In a sense, this project is a useful counterpart to Kerry’s effort to undermine the “Roadblock Republicans”. Yes, there are Republicans that we should aim to defeat now. However, there are also Democrats who should hear some criticism about their recent votes. By making a national campaign of it, we increase the likelihood that people like Lipinski, Cooper (TN-05), and Boswell (IA-03) will face primary challengers. A primary challenge, especially a successful one, can have a salubrious national effect. Ned Lamont’s primary victory in Connecticut got Democrats finally campaigning against the war. It made the national campaign more focused and less mushy. Shining a spotlight on one Bush Dog will affect all of them.
The Bush Dog effort is just beginning. The first step is to do research and figure out who to target and how. Anyone with Google-level research skills can help out with this first stage.
more conservative Dems represent. I wonder if a strategy like the one Massequality followed here in Massachusetts – lobbying and assuring those who have been voting with the president on the war and national security that it is safe for them to vote against him, that progressives nationally will be there for them and help them win reelection if they do – would be more productive than the more threatening and rejecting tone that I saw many people take following the FISA vote.
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I would like to see the political center move back leftwards in the U.S., and I don’t think we’ll accomplish that if progressives abandon the conservative wing of the Democratic party. I think we need to stay in dialogue with those folks, try to move them in our direction and build majorities including them, even if that means some compromises.
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I’m not saying not to oppose DINOs in primaries in districts where a more progressive candidate can win. It’s just that someone like Herseth has a very different calculus to win reelection than someone in a Democratic district in the Northeast. As I recall she only won with something like 51% of the vote, and she comes from a family with deep roots in S.D. politics. I have no love for Herseth – she was among the Democrats who voted (ick) for the Federal Marriage Amendment. It’s just that I think politics is about making the best choice among the real-world alternatives. I don’t think there’s some silent progressive majority in S.D. that would be activated by a more progressive candidate. And Herseth has voted pro-choice and pro stem cell research – two things you almost certainly would not see if a Republican held her seat.
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Smacking down conservative Dems who can win in Republican-leaning districts just seems counter productive to me. I’d rather see lobbying and assurances of support for conservative Dems who can see their way clear to further moderate their positions. It’s an incremental strategy with less opportunity to express righteous outrage at those who don’t agree with progressive positions on the spectrum of issues, but one that I think holds out more prospect of success.
You’re exactly right. What’s progressive about throwing Centrist and/or Conservative Dems under the bus in districts that won’t support a candidate swinging more to the left? There’s nothing to be gained in that kind of “take no prisoners” thinking. It’s not practical, particularly not when the unenrolled voters are outnumbering party members.
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I live in a fairly conservative district. A pro-life candidate can run and win in my town…and has. We must never forget that “all politics is local” or that these candidates have a greater obligation to the voters than to the party. It’s a representative government we have and the candidates must reflect their districts or they’re not going to win. I was against the party disciplining mayors for not supporting Democratic candidates who didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of beating an incumbent Republican officeholder for this very reason.
Let me point out that this is a strawman argument. No one is arguing this.
Rereading my original post, I realize I wrote “target”. So some of this confusion is my fault. I apologize.
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“Target” does not necessarily mean “mount primary challenges” or “contribute to opponents”. However, it does mean that all the Bush Dogs need to be targeted somehow — whether with criticism, words from major donors, something. On the Social Security fight, a national effort was made to find what Democrats were waffling and to get to them before they made a career of being contrarian.
The folks at OpenLeft are not dumb. Remember some of these guys (the 3 that I listed for example) are in very safe Democratic districts. No Republican is going to win there. So why are they represented by people willing to continue the war or chop away at the Constitution? Complaining about Pelosi’s supposed lack of leadership does no good if there are enough Democrats like Lipinski.
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As for South Dakota, once represented by George McGovern: People like Herseth, to whom I’ve contributed after all, are partially reliant on progressives nationally to raise the funds she needs to win. Further, the polling on the war is negative and Republican positions grow more unpopular by the day even in places like Alabama and Kentucky. (A recent poll showed that 51% of Republicans wanted a withdrawal soon. Republicans!) I don’t think that South Dakotans are clamoring to have Gonsales judge whether someone should be wiretapped or not. The war is much, much more unpopular than marriage equality in South Dakota.
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But Herseth and Senator Pryor are not going to change their votes until we ask them to change their votes. I don’t think we should ask them to cease being moderate or conservative Democrats, but, on these issues, I think even moderate to conservative Democrats should agree.
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Just like Social Security.
The 51% was of Iowan Republicans.
No, they are not stupid. But…
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So why are they represented by people willing to continue the war…
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…you have a petulent child pResident (GWBush) who has 150K American hostages in Iraq–possibly 300K, if you include the mercenaries (oops, contractors). Do you really believe that the Democrats in Congress are going to deny him funding, when it is likely that he will keep those hostages there until he leaves office? It is a cynical game of “chicken.” Your pResident knows he has the upper hand, he has the power to veto any resolution from Congress regarding withdrawal, and he would ignore the resolution even in the unlikely event that the veto were to be over-ridden and claim that he has the power to do so under the “unitary executive” or “commander in chief,” powers, both of which are idiotic. You aren’t going to get out of Iraq until either Bush tells them to get out or he is out of office. Congress has nothing to say about it, even though the Constitution purports to give massive powers over the military to Congress.
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I predicted this the day after the Nov. 2006 elections. The Democrats in Congress are gelded.
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…or chop away at the Constitution?
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Nobody in the US cares much about the Constitution. I’ll cite you to one interesting comment. Go to snopes.com, click on the “quotes” icon and then go to the Goering page. Hermann Goering–the Nazi–was quite evil, but he was also quite prescient. What he describes there is very relevant in the US today.
On the one hand we couldve picked up a lot more seats using the money we gave to Lamont or to other progressive challenges, Tammy Duckworth wouldve won had she not need to fight an expensive primary, I can list a whole littany of examples where the attitude that we can purge DINOs was counterproductive.
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At the end of the day to maintain a Democratic majority I would rather a Republican that calls himself a Dem and votes for Pelosi than the real deal since the real deal keeps people like Tom Delay in charge, etc. Also the Dems are pretty solidly in line against the regressive economic agenda of the right even if they disagree on social and hawk/dove issues.
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On the other hand whats the point of a majority if an overwhelming number of Democrats, many of whom could have easily survived voting against the wiretap law, still bend over and take it backwards from the right?
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So I guess my advice would be, dont take our majority away with a foolhardy purge, but do let legislators know that they can afford to be courageous instead of being lapdogs and that in fact the reward will be greater. i.e what MassEquality did with the gay marriage vote.
Do visit Open Left. These guys are not in favor of foolhardy purges. One can advocate muscular liberal positions without being foolish or extreme. You know, as Dean says, “strong but smart”. There’s a reason that the statistics page to which I linked lists margins of victory and records the Bush-Kerry numbers.
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I take it you are against using a stick and only want to offer the Bush Dogs carrots, similar to MassEquality’s carrots. What sort of carrot do you propose? What will make it safer for them to stop the war and stop the FISA weakening?
…find people in conservative Dems’ districts who are against the positions of concern and persuade them to contact their Reps, preferably in person, about why these issues matter to them and why it’s important for said Reps to moderate their positions. South Dakota is a small state – it only has one seat in the House of Reps. I’d have to believe a relatively small number of advocates would have an impact. Important: those advocates would have to live in South Dakota – that’s the carrot/stick – they would have to be able to say, “we support you, we want to continue to vote for you, but you’re currently voting in ways that we think are out of step with what South Dakotans want.”
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Someone like Herseth may be able to be moved by the threat of progressive, out-of-state contributions drying up, although if I’d had to guess, I’d think much of her out-of-state money came from EMILY’s List, which isn’t likely to dump her for her vote on the so-called “Protect America” act. Maybe someone has time to validate this on the campaign finance links – I found this about EMILY’s List support being an issue in her first, unsuccessful race:
Link here.
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Sorry about diverting into the details on this. The broader point is just that the effect of the threat of withholding progressive contributions isn’t so clear. It may or may not work to moderate a candidate’s position, depending on how important those contributions were to the candidate (and how perceived in the district), while loss of contributions certainly would weaken a candidate against a well-funded Republican opponent.
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I don’t think the levers out-of-state progressives can apply directly to the Blue Dog Dems are as important as the influence of people who live in those districts. That means progressive groups need to organize and mobilize supporters in each one.
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Perhaps this is really what Open Left is hoping to do. I’ll check out the site.
I think this is the kind of discussion we need to have. We very much want a Democrat in the South Dakota seat, but we also want the occupant to vote correctly. So what do we do to attain that?
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Cutting off funding is self-destructive. Acquiescing is ineffective. Between the two lies your excellent suggestion like trying to mobilize South Dakotans to get her to change her voting.
I am not a Democrat. Nor a self-described “progressive.”
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I acknowledge your comment, but some of us are pragmatists. Not “progressives” or “regressives. The former is silly–what is wrong with “liberal”?– and the latter is cute.
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Let me put it this way. The Republican party at the national level is the only party that has done anything to benefit gay people. The Democrat Billary Clinton and his Democrat co-conspirator Sen. Sam Nun (D, GA) screwed gay people. I sincerely do not understand why people here are unwilling to address those facts.
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Put your collective heads in the sand all you want, but them’s the facts. And that is why 25% of voters who describe themselves as being gay vote Republican.
and I don’t want to encourage the hijacking of this interesting thread into a discussion of the ridiculous assertion that the national Republican party has done anything to benefit gay people.
…please try to follow the indents. The comment was a response to a comment that originated with one of my comments. And I responded accordingly.
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I despise the indent method, and that’s one reason why I’ve “gone to the bottom” to post comments and link them to various comments upstream.
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BTW, I guess you’re new here. I have argued here for months that the national Republican party has, in fact, done more to benefit gay people than the national Democratic party. The national Republican party has reduced income tax rates. And it has elimited the national estate tax, so that my spouse and I can inherit each others’ estates on equal terms with opposite sex couples.
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What has the national Democratic party done? DADT (all Democrats). And DOMA (signed by Bill Clinton and then crowed about during the 1996 presidential election.
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I have mentioned these many times here in the last several months. Nobody here has presented one concrete thing that the national Democratic party has done for gay people. Maybe you can.
Raj: joined Wed Dec 20, 2006 at 11:45:52 AM EST
Posts by Raj: 0
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Bean in the Burbs: joined Wed Sep 20, 2006 at 10:41:59 AM EDT
Posts by Bean in the Burbs: 15
I’m not sure this is correct:
A problem in 2006, to my mind, was that the Democrats were planning to run on the issue of corruption. The media was not helping the national party on this issue. The party was being oddly silent about the war.
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Lamont’s primary victory changed that. I think it’s what helped win in 2006 because it sharpened the campaign.
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It was worth every penny.
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I cannot answer you on Duckworth. You might be right. I remember reading an argument that she was the wrong candidate but I don’t know enough to say.
learned from the way the Democrats held the line against fiddling Social Security There was grassroots support that the media couldnt overcome. Somehow the media message about the “Social Security Crisis” hurt the Bush ambitions. The messages about being afraid play differently. I partly think that this says something about how we perceive pocketbook issues vs jingoism issues. People dont want anyone messng with their entitlements. One the other hand going after the “evildoers” taps into a lot of base sentiments like directing hostility outward, feeling tough, looking for scapegoats, and rallying against and enemy (real or contrived).
I share the frustration that many progressives feel with the failure to stop funding the war. However, I see the Open Left gameplan as splitting resources in 2008. The reality of the US Congress and Senate is that if every Dem voted exactly the way we wanted, we still can’t override a Bush veto and we can only – at best – turn the debate away from ending the war and onto the talk show ground of funding the troops.
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The MassEquality strategy worked and it worked over more than one election cycle. Rather then spending time taking Herseth or Chandler to task, I support “targeting” the Republican Congressmen and Senators who still stand with Bush and represent states where the anti-war feeling is strong. Spend time defeating John Sununu in New Hampshire, defeating Susan Collins in Maine (rather then running against John Kerry I might add) and you have done far more to end the war then by complaining about Ben Chandler.
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(a side note – take a look at SurveyUSA’s polling on the Kentucky governor’s race. After just 4 years of Republican Ernie Fletcher, the Democrats are favored to take back that State House. Spending time turning Kentucky (and Virgina) Blue means the White House in 2008. For me that is the end game to end the war. Time better spent in my mind then sending Chandler a messsage)
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And speaking of MassEquality strategy, in this case defending your friends – progressives better be piling into the hybreds and driving to New Hampshire’s 1 St District to help Carol Shea-Porter. An early opponent of the war she is a targeted candidate by the Republicans.
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Call it the practical progressive plan – work against pro-war incumbents (who also oppose basic rights and economic justice) in states where they are vunerable (New Hampshire is a “2fer” – keep Shea-Porter and beat Sununu). Build a strong enough majority in the 2008 election to give moderate Dems in Red states the politrical reality they need to keep their seats, and win the White House.
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After that we can start discussing the depth of votes. But a word of caution – the Republicans followed a similar strategy and took power. Once they had the power, the ultra-conserative wing began to target internally – moderate Republicans were marginalized and in 2006 voters turned against a narrow agenda that had no room for moderates.
Thank you for your considered response. One of my motivations for this post is that I think the effort to unseat Kerry makes little sense when compared with other things that need to be done: unseat Sen. Sununu, Sen. Collins, and Rep. Shays, and, as you point out, defend Shea-Porter. We might have to add Hodes, Courtney, and Murphy. Courtney’s victory was the narrowest in the country.
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Democrats in Congress don’t have to pass legislation to defund the war; they can merely refuse to offer any legislation that funds it. No amount of vetoing can create a bill without majority cooperation from Congress.
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Further, as with Social Security, a united Democratic caucus improves the behavior or Republicans. It will be possible to get Hagel, Collins, Coleman, Warner, and Snowe to do more than complain about the war, but actually cast useful votes if they’re facing a united Democratic caucus.
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I think we all act from different motivations.
I say on these issues because I have no illusion we can turn conservative Democrats into Bernie Sanders replicas with a few phone calls, but, on the issues of the war and FISA, we should be able to move conservative Democrats.
…I am not a leftist, I am not a liberal, and I am not a Democrat. But I have listened to Thom Hartmann’s “Brunch with Bernie” segments on Fridays when we’re in the US, and, quite frankly, despite the fact that Bernie labels himself a Socialist, he is what I would consider a pragmatist. I sense no radicalism there.
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So, why the pouncing on Sanders? Because of his label “Socialist”? That’s silly.
He’s just a good example of someone who doesn’t vote for Bush’s agenda, and is not at all afraid of the GOP’s attack lines.
is that the most important vote in both the House and the Senate is for leadership–Majority leader and the Speaker of the House Then the committee chairs are the next most important votes. Partisanship in these votes counts for a lot. Without a Democrat majority you get not investigations into any of the failings of the administration. You get mostly Terry Schiavo and flag-burning crap. I have always liked Lincoln Chafee but I was glad to see him go for this reason. Also the precarious narrow Dem majority gives Liebermann incredible power. If he decides to caucus with the Republicans that putsTrent Lott , John Ensign, etc in charge of the Senate agenda.
and more a failure of Pelosi and Hoyer’s leadership.
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They should not have allowed a FISA bill. They should have taken that clip of George Bush saying, “every time we get a judge to sign a warrant to do a wiretap” and re-run over and over again, saying we’re going to keep it that way.
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This is the way we dealt with the abortion issue & conservative Dems–the Dem leadership didn’t let wedge issues come up for a vote, so there’s no wedge. Should have been the same with FISA.
I’ve made the same comment elsewhere, too: it shouldn’t have come to a vote and I was thinking, like you, of how Democrats keep abortion off the legislative calendar.
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The problem that Pelosi and Hoyer — and Reid — have is that their leadership is weaker or stronger depending on how fragmented or cohesive the caucus is. The Republicans in the House have a unity that would be the envy of robots, and it’s what makes their leaders more powerful. Keeping the Democratic caucus together is a hidden part of Pelosi’s work.
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So one explanation is that keeping the caucus together forced compromises on the Democratic Congressional leadership that they would be otherwise unwilling to make.
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Where can we get some border collies?
I have a border collie, but he is more of a charmer than a herder
Democrats in Congress don’t have to pass legislation to defund the war; they can merely refuse to offer any legislation that funds it.
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for reasons that I have described upstream here: http://www.bluemassg… You seem to be under the impression that the circumstances regarding Iraq now parallel the circumstances regarding SVietnam in 1973-74, when the Democrats refused to fund the SVietnam government. They aren’t in any way similar: the US had pulled out most of its army from SVietnam before the Democrats withdrew funding for the SVietnam war effort. Your petulent child pResident has made it clear that he isn’t going to withdraw any Americans from Iraq. I seriously don’t understand why you apparently do not understand the difference between the two situations.
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The Democrats aren’t going to do anything to defund the war in Iraq as long as your petulent child pResident insists on keeping the troops and mercenaries there.
KBusch – the Social Security example is an excellent one that makes your point. I am frustrated watching the Dem leadership fumble away opportunities to drive home Bush’s failures.
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And while I do feel holding a Dem majority is a priority, at times I am annoyed with the Dems taking the road of least resistance in order to protect the moderate to conserative members of Congress. Congressman Capuano makes the point in every speech I have heard about holding control by taking the agenda slowly. And I agree overall – I would rather have Democratic leaders setting the agenda then Republicans – but the price of this strategy is hard to accept.
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You are right on mark on Courtney. One of Massachusetts best exports is political organizing ability. Progressives – head for CT, Maine and New Hampshire. We can make a difference.
But do you think it will happen? Look in our own backyard:
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The fact that a progressive (Ed O’Reilly) has the nerve to run against an entrenched moderate (John Kerry) has brought out all manner of people from California to Massachusetts on this site — silent in most any other political battle — to twist any fact within reach. Many of them argue that O’Reilly has no right to challenge Kerry.