want to have Dems in office that are more liberal than there district. The bigger the difference between a Congressmember’s liberalness and their districts liberalness, the more valuable that Congressmember is. And when a Congress member is more conservative than their districts, that is when we primary them out—even if they aren’t “blue dogs.”

I’m actually assuming that, once the GOP teabags itself out of existence, the Democrats will split between the liberals and the Blue Dogs, leaving the Blue Dogs as the center-right party that the Republicans used to be…

Anybody who can look back on the Cheney/Bush Administration and think it represented anything more than the lowest point for the federal government in at least a century, and some of the most embarrassing 8-years in all of US history, has emphatically earned the obligation to shut-the-fuck-up for at least a couple decades…

I am really happy that the Clintons and the President spent so much time working on Senator Lincoln so that she could win the primary, having never polled within 15 points of the Republican who would be running against her. It’s very important to slavishly adhere to promoting the incumbent at all costs, regardless of whether they’ve run their course and shit all over your legislation in the process.

The problem is that we don’t have two parties, we have one party, the GOP and then a loose coalition of individuals with widely varying interests and goals, some of which overlap with the GOP to such an extent that they are almost indistinguishable. So it’s the party of assholes and the party of everyone else, including a few assholes.

@ #2—The question isn’t whether Blue Dogs believe what they vote for—I suspect most of them decide how to vote the same way as any other congressperson—based on some mixture of personal belief, what they believe their constituents want or need, and what’s politically advantageous (what will get them favors from other reps, media attention, etc). The question, though, is why they don’t run as Republicans, when their beliefs fall closer to the Republican platform than the Democratic one. 

One answer is that some of them are basically lingering Dixiecrats—they’ve been in politics since before the South decided to forgive Abe Lincoln and vote Republican. That process started decades ago, but it was slow—Georgia didn’t elect it’s first post-civil-war Republican governor till 2002. Some conservative southern Democrats flat-out switched parties, but many of the ones who waited it out aren’t especially welcome—if they tried to run as Republicans now, they’d be hustled out and replaced with some teabagger post-haste. Honestly, I think a lot of them would switch parties, were it not for knowing they’d promptly be branded a RINO and run out of politics altogether. For better and worse, the Democratic party doesn’t purge it’s members who get too friendly with the opposition.

Yeah my region is like that too. The Democrats are conservative and the Republicans think that “Red Dawn” was a documentary.

And Republicans do have a few moderate members in NE like Snowe and Collins and Brown. They would have had Castle too. While they just seem slightly less insane to us, they give folks like John McKay up there a totally-not-racist hernia. And when they sacrifice those people for ideological purity, they end up with less elected Republicans overall.

I also think Keith at 17 makes a really good point. We have Republicans and not Republicans and it makes the Dems much more difficult to control.

We have a 1.2 party system, maybe 1.3 on a good day.

As for today’s decision to curl up and die on the tax cut expiration issue, I can only present this Blackadder video and direct your attention to the dialogue at 3:53-4:43.

I think that the much simpler answer is that they are simply bought and paid for corporate tools (certainly that is true of Landrieu, Nelson, and Lincoln).

The really painful part about the syndrome you’ve described Amanda is how frequently the people we consider to be our allies, the so-called “liberal Democrats,” like the President and Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer, insist upon lending their continued support to those Blue Dogged assholes. Why? 

Remember, one of the main reasons Blanche Lincoln is even in position to get her ass kicked in November is because Barack Obama and the Big Dog (among many others) both actively campaigned for her in the primary. Recall that the establishment was also pretty firmly aligned against Joe Sestak in his primary against Arlen Specter.

And why does the President continually feel the compunction to kiss Ben Nelson’s ass, not to mention Bart Stupak’s?  He should just leave those two miserable, self-important bastards alone to have their little circle jerk with Joe Lieberman the way they always do. 

So, in addition to the “Why do the Blue Dogs insist on fucking up the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects every chance they get?” question, there’s the “Why do the people the ‘Far Lefties’ count on insist on enabling that bunch of gutless Blue-bellied cowards?”  It the age-old conundrum.

The most Bitter of Scribes wrote:

Maybe the so-called Blue Dogs vote a certain way because they believe they should.

Call me naive, but I don’t automatically assume that every time a politician doesn’t vote the way I want him or her to, it means he or she is following some cynical political calculus.

I’d add this: the Blue Dogs pretty much represent their districts and the feelings of their constituents.  And that’s true on the Republican side of the aisle: Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Mike Castle, the now-departed Lincoln Chafee and Jim Jeffords all represented fairly moderate constituencies, and even though they were Republicans, they were more moderate Republicans from a population of more moderate Republicans.

I know! It was a really great article, and I was sure to bookmark it when I first read it. There is a reason Nate Silver is my imaginary boyfriend.

Norbizness wrote:

I am really happy that the Clintons and the President spent so much time working on Senator Lincoln so that she could win the primary, having never polled within 15 points of the Republican who would be running against her. It’s very important to slavishly adhere to promoting the incumbent at all costs, regardless of whether they’ve run their course and shit all over your legislation in the process.

Welcome to the club!  Conservative Pennsylvania Republicans felt exactly the same way about President Bush pulling out all the stops to help Senator Arlen Specter defeat Representative Pat Toomey in the 2004 senatorial primary.

Librarian and Keith are correct. Being a Blue Dog is lucrative.

I agree with PWI at #11 as well. But getting that kind of “message control” in the Democratic Party of today is impossible so long as the ones running the party are on the take from the same lobbyists and sugar daddies as the GOP.

I don’t think it’s any of that. The political establishment, be it consultants, vets, the media, the punditry, etc. are very blinded on what they’re looking for. They’re looking to convince the “swing voter” to vote for them. The “independent”, whatever.

The problem is who this “swing voter” generally is. It’s suburbia. It’s the middle-class/upper middle class mindset, that wants rising retirement and property values, without anything that might make them feel uncomfortable. They think the poor deserve what they get, and they deserve even worse. They think that everybody beneath them is a lazy, irresponsible loser. It’s why there was basically little actual stimulus and direct job creation done.

And the sad thing is, the establishment might not be wrong on the practicality of this. Because it’s made more difficult for the poor to vote, you really do need to cater to these selfish individuals.

It’s pretty clear why the conservadems don’t just turn Rethug - they would lose their seniority and privilege. By staying Dems their seniority buys them choice committee assignments and in some cases chairmanships (even though they shouldn’t be anywhere near those positions considering their party loyalty); plus they have the added bonus of having America’s first black prez beg them to let him stick his tongue as far up their ass as he can and give it a good wriggle, all the while kicking his hippy base in the teeth as he does it. If they switch sides then they lose all that and become another junior member of the herd (assuming they win against the teabaggers in the primaries).

Yes, because people like you suck.

I’m going to defend Obama’s support for Lincoln: she basically took a dive for the administration by supporting Health Care Reform. The least Obama could have done was to support her primary campaign in exchange. I still think she is being a dink: it’s pretty obvious she’s going to lose and lose badly, so the least she could have done was come down on the right side of history and support the repeal of DADT.

Okay, a brief and simplified history lesson:

1. Before the Civil Rights era, neither the Democratic or Republican parties were political parties in the European sense of the word. This basically means that neither really revolved around a particular ideology but rather consisted of geographic-class-ethnic alliances. The Democratic Party was the party of the South, urban areas, ethnic whites (re Catholics and Jews), and too a lesser extent the Great Plains. The Republican Party was the party of the North East, the Mid West, West, and Protestants outside the South. Both parties had members that were all over the place ideologically.

  2. From about the 1920s, liberals began to leave the Republican Party for the Democratic Party in droves. This accelerated during the Hoover administration and New Deal. Than in the Civil Rights era, the South abandoned the Democratic Party. This eventually led the Republican Party becoming more conservative, a process that was complete by the Reagan administration.

  3. While the Democratic Party lost a lot of conservative members, it did not loose all of them like the Republicans lost their liberal membership. Many in the Democratic Party believe that Democrats need to run conservatives and moderates in conservative and moderate districts and states in order to win control of Congress. This means that Blue Dogs are seen as absolutely politically necessary even though they can also cause trouble for the Democratic Party at crucial moments. The basic belief is that without Blue Dogs, you get a permanent Republican majority.

Amanda… cleanup in aisles 35 and 37!

That you admit that and even celebrate it is something that quite honestly I find quite pathetic. Although to be honest I suspect with most of the people I’m talking about it’s not about race, or even about class. It’s about the knowledge that the person that they look down upon works much harder and in the end is truly more important than they are.

Hornet at 25: No, Democratic or Republican President is going to support a primary challenger against an incumbent because it only makes the party look weak. Bush didn’t support Toomey against Specter for the same reasons in 2004, as Dana at 30 pointed out. The last President to support challengers against incumbents was FDR and it didn’t turn out so well for him. Its just something that isn’t done for simple political reasons, it highlights divisions within a party in a way that an unendorsed primary challenge doesn’t. You never highlight divisions in a party so openly.

  Even in the most civilized of countries like Sweden, politics is still a blood sport. America is no where as civilized as Sweden.

Stick rule, I am white and my 5 housemates are white and my co-workers are all white.  We all voted for Obama, continue to support Obama, and plan to vote for him again in 2012.  White people are not the monolith that you think they are.  No one “woke up” when Obama was elected were people, the racists just got louder.  And may I remind you, racism, at its core, setting aside the social justice aspects of it, it just stupid.  It’s not based on any biological reality and is, in fact, contrary to evolutionary principles that require group cohesion.  So you and your group of idiots waving your misspelled signs go enjoy yourselves.  No matter how many battles you win, you’re still ugly and you’re still stupid.

Maybe the so-called Blue Dogs vote a certain way because they believe they should.

Which is, of course, the point of the post.

“I wish you guys were as strong as you believed yourselves to be so you could push all of your racists over to us.  It would make our job a lot easier.”

...um, you’re a little too late.  You guys got the vast majority of them years ago.

While not all Republicans are racists, almost all the racists are either card-carrying Republicans or at least politically Reichwing.

So, you’re just going to have to make do with the racists you already have, Thick Drool…

Lee @39

I am not sure that the decision to run conservadems in conservative districts is a top down decision from the powers that be. Recruiting candidates in many conservative districts is really difficult and often times Dems from conservative districts are pretty conservative. Furthermore, individual candidates get a lot of leeway with how they feel they could best win in their districts. The parites here are not that strong

I’m going to take a stab at why the Blue Dogs aren’t Republican question that Amanda asked. The most likely reason is that they like Republican’s economic policy but they can’t stand the other aspects of the GOP; the race-baiting, the culture wars, the anti-intellectualism, and the demagoguery like the death panel “argument” during the health care debate. They also might not like the wilder aspects of GOP economic strategy like the belief that their should be no rules and no government involvement. Basically, they are conservative but much more intellectually honest and aren’t willing to put up with the nonsense of people like Palin or O’Donnell. At the same time, they don’t thing they have the necessary numbers to challenge Palin or her ilk and forge a better Republican party. So Blue Dogs aren’t Republican because they can’t stand many aspects of the GOP even though their economic views might align closely but not perfectly.

Alysia at 46: Yes and no. Its true that in the United States, there is a lot of local initiative in selecting who runs in particular district or state. However, the DNC and RNC do have some say in the matter, especially when it comes to funding from the party coffers. Howard Dean was a proponent of the 50-state ideal where you try to get Republican seats by running Democratic politicians that fit the seat ideologically better.

No, actually I don’t. At least for Crowley. I think he’s an authoritarian douchebag, but that’s par for the course.

Tancredo and Arpaio are simply obsessively nuts, yes they’re racist.

In the evil/stupid debate, when it comes to racism I tend to go to the stupid side. People take the bait that the economy is a zero-sum game, and instead of getting mad at the people who make it a zero-sum game, they take it out by trying to have their “tribe” “win” the game. When the major problem is that the powers that be are paranoid about the average joe getting ahead (OH NOES!! INFLATION!!!) and rig the game so that doesn’t happen.

Lee @47

I am not sure exactly how much blue dogs break ranks with the Dems. I know they often do it on the most high-profile issues, but I am in the Sioux Falls media market and they run anti Herseth-Sandlin ads all the time claiming she voted with Obama 90% of the time. I also think that some of them try to be as liberal as they feel they can be, but balk at things that would lose too much political support. And not only do some of them like Republican’s economic policy and dislike their social views (like Herseth-Sandlin who is very pro-choice and has a mixed record on things like gay rights and affirmative action) or they can be social conservatives with more liberal economic positions like Stupak or Jim Webb.

With Lincoln and DADT, she either is a giant homophobe or she is delusional about her chances in November (politicians have huge egos, remember) and she thought that this would up her “not a secret muslin commie” cred and put her back in the running.

and @ 48,

I agree that the national party does have some effect and Howard Dean’s plan did specifically set out to recruit candidates in red areas, but party funding is a tiny portion of overall campaign funds and will only shrink in importance in light of the recent Supreme Court Ruling.

If Blue Dogs are voting against cloture, we should kick them out.  Period.  They are no longer Democrats, no longer get seniority.

They can vote against it when it’s up for a vote - not when it’s up for debate.  Shutting down debate should be reserved for reserved for real things… But joining with the other party on cloture?  No.

I can’t but go with the notion of congress as a resume enhancer for more lucrative jobs. Some people stay for a long time, but the ones who shuffle out do very well for themselves, for the most part. Which is another way the system gets captured. Is there an obvious place to look for trends in relative longevity for dems versus republicans?

Alysia at 50: You are correct, most Blue Dogs vote the party line more often than not. Even Lieberman still votes with the Democratic Party the majority of the time. I wouldn’t necessarily call Stupak, a social conservative. Abortion freaks him out but seems to have a relatively moderate to liberal stance on other social issues like LBGT rights. He is basically an old-school blue-collar Democratic politician.

Er, it’s Pete Townshend.  Not Townsend.

Sorry, that’s been bugging me.

First of all, if you ever listen to talk radio or watch Fox News you’ll quickly realize Republicans think the same about THEIR party—that they’re too far to the left, that the Democrats are lefty purists, that Republicans are spineless wimps, and so on.

Second, there are different kinds of Blue Dogs. There are anti-choicers who still vote for the EFCA and health care reform. There are pro-choiceers who vote against the EFCA and healthcare and so on. They aren’t all Zell Miller and quite a few really ARE the best you can elect in their districts.

Third, I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories. Blue Dogs want to get elected, and I think they want to be in the majority so they can their committee chairmanships, just like everyone else. But they think they have to be to the right of where the Democrats are to get elected. In some places this may be true. In other districts/states, not. But the downside is that this harms the Democrats as a WHOLE even if it helps them individually.

Comment #39: sticke rule on 09/23 at 07:53 PM

Didn’t you used to be called “Otis the Sweaty”?

This isn’t a white supremacist, it’s a half-assed parody of one.

Look, I’ve been lurking for a while, and I’m sorry I haven’t commented.  I just went through a rough period, and I’m getting out of it.  But I’ve got to ask one question…

Why the fuck are you all still feeding the troll?  It’s not even funny anymore.

Exactly Ben, it is a collective action problem. What is good for the individuals in the short term (play up conservative credo and run against the party) is bad for the collective (and the individual in the long run, but then we’re all dead).

Welcome Angry Geologist. And you don’t need to apologize for not commenting
I would guess there are a lot more readers than commenters.

Stick rule-

Are you now, or have you ever been, “Otis the Sweaty”?

I agree w/ Crissa #51. Doesn’t that really come down to the leadership - the whip in particular?

Comment #63: sticke rule on 09/23 at 09:37 PM

The Commentariat Un-Pandagonian Activities Committee (CUPAC) finds that answer unacceptable. I’m afraid you’re going to be banned, and your comments deleted as soon as our Leader returns.

The obvious reason they’re Democrats is that’s how the got elected. We think of them as very conservative but they are probably too liberal to win a Republican primary.

I’m also a little confused as to how they make things worse for Democrats. Most of the Blue Dog Democrats are from conservative states that would otherwise be Republican. It might be more annoying to have someone that seems to desert you at key junctures but isn’t it still better than a person that votes against you 90-100% of the time. Especially since Democrats would be a minority party if all the Blue Dogs changed to Republicans (there are 54 of them).

Lee:

I wouldn’t necessarily call Stupak, a social conservative. Abortion freaks him out but seems to have a relatively moderate to liberal stance on other social issues like LBGT rights.

If he’s trying to control women’s bodies, he’s a social conservative, regardless of what centrists like you want to think.

I’m afraid you’re going to be banned, and your comments deleted as soon as our Leader returns.

Yeah - you’ll all be sorry when the Hidden Ma’am returns!

Yeah - you’ll all be sorry when the Hidden Ma’am returns!

Win!

Just as an example, if the Democrat Congressman in my district doesn’t stay moderate, and occasionally vote against some of the President’s agenda, he will be voted out of office (if not recalled) fairly quickly.

I’m not 100% certain about this, but I don’t believe federal legislators can be recalled by their constituents. There is currently an effort underway by some teaklanners in New Jersey to try to recall Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Menendez. The N.J. state courts have thus far ruled that such a recall is legal under the N.J. state constitution, but the question of whether or not it is authorized by the U.S. Constitution has yet to be settled, and legal scholars disagree on the matter. In 1967, there was an attempt to recall U.S. Senator Frank Church (D-ID), and federal courts ruled that states do not have the power to recall federal officeholders. A similar attempt was made last year to recall Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), but the effort failed to get enough signatures to even move forward.

There has never been a U.S. Senator or U.S. Congressman recalled from office, and should a recall effort result in the officeholder being recalled, the matter would probably wind up being litigated before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Some conservative southern Democrats flat-out switched parties

One such person is a current member of Congress…

Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL)
Democrat 1964-1994
Republican 1994-present

He switched parties literally the day after the GOP takeover in the 1994 midterms. On the one in a zillion chance that the GOP retakes the Senate as well as the House in 39 days, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Joe Lieberman pull the same stunt.

I’ve pretty much accepted that the Orange Boehner is gonna become the next Speaker of the House in January, but I’m not too worried about the Democrats losing the Senate. Christine O’Donnell’s nomination guarantees that the Democrats will hold onto VP Biden’s old seat, which they were expected to lose when it appeared Mike Castle was going to be the GOP nominee.

Corporate interests understand that it’s better to own two parties than to own one.  In addition to paying some folks to be Republican, they pay others to be Blue Dogs.  In races that pit Republicans against Blue Dogs, it’s win-win for corporate interests.

I’d add one more to that… they pay anybody who has a realistic chance of becoming the president, as well.

I do not regret voting for Barack Obama nor do I think we would have been better off had Montgomery Burns and the Mama Grizzly won instead. But the sad truth is that President Obama is also heavily indebted to a lot of corporate people who helped to put him in the White House… he raked in a ton of money in small donations from everyday people like most of us here, but he also took in quite a bit of money from the CEO class as well, and many of these folks gave money to both him and McCain, knowing that regardless of who won the election, they would have a degree of White House access.

That’s the game.

Murrow Fan at 72: The only way to get corporate money out of political campaigns is to amend the Constitution and actually limit the First Amendment because of current Supreme Court rulings. Somehow, I do not think that there is much of a desire for this.

It’s pretty clear why the conservadems don’t just turn Rethug - they would lose their seniority and privilege.

And very likely, their jobs.

Freshman Congressman Parker Griffith, who represents the Alabama 5th Congressional District, became a Republican in December 2009, barely 11 months after he was sworn in as a Democrat in January of that year.

Griffith was pretty useless as a Democrat, and he thought he would be better off on the other side. Unfortunately for him, the other side didn’t really want him… he just got primaried out of his seat back in June, and his Congressional career will have lasted a whopping two years when his replacement takes the seat. He may have wound up losing the seat anyway had he stayed a Democrat, but he’ll never get to find out.

And who is it that is going to get wiped out in the upcoming election? The centrists.

Being a congresscritter isn’t really that great a job. It’s just a stepping stone on the way to a more lucrative and secure gig as a corporate lobbyist or think tank fellow. A lot of these folks are just grifters who happen to be in politics for the moment.

I do not regret voting for Barack Obama nor do I think we would have been better off had Montgomery Burns and the Mama Grizzly won instead. But the sad truth is that President Obama is also heavily indebted to a lot of corporate people who helped to put him in the White House… he raked in a ton of money in small donations from everyday people like most of us here, but he also took in quite a bit of money from the CEO class as well, and many of these folks gave money to both him and McCain, knowing that regardless of who won the election, they would have a degree of White House access.

Also, Obama would never have gotten within a hundred miles of the Presidency if he wasn’t acceptable to corporate interests in the first place. If he were 1% of the socialist the Tea Crackers claim, he’d be out back with Ralph Nader.

It’s not so much that they buy influence over the candidates, it’s that they buy access to the job for people who already agree with them. If you’re not a mainstream pro-corporate market fetishist, your candidacy (should you somehow manage to get it off the ground in the first) will simply be airbrushed out of existence by the corporate media. You’re not “electable”.

It’s like Manufacturing Consent, only more so.

Murrow Fan wrote:

But the sad truth is that President Obama is also heavily indebted to a lot of corporate people who helped to put him in the White House

But he has the job now, and they can’t just fire him; other than his re-election concerns, he has no worries.  Perhaps he really isn’t as far to the left as you hoped, and Republicans feared; maybe he is pretty much just the way we see him.

”...maybe he is pretty much just the way we see him.”

...not sure what this means, Mr. Pico.  You nuts claim to see him as the reincarnation Lenin + Marx + Stalin + Mussolini + Hitler, with a dollop of The Antichrist thrown in for flavor.  Oops, forgot Mao Zedong, Castro, and Franco - they’re in there too.

We see a centrist Republican (before the Republican Party went insane), maybe just slightly to the left of Dwight Eisenhower, who under the current bizarre alignment of the parties makes him a solid, if conservative, Democrat.

I used to joke (although it’s basically the truth) that Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we had since Eisenhower, and Obama is a rival for that honor…

“It’s just a stepping stone on the way to a more lucrative and secure gig as a corporate lobbyist or think tank fellow. A lot of these folks are just grifters who happen to be in politics for the moment.”

In the age of Palin and O’Donnell, people who just aren’t bright enough to get a lobbying or think-tank position, they’re in it just for the fame and the inevitable monetary benefits that follow.  Maybe a book or three (ghostwritten, of course), a gig on Faux, speaking fees for talking to True Believers, etc.

It’s the political version of Famous For Being Famous.  Eventually you end up as a “judge” on Dancing With the Stars or have a “reality” show on VH1 or something. 

Better than working for a living…

MikeEss, my personal opinion of Barack Obama is that in Eric Alterman’s views is that he is “a doctrinaire liberal who wil settle for a ham sandwhich if he can’t get the whole hog.” I think his worldview is basically a liberal one, based on his statements, but I think he sees many limitations in what can actually be achieved political in the United States because of Republican insanity, the structure of government, and other issues. Basically, he is liberal but also thinks that politics is the “art of the possible”.

  Dunc at 75: Careful, through this thought process comes nihilism and hopelessness, which is just as good as handing victory to the enemy in a democratic government. Although, you are probably far more to the Left than I am, so you might see things differently. Money and special interests groups play a large role in American polictics more out of a design accident than anything else. The United States constitution was intended to create a counter-majoritarian system where the loosers of an election won’t be totally without say in the formation of government policy. This system of counter-majoritarian democracy has bad and good points. Money plays a large role because the First Amendment is absolutist and to reduce the role of money in politics would require a weakening of the First Amendment. Thats just the way it is.

  Finally politics in a democratic society is about getting people who really don’t think too deeply about the issues to agree with you. Most people aren’t really that ideological in nature and the left and the right can only achieve power by convincing the non-ideological that they are correct. Consent is something that is created, or in Chomsky’s term manufactured even in left-leaning countries. It is the very nature of politics. Corporations or whatever are just playing the game and even though I disgaree with them, I can’t blam them for doing what they feel is necessary.

Uh, you know, Lee, I wouldn’t say Obama’s worldview is a “liberal” one — unless you mean “to the right of a genuinely progressive one” — when he’s so hostile to GLBT rights that he won’t strike down DADT even when the opportunity is handed to him on a silver platter.

I realize that “pragmatists” consider oppressive views on gender to be acceptable within an overall “liberal worldview.” Of course, “pragmatists” are usually willing to cheerfully ignore gender issues. Hey, so long as straight cisgendered men aren’t affected, it’s just a silly “identity politics” issue, right?

For the purposes of this comment, we don’t even have to get into all the other ways in which Obama’s POV isn’t “liberal.”

Dunc at 75: Careful, through this thought process comes nihilism and hopelessness, which is just as good as handing victory to the enemy in a democratic government.

Translation: “ZOMG DO YOU WANT THE REPUBLICANS TO WIN??! OOGA BOOGA!! Shut up with your valid observations and continue to play the game! I mean, it works for me, a straight white guy, so it’ll work for everyone!”

Thats just the way it is.

No, that’s just the way you’re comfortable with seeing it.

MikeEss, my personal opinion of Barack Obama is that in Eric Alterman’s views is that he is “a doctrinaire liberal who wil settle for a ham sandwhich if he can’t get the whole hog.”

Based on his age and political background, this is almost certainly wrong. He politically came of age in the 80s and 90s at the height of the neoliberal consensus and during a time when The New Republic was taken ideologically seriously by Democrats desperate to prove that they were “serious.” Next, Obama’s experience in Chocago meant that his main attempt at “branding” himself was showing himself to be different from other black Chocago politicians: a bit more “reasonable” and a bit more open to “new [conservative] ideas”—the sort of guy who was able to get conservatives to get along with him at the Harvard Law Review. A lot of us were like him, but many got “radicalized” (in a manner of speaking) by the extremism of the 90s republicans and the Bish administration, and I think Obama missed out on that: the idea that you have to be a “fighting liberal.”

Most people aren’t really that ideological in nature and the left and the right can only achieve power by convincing the non-ideological that they are correct.

This is precisely wrong. People who are non ideological by nature don’t vote. People vote because they give a damn, and are thus going to be drawn to the politician that is like them: the one who gives a damn. No one wants to believe themselves to be someone who does not care that much about who he votes for, after all.

Nobody in Particular at 79: Considering that there is no genuine consensus on what is a “genuinely progressive one”, we can argue about Obama’s liberalism forever. Look at this newsgroup, the majority of us see ourselves as liberal, progressive, socialist, whatever and we all disagree on this. Look at the HCR as perfect example of this problem of defining what a “genuine progressive” worldview is. The advocates and defenders of the ACA see it as progressive because it at least establishes the principle that access to healthcare is more of a right than a privilege and something that the government has a legitimate right to take steps to provide access to the people. Others argue that the ACA is not “genuinely progressive” because it isn’t left enough for them.

  On LBGT rights in the military: So Obama uses his powers as commander-in-chief to let LBGT people serve. Than the next Republican president reverses this using his or her powers as commander-in-chief. Than the next Democratic President reverses the Republcian president. Rinse, wash, and repeat.

  Also, fuck you on your last point, which reads “as a straight, white man (and being a Jew doesn’t count as being a legitimate minority in your opinion apparently) you have no say in what is the best way forward for the Left in the United States at all). What is your strategy forward? I have yet to hear a convincing one. The operating strategy seems to be let the right wield as much havoc as possible than out of the wreckage, “genuine progressives” will magically appear and win votes at all levels of government leading the United States to a true golden age.

I apologize for my profanity in advance but the “straight, white male” comment really rubbed me in the wrong way.

Dunc at 75: Careful, through this thought process comes nihilism and hopelessness

No shit, Sherlock. We’re fucked. The only questions remaining are (a) whether climate change, peak oil, catabolic collapse, or world war are going to get us first, and (b) just how bad is it going to get: just really unimaginably bad, or near-extinction-of-the-human-race bad? We could have done something about all of these things, but because of political “realists” who didn’t want to rock the boat too much, it is now too late. We are fucked, and the precise details of our fuckedness don’t really make that much difference any more. Better buckle up and learn to dig graves.

which is just as good as handing victory to the enemy in a democratic government.

Remind me, which side is that again? ‘Cos all I see is a bunch of rich fucks loading up lifeboats for themselves and figuring out how to fuel them with the blood of the poor. The only difference between the sides is that one side is slightly more obviously insane than the other. Neither gives a happy monkey fuck about folks like you and me (well, me, anyway - I don’t know about you), except insofar as we can be exploited as resources to further their own ends. The “progressive” rhetoric of the Dems is just as much bullshit as the faux-populist rhetoric of the GOP, and deployed for exactly the same reasons.

Although, you are probably far more to the Left than I am, so you might see things differently.

Yeah, you could say that. Fortunately, I’m in the UK, so you’re not going to get to play “Thanks Ralph” with me.

Money and special interests groups play a large role in American polictics more out of a design accident than anything else.

That was the whole point of the project from the very start. It’s not a “design accident”, it’s simply “design”.

Corporations or whatever are just playing the game and even though I disgaree with them, I can’t blam them for doing what they feel is necessary.

Stop talking about them like they’re people. They’re not. They shouldn’t even have a seat at the table.

Sorry, I’m not in the best of moods today…

Murrow Fan at 72: The only way to get corporate money out of political campaigns is to amend the Constitution and actually limit the First Amendment because of current Supreme Court rulings. Somehow, I do not think that there is much of a desire for this.

I have an alternate proposal.

Enact a federal statute that federalizes the corporate charter process and preempts state corporations laws (sorry Delaware).  This will eliminate the existing state charters on which the “corporations are people too” nonsense is predicated.  This federal statute will explicitly state that corporations are not people and not entitled to constitutional rights.  For added measure, all corporate charters will contain language that they do not have the power to bring suit to protect any constitutional rights granted to people.

It would work, but the chances of it being done are roughly equal to the possibility of amending the constitution.  I.e. precisely zero.

Genuine Progressives (among those who actually became president): FDR, LBJ, and, to a lesser extent, Truman.  Teddy Roosevelt, although conservative by most measures, nonetheless had progressive policies toward breaking up monopolies, supporting workers, and ensuring a safe food supply, etc.  Hell, even Nixon had his progressive moments.

It is an absolute fact that Eisenhower, Nixon, and possibly even Reagan could not survive the current Teabagger-tainted Republican primary process.  Today’s “mainstream” Republicans seem more like parodies you’d see in Dr. Strangelove than actual people.  I wouldn’t be surprised to hear some moron like Christine O’Donnell start raving about protecting the Purity of Our Precious Bodily Fluids From Assault by Our Godless Enemies, which naturally includes everyone more liberal than Glenn Beck.  (I’ve heard that concern over fluoridation is coming back, for god’s sake.)  She already thinks scientists have created mice with human brains, who no doubt are plotting (working with aliens, Mormons, and Saul Alinsky) our doom at this very moment.  And don’t touch your wee-wee or your hoo-ha or you’ll make Baby Jesus cry, and possibly go blind too.

Obviously none of us can really know “what’s in Obama’s heart” (to use a wingnut phrase), and he’s unlikely to ever have the chance to be able to enact much of the legislation he wants, in the way he wants it (other than what we’ve already seen) so we’re probably never going to know.

I like the man, from what I’ve seen and heard, and I’m impressed by his accomplishments, but I’m also disappointed.  The political situation is really difficult right now, and the economic situation is worse.  So his hands are tied to large extent.  But I do think he could use his bully pulpit more effectively, to be more of a leader, to whip Democrats into doing something more than just be spineless vacillators.

I think about how FDR or LBJ would have handled these difficult times, and I can’t help but think there would be a serious amount of ass-kicking going on to get the president what he wanted. 

Oh well…

Stop talking about them like they’re people. They’re not. They shouldn’t even have a seat at the table.

Exactly.  I’ve even got a slogan to drive home this point: “corporations aren’t people, people are people.” 

I love using this on rightwing shitheads.  They inevitably* say something along the lines of “but corporate “personhood” is a useful legal fiction ...”  Then after a little more explanation I cut them off and say I don’t know what they are talking about because corporations aren’t people, only people are people. 

I love doing that.  I think it’s the way in which this approach cuts off any possibility of communication by refusing to accept their premises, while holding out the illusion that communication is possible if only they could get the right explanation of why corporations are people.

* OK, OK.  I admit I’ve only gotten into this argument exactly twice so maybe ‘inevitably’ is the wrong word.

Oh, baaaawwww, Lee. I’m of Jewish heritage myself. At this point in time, you and I still both count as “white.”

And I call bullshit on the “genuine consensus” crap, too. Obama isn’t a progressive or a liberal. If the Overton window hadn’t been pulled so hard to the right over the last few decades, that’d be obvious to all you “softly, softly” wankers.

There’s another thing you’re missing Lee: you don’t need to patronizingly lecture us on this blog about the importance of voting. I always vote. So does just about everyone else here. I’m going to support the Dems, and I don’t think anyone doubts that, but you can’t win an election with just me. You need to give the rest of the electorate a reason to be enthusiastic, and Obama isn’t doing that. There are the people who are liberal but might or might not vote, and that’s who Obama is losing here. Of course, your hippy-punching instinct compels you to blame the people in front of you rather than the people driving the ship, bur I’m here to tell you that you’re misguided.

Tyro: Good comments.

(And, yep, I vote. And write letters to congresscritters and the White House. And sign petitions. And do some behind-the-scenes stuff like data entry for certain political orgs.)

I believe “Why Blue Dogs?” is leadership style.

Blue Dogs are House members.  There are 435 total members in the House.  54 of which are Blue Dogs. 178 are currently Republicans.  So the Blue Dogs hold a 21% total of the Democratic House Majority.

Having only the news articles to go by I’d say Nancy Pelosi is more of a Consultation style leader as compared with Harry Reed’s Consensus style.

Speaker Pelosi has the leverage of total numbers in the house to pressure Blue Dogs to more or less fall in line.  They (blue Dogs) also have the shield of numbers to vote in line with the majority of hop the aisle without impacting the legislative process too much.  (Not having the ability to place secret holds or filibuster even bringing the legislation up for a vote helps a lot!)
Add to that Speaker Pelosi’s consulting leadership style, (i.e. “Thanks for your opinion, now I’ll make my decision.”) and you have a functional branch of government.

Reed on the other hand seems committed to getting consensus from the Senate.  Consensus is almost impossible with a group of more than 10.  When you throw in all the parliamentary tricks, super-egos, insulation from responsibility and lack of accountability with chairmanships and committee positions, you have a completely dysfunctional branch.

Finally, Obama is sadly a delegator and rules-lawyer.  He refuses to throw his weight around and has a concrete interpretation of what the rules are and refuses to even consider bending them, liberally interpreting the definitions of the wording or using power and politics to achieve his stated goals.

He’s not goal orientated.  He’s fanatical about the process and how it works and making sure that every by-law is obeyed.  And sadly, he’s not interested in process improvement.  Neither is any member of the dysfunctional branch of the legislative.

Thus in the attitude he projects:
DADT MUST go through the Pentagon and Congress to be overturned.
Warrantless wire-tapping MUST go through the DOJ and Congress.
Guantanamo MUST go through Congress and be defended by the DOJ.

He uses the process as a shield so he can defend himself and say “We have precedence,” rather than make an executive decision.

And so Blue Dogs are free to run around in Congress pissing on anything they want then giving their constituents the puppy-dog eyes every two years and promising to be good next time, while conservadems in the Senate just say “Fuck you, I have big bucks and the establishment paying for my media blitzes to lie to the <strike>know-nothings</strike> independents.

I am white and my 5 housemates are white and my co-workers are all white.  We all voted for Obama, continue to support Obama, and plan to vote for him again in 2012.

I hate to say this, but if this is supposed to be evidence that not all white people are racist, it’s pretty unconvincing.  Out of you, your 5 housemates, and all of your coworkers, there’s not a single person of color?  I’m guessing there’s a reason for that, even if none of you realize it. 

I do agree with you that this internalized racism doesn’t mean that all white people will make a mad dash to the right.  It is possible for a person to be aware of their internalized racism and use this awareness to avoid acting on it.  Most non-assholes do this.

Cynikal, while I think your point is well taken, referring to independents as “know nothings” is offensive at best.
Comment #92: Awkward

What’s offensive to me is not paying attention to your representitives until Labor Day. “Independent Voters” are the people who in poll after poll show that they favor progressive and/or Democratic agendas, usually by a 60/40 margin, yet still split 50/50 for Republicans.  They are know’nothings because every one I talk to says “I don’t WANT to know…”

If you’re offended that I call Independents “know-nothings” then too bad.  Choose a side.  The fact your’re here shows that you want to know more, you want to be educated.

And Blue Dogs aren’t giving constituents puppy dog eyes to re-elect them- they are not coming from bastionas of progressive liberals upset that they haven’t fallen in line with the Democrats. They are from conservative districts, the way they win is by saying that they weren’t in lock step with their party- showing their independence.

That is exactly what giving the puppy-dogs is.  They’re saying to their constituents “I’m sorry, honey, I love you.  I won’t hit you again if you’d just stop making me angry!”

Look at the history of current “red states.”  Kansas was a hot bed of socialist ideas.  Wiggleys ruled local legislation.  In the 1900’s the progressive ideas CAME from what are now red states.  But the Republicans and conservadems have for the last 100 years propagandized “Don’t look out for your own best interest, just OBEY your corporate masters! Collective barganing and class cooperation against the ruling class is BAD!!!”

And to say they come from conservative district is not just a cop-out but a fallicy.  Look at Alan Grayson, Dennis Kucinich, Max Baccus and Al Frankin just to name a few.

Dunc: On this we are going to have to agree to disagree, I don’t think we are fucked. We might be severly in trouble but we are not fucked.

  MikeEss: I was talking more about what it means to be a genuine progressive in terms of belief rather than who is a genuine progressive. I think we are all in agreement that you have to believe in universal healthcare to be a genuine progressive or liberal. However, there are many forms of universal healthcare in the world. Is somebody who favors the Bismarckian system like what they have in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland more than single-payer or is single-payer/public option the only way forward on universal healthcare. Both sides have mande several good arguments. I’m not triyng to be patronizing, just pointing out that people who consider themselves on the Left tend to be more prone to internal disagreement on what this means than the Right. This is a good thing usually.

    I do agree with you on Reagan not getting the Republican nomination in today’s GOP even though they venerate him like an Eastern Orthodox Icon.

    Cynickal: Being procedure bound is what separates constitutional rule from unconstitutional rule. Isn’t one of the things that we hated about Bush was that he ignored the Constitution and the relevant procedures to do what he wanted. Also, ending DADT in this way is actually probably for the best even though it will take longer. If Obama used his Commander-in-Chief powers to end DADT than the next GOP president would reverse him. Than the next Democratic President would reverse the GOP President and so on. A law, while not perfectly final, is more final than an executive order.

    Nobody in Particular: Regulating Jews to white status is simply a technique in order to not focus about thousands of years of Jew-hatred as anything but an afterthought, if at all. At least the Rightists are honest when they make it clear that they don’t care about us.

That’s an awfully good observation about Obama’s political outlook, cynikal. It is a sort of earnest belief that if all the various competing interest groups come together, have their voices heard, and ascribe to the right process, then good things will happen. What it ignores is the reality of incompatible interests and the powerful and the abusive always justify their position and behavior by appealing to the supposed fairness and inviolability of process: a process designed to keep them in power and (not coincidentally) changeable for THEIR benefit.

I’m reminded of Solzhenitsyn’s speech at Harvard where he, a guy with some experience suffering from caprice and a lack of belief in the rule of law saw the dark side in the western liberals (in the Enlightenment sense of the word):

I have spent all my life under a communist regime and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either. A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relations, there is an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man’s noblest impulses.

Which is not to say that the integrity of the law is bad, but that the right seems to understand how to use it to benefit and entrench their power, and Obama doesn’t understand that his commitment to a made-up process causes him to get played.

cynickal at 94: I agree with you about Blue Dogs but IMO you are simplifying the political history of Kansas and the Great Plains states a bit. Kansas was a safely Republican state since about the Civil War era with a few excpetions. Also,  a lot of the socialsit strength in American politics during the pre-WWI era came not from the Great Plains states but the North East and Mid-West, particularly in the cities. Especially the cities with large numbers of immigrants. The Great Plains was the source of populism, which was also leftist but not explicitly socialist. The Populists did propose a farmer-worker alliance, which Samuel Gompers rejected on the grounds that most farmers were really managers and business owners because they owned their own farms. Thanks Sam, that was a really intellgient decision you made. (Sarcasm).

If Obama used his Commander-in-Chief powers to end DADT than the next GOP president would reverse him.

JUST LIKE how Eisenhower re-segregated the military after Truman left office. Does anyone really think that Obama’s silence and passivity on this issue will be viewed with any moral worthiness? The republicans are bad enough on the issue (are Collins’ great-grandkids going to be proud of her brave stance in favor of DADT in 2050?)

Kevin Drum had an interesting piece yesterday on how the Democratic Party isn’t as bend as playing as hard and fast with the rules as people think.

“We come here to talk about race in America, not ethnic grievances overseas.  And in America (which is all we care about), the fact is that Jews are white so you are very much part of the evil white male patriarchy.  Now if that idea even offends an educated New Yorker like yourself, how do you think it plays with Johnny Whiteman in suburbia?”

Jews are considered “white” here about the same way that Mormons are considered “Christians”, which is to say under most everyday situations the statement is correct.  Mormons are readily accepted among the evangelical christianist hoards, and it’s all cool.  But try to run for POTUS as a Mormon, and suddenly Mormons are non-Christian crazy cultists.

Same for Jews.  You can have a Jewish boss, golf with Jews, listen to and read Neocon Jews, and let them live on your block.  But if your blond-haired blue-eyed European-American daughter wants to date that nice Jewish boy that lives down the block, all of a sudden “white” will also mean “Christian” and tiny cultural differences will become enormous.

So while they may indeed be part of the “evil white male patriarchy”, they’ve only got a temporary pass that may be revoked any time, as needed.

Besides, aren’t you the “Moar racists pleese!” troll?  Are you going to tell me the St0rmfr0nters you hang with normally are cool with the idea that Jews are just as “white” as they are?...

#94

The Great Plains were socialist when the people of the great plains were poor farmers, always trapped in a debt cycle who were completely fucked if weather destroyed their crops. Now the farmers have their socialism and they don’t give a shit about anyone else. Furthermore, I don’t think that politicians have this magic power to control the thoughts of their constituents—politicians shape their personas to please the voters, not the other way around. Perhaps media figures have worked to move public opinoin rightwards. And your examples of liberals are in red states are kind of bullshit. Minnesota is a blue state. Pawlenty is basically the only Republican elected to statewide office, the state senate is Democratic majority, and the only Republicans MN sends to Congress are in the Suburbs of the TC Metro. Even then, Franken won by playing up that he was more moderate than he seemed. Kucinich is from the moderate state of Ohio, but his district is the liberal city of Cleveland. I don’t know much about FL politics, but Grayson’s district seems to be a large chunk of Orlando, which is probably fairly liberal as a large city.  Baucus is the only real exception you sight, and Montana has been trending leftward recently. He also still looks the part of a safe conservative. If you scroll to the bottom, this website http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Max_Baucus.htm shows that he is fairly socially liberal, but exactly moderate on econ issues—which might not be too far off from your typical
Montanan.

I think when we label people as “true progressives” vs terrible sellouts its important that we are looking at actual votes too and not just going off the public persona put forward.

“But those of us on the far right are just against blacks and hispanics…”

Well, when you phrase it that way, I guess it’s really okay.  You just hate the coloreds and the spics, but otherwise you’re just an ordinary, mainstream American, amirite?

ESAD, Thick Drool.  And take your fellow racists with you…

Mike! Stop talking to it!

Sorry!...

Reed on the other hand seems committed to getting consensus from the Senate.  Consensus is almost impossible with a group of more than 10.  When you throw in all the parliamentary tricks, super-egos, insulation from responsibility and lack of accountability with chairmanships and committee positions, you have a completely dysfunctional branch.

I’m no big fan of Harry Reid, but in all fairness, the job as Senate Majority Leader is in one way much tougher than the job of House Speaker. The House Speaker only needs to get a simple majority to move legislation forward. The Senate Majority Leader needs 60 votes to overcome filibuster, and the current Republican Senate Caucus has demonstrated that they have no qualms about shattering the record for the number of filibusters in a single Congressional term.

It just dawned on me….

The whole situation with the Blue Dogs and how to handle them reminds me of Amanda’s posts on the division of labor on household chores.  The partners are supposed to be splitting the household’s responsibilities, but one just stops holding up his end of the bargain.  There are dishes in the sink, socks on the floor, no milk in the fridge.  You can yell at him to do what he promised to do, but maybe he still doesn’t feel like it, and everything continues to deteriorate.  What do you do about it?  If you take over and do what he’s supposed to be doing, you’re letting him get away with it.  If you refuse, you’re living in squalid conditions.  He doesn’t really care either way.  You could throw him out, but how are you going to be able to pay the bills?  You can’t make him do the right thing, even if you yell, and you can’t get rid of him without harming yourself. 

That’s what it’s like to be a loyal Democrat.  It’s like having an asshole slob for a live-in boyfriend.

“This is why you never see the Dems doing the suicidal things you guys want them to do like running on about how they will roll back white priviledge and bring in more hispanics.”

Shorter sitcke rlue:  “No minorities get shit until I get some of this white ‘priviledge’ (“Moran” anyone?) I keep hearing about.  Oh and ‘A bigot is someone who wins an argument with a liberal’.  Nyaaaah.”

“There are racists on the left like Alexander Cockburn and on the right like David Duke who really only are concerned with Jews.”
“The Left does it too”...*skip*...“The Left does it too”...*skip*...“The Left does it too”...*skip*...“The Left does it too”...*skip*...“The Left does it too”...*skip*...“The Left does it too”...*skip*...</David fucking Brooks>

Well, I guess nothing is impossible if you just make shit up.

Did anyone else just hear calliope music?

As for the Blue Dogs, I’m inclined to agree that their positions are generally reflective of what their constituents believe—or at least what they think their constituents believe.  The most basic principal of modern Political Science is that politicians want to get re-elected, and that most of their actions are directed towards that end.  The strategy of Being a Centrist works fine for Blue Dogs under normal circumstances, as long as they don’t stray too far from the preferences of their constituents. 

Of course, politicians, like most people, have difficulty adjusting to changing circumstances—like the current political climate.  Even though it seems obvious to us that going along with Obama in order to get something done is probably a more effective strategy in economic hard times, the Blue Dogs are used to keeping toward the middle as a way of avoiding alienating their voters (not to mention their campaign donors).  For good or for ill, this strategy will not save them now.

Amanda, is it possible to like, IP ban this guy, or is he just running through proxy servers?  This is like his fifth account in this name, not counting the half a dozen names he used before.

Awkward,

Yes the Diane Feinsteins of the world have a lot to answer for.

awkward, exactly. Like, I was so mad when the dems elected Reid as leader after Daschle lost. Daschle always had to walk a line between being a Democratic leader and pleasing his conservative constituents. Reid has the same problem, but they could have so easily elected a Democratic Senator from a blue state (I think Durban was next in line) and had a leader with plenty of leeway to make bold statements and pursue a liberal strategy rather than compromise right of the bat.

@ alysia, The problem with that is that there aren’t enough liberals in government to make an undiluted liberal strategy possible.  People like us are pretty far to the left on the American political spectrum.  We vote for politicians who are to our right; then the median Democrat is often to the right of that; and then the Dems need to poach a Republican or two for anything, and these days that’s WAY to the right.  It’s always a matter of pushing the range of possible political options as far to the left as current conditions allow.  And even in these days, when we have as many Democrats in both houses as has happened in recent memory, that position is way to the right of where we are, and way to the right of “liberal strategy.”  It’s vexing.

Oh, I am well aware that we are way to the left of the median Democrat and it wouldn’t be a cure all. My comments above are pretty pro-blue dog. I just think it would be a lot better to have a safe seat leader because he/she would have a lot more latitude to form/stay on message and not have to do the ritual “throw the dems under the bus on a high profile issue” in order to please her/his constituents.

Harry Reid, to his credit has done things as Senate Speaker that were pretty unpopular in Nevada that was popular with Democratic Party members in general. Pushing forward on HCR is an example of this. Angle as the Republican opposition must be a gift from the God of Politics for his virtue.

  alysia, FlipYRWhig, I think many of us are on the same level when it comes to Blue Dogs.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Blue Dogs are just auditioning for their lobbyist jobs.