Democrats in Disarray

Will Rogers said it well many years ago.
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“I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.”

What would be news if the democrats were actually working together to accomplish an agenda. This is like saying did you know some of them are liberals, some are centrists and some are very conservative. Duh!

I would suspect that if Democrats–of all stripes, Blue Dog and liberal–don’t exercise some self-discipline
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Nope.
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Everything wrong (in Chait’s article, and in general) is from the right-leaning Dems. Whether on the take (Nelson) or irrationally fearful that 1980 or 1994 is right around the corner (Landrieu), they love to hate doing the right thing. And they want to be praised for it. And David Broder will do so.

Evidently, Kent Conrad and Ben Nelson have something in common with the Rush Limbaugh Republicans, and Wall St CEOs, the ground has shifted. And the activist wing of the Democratic party and I don’t mean the liberal organizations, I mean the Democrats who have recently woken up to find they have the power to make change, are not going to stand for this. 2008 was a message that wanted change and to the degree that Nelson and Conrad seek to protect their campaign contributors at the expense of the people they will find the grassroots organized against them and having a Democratic label after their name is not going to be enough to protect their seats.
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We are loyal to principles not people and they need to understand that Lieberman was the first example not the last. THey just don’t really understand what the Obama victory meant. It was not about defeating Republicans, it was about empowering American voters to support a candidate that represented their ideals regardless of their connections. Now that the people have figured out they have power are they just supposed to forget it? I think not!
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Status quo Democrats need to be careful because while Obama didn’t win a state like North Dakota, Democratic turnout in the state was huge and went from a GOP advantage of +27 points in 2004 to only a +9 point advantage in 2008. Conrad needs to fear that those additional Democrats could alter his ability to get reelected. Ben Nelson also has to be concerned about the 18 point increase in DEmocratic turn out that could turn against him if they believe he’s getting in the way.

What’s wrong with this picture?
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First, he opposed a provision to limit tax deductions for high-income earners. Second, he opposed a new cap on crop subsidies to farmers who take in more than $500,000 per year. And, third, he upbraided Obama for not doing more to reduce the budget deficit.
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I’ve often said that the difference between rthe parties is that one likes to spend more than it takes in, the other prefers to take in less than it spends. Apparently with the Blue-Dogs you get the worst of all three worlds!

It’s time to primary some of these blue-dog a**holes. I’m really sick of this nonsense. Why are they helping the GOP? Time for them to go.

There is a problem here — the right leaning Democrats pretty much NEVER compromise with the lefties. The left wingers are told on issue after issue (healthcare, gay marriage, foreign policy) that they have to support conservative Democrat priorities but you never see a Mary landrieu compromise and vote for anything progressive. Why is that?

The senate is a rich man’s club. That’s why they have an easy time passing a rich man’s agenda, a hard time passing anything else.
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“It’s the rich people, stupid.”

The title of Chait’s piece is (strangely) “Why the Democrats Can’t Govern”.
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Should it have been “Why the Blue Dogs Shouldn’t Govern“?
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Mary Landrieu has to be told that black folks have long memories and they will never forgive anyone who got in the Obama’s way. She may not need their support for a while, but when she is eventually up for reelection she can’t win without black support period. They may not vote GOP but they will withdraw their support to make a point.

one does wonder how Kent Conrad resolves his support for the porkers with his budget hawkery. Ditto for Senator Ben Nelson and his support for the student-loan sharks.
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I imagine barrels and barrels of money with compromising pictures stapled on top of them help ease the troubled consciences of these poor souls.

Fighting among Democrats?
To borrow a line from Barzini “after all, we are not republicans”

We Dems desperately need an LBJ, immediately.

I like Reid and Pelosi but they simply are not catherders the way LJB was.

One reason I’m proud to call myself a Dem is because as a whole we put policy ahead of politics, which means we put what we perceive as being in the best interest for our country ahead of politics. But, there are times when you just have to swallow your dissent and play follow the leader. The fact that some Dems refuse to admit it was a huge mistake to vote for Nader just drives me crazy. They will not own up to the fact that Gore would have been much much better for our country than Bush.

I love HRC as SoS but I also believe she could have stepped up to the plate and been another LBJ.

Chait (or his editors) didn’t seem to have the space to mention how many of these same faux-budget conscious Democrats oppose (for all practical purposes) Obama’s Cap And Trade policy, by which Obama is proposing to pay for clean energy investments.
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It’s another example of how truly hypocritical and bankrupt the Blue Dogs’ “concerns” about potential deficits are –much like the Republicans’.

Here is what doesn’t make any sense, how Kent Conrad of all people got to the the frikkin chair of the budget committee in the first place. I don’t have that much of a problem with having blue dogs in the House because they can’t do much damage there, but having blue dogs in the Senate is a problem, especially when they are attention whores like Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson. Was there no other just regular Democrat in the Senate who could chair the budget committee? Jeebus man, thats the problem. We will be fine as far as keeping a hold on the Congress as long as we don’t put blue dogs in charge of anything. Thats really what is coming back to kick the Republicans in the gnads. They figured with their Southern Strategy that they would rule forever by taking the fringe of the Democratic party and turning them into Republicans. Then of course they ended up letting the inmates take over the asylum and thats why now nobody but people in the South identify with them. Harry Reid has to be smarter than that and put these ConservaDems in positions where they can do the least amount of damage. Somebody should point out that its partly his fault in all this.

Harry Reid has to be smarter than that…
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And yet, he is not.

The fact that some Dems refuse to admit it was a huge mistake to vote for Nader just drives me crazy. They will not own up to the fact that Gore would have been much much better for our country than Bush.
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I’M SORRY ALL RIGHT I WAS EIGHTEEN I DIDN’T KNOW ANY BETTER

It’s always been something of a mistake to look at the American socio-political conflict as basically Republican vs. Democratic. It’s been a “conservative” vs. liberal/progressive fight at least since FDR. Liberal/progressive ideals were in the ascendance roughly until Ronald Reagan was elected. The origin and features of our present woes prove that, so far, the “conservative” faction still holds the controlling power.

It’s okay, Cliff, all is forgiven.

One of the things I love best at Daily Howler is how Bob never the MSM off the hook for sandbagging Gore constantly in 2000.

“we Democrats are just, well, confused…the party of reaction.” (Obama, The Audacity of Hope)

“we Democrats are just, well, confused…the party of reaction.” (Obama, The Audacity of Hope)
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And yet, we have this new Dem President who is showing himself to be both strategically adept and proactive. If we could just shed a few more DINO blue dogs I think the national party would behave very differently.
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Spob, rusty, what do you think?
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/poking hornets nest

destor23 puts the finger on what frustrates me the most about this whole thing.

The Conservadems, right down to the numbers, seem to have been created exactly to undermine the rest of the Democratic party and leave the remaining dems on even keel with the much-more-likely-to-vote-monolithicly Republicans.
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And whenever compromise is considered, it’s almost always a one-way street, left to right. The people on the left always have to cater to the people on the right, but never the other way, and any time a staunchly Democratic or staunchly liberal piece of legislation goes through, it’s almost always despite the lack of support of any significant Republicans, rather than the support of Moderate Republicans peeled away. On the other hand, most conservative and/or Republican measures, when they pass, always get the sheen of ‘bipartisanship’ because Conservative Dems, just like Bayh’s boys, almost assuredly peel away while the Republicans again vote monolithicly.

shepherdwong
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the “conservative” faction still holds the controlling power
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I disagree. I think that the corporatist and anti-populist moderate-right faction still holds power: the centrists.
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I agree with you that the reduction of the tension to “Republican vs. Democratic” is inaccurate and counter-productive, but I don’t think that ““conservative” vs. liberal/progressive fight” is accurate, either.
Just that you are required to scare-quote “conservative” is an indicator of how these two binaries don’t really show the whole picture.
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A huge problem for progressives is that, while they purport to be populist in their interests and sympathies, they run into huge problems when confronted with organically originating rightist populism. How do progressives deal with the phenomenon of a real majority of Kansans thinking for themselves that “progress” ain’t so great for them, and that they’d like to hold on to their traditions –ignorant and self-defeating as they may be? Well, it creates real philosophical and political issues, to say the least.
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Any framework for understanding these dynamics must include regional and cultural considerations, otherwise we mix (and mess) up progressive populism and its emphasis on people-oriented interests, with centrist elitism and its emphasis on technocratic (even authoritarian) control of local, racist and tent-revival rightist populism.
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Until liberals can reconcile the small-d democratic ideals that work fine when applied to heterogeneous, multi-tradition, comfortable-with-modern-life regions of the country (not the South or Farm Belt) with the realities of the regions that have real popular majorities who are under cultural threat from the former, we’re left with either open political war or centrists in power or both.
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We’ll advocate in practice for a contradictory policy of populism with regard to blue states, and elitism with regard to red states, and that contradiction leaves us with neither or close to neither –in the form of centrist Congressional Democratic blocks.

“I disagree. I think that the corporatist and anti-populist moderate-right faction still holds power: the centrists.”
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A distinction without a difference, as far as I’m concerned. At least since Ronald Reagan became the movement standard bearer, conservative values have been little more than a façade to mask an entirely corporatist agenda (and if it ever was, it shouldn’t be necessary at this point to explain that the corporatist agenda is anything but conservative, in the traditional sense). That’s why the movement is now composed of only two types of “conservatives”, the liars – those who understand the actual corporatist agenda and marketing of the movement – and the dopes, those who are being used and manipulated by the liars and are essentially clueless about the agenda they are actually supporting.
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“Centrist”, “conservative”, corporatist, it’s all the same when you boil it down to it’s pro-corporate, anti-regulatory, regressive, anti-populist essence. The goals are the same, from Reagan, to Bush, to Clinton, to Bush: de-regulate industry and fight progressive taxation. Everything else is just deceptive rhetoric and masquerade. I’d say that the jury is still out on Obama but the current bank bailout plan says that, regardless of what’s in his heart of hearts, he’s still doing the bidding of the corporatists. I doubt that he even has much choice in the matter and still survive our dominant political order.

Haven’t read the piece yet, but I think that in general the left assumes too much when they assume that all Democrats have to be the same. Many Democrats won in more conservative districts because of the very things that they are doing now (advocating a more fiscally conservative fiscal policy), so applauding them when they on a platform of fiscally responsible Democratic policies and then criticizing them when they act on what they pledged to do is dumb.

“…I think that in general the left assumes too much when they assume that all Democrats have to be the same.”
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Actually, only Republicans (and some Independents) seem to assume that all Democrats are the same and that they are generally liberal. Actual liberals know exactly who is who, by what they do. That’s why those on the left generally despise the Blue Dogs Dems.

smoothjazz2008:
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advocating a more fiscally conservative fiscal policy
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As the article points out, they don’t actually advocate a more fiscally conservative policy any more than the Republicans who started two wars and lowered taxes.
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The most emblematic objection has come from Nelson, who is balking at Obama’s plan to save money on college loans. You might suppose that a fiscal conservative like Nelson would agree with Obama’s plan to save $4 billion on a social program. But he does not, for reasons that provide a useful window into the rot afflicting the congressional Democratic Party.

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Much like their Republican compatriots, moderate conservative or center-rightist Democrats talk a big game about “big government” and “fiscal conservatism”, but they don’t actually put any of that talk into action when action means limiting the bottom line of their states’ corporate constituents, or restraining the foreign policy ambitions of the Federal government.

smoothjazz and shepardwong: I agree with you there. The blue dogs won those states only BECAUSE they were reflecting the views of the people. If they had ran liberal democrats instead of conservative democrats, the republicans would have won. The “problem” with the democratic party is that we are diverse. You look at our conventions and it looks like America. Whites, minorities, different economic classes and wide ranging political philosophies are all represented. The choice is to have a thriving party that tolerates dissent or become the republican party that represents ONE political philosophy and is shrinking by the day. They punish those those who stray from the party line. I’d rather have our problems than the republicans. JK says if we don’t pull together that the republicans will soon be back in power. I disagree. They’re turning even further to the right and losing even more voters. I’d rather be a part of our dysfunctional party and stay in power. The changing demographics give me hope that we’ll gain even more seats in 2010.

If the United States Senate was raptured to the planet Ballcock, forced to do hard labor in chains, serve the Ballcockian race little drinks with umbrellas, participate in Saw style survival games, and ultimately get dumped one by one into a Sarlacc to be digested over the course of a thousand years, all live on C-SPAN, would anyone give the remotest semblance of a crap? I for one would not.

@ sacredh,

Well one thing that I’ve learned from watching the media’s coverage of Obama thus far, is the media’s capability to generate news, mainly for the purposes of selling the news. They throw out red meat labeled “Democrats in Disarray” and all the Democrats are like oh s**t what are those boneheads doing?!?! Sort of like when Evan Bayh formed that centrist Democrat coalition. Not a big deal. I’ll panic when I see some real bomb-throwing among Democrats and a failure to pass legislation.

Until then, perhaps they are just working things out in Congress, making compromises and such, like they’re supposed to be doing. So long as they get the priorities of universal healthcare accomplished, I think the Democrats can declare victory. If they want to tinker around the edges of universal healthcare and the overall budget, who cares?

@ stuart,

Well you arrived at your conclusion by ignoring evidence. Did the article mention how Ben Nelson reduced the size of the stimulus package? Did the article mention Senator Byrd’s opposition to universal healthcare during the Clinton years? Did the article mention Max Baucus’ opposition to doing healthcare reform through reconciliation? Did it mention Henry Waxman’s objections to cap and trade through reconciliation?

You included a line from the article showing Nelson’s local interests that conflicted with the President’s budget, yet you decided not to include this line from the article “Several Democrats also oppose using reconciliation to pass health care reform.”

So the conclusion you reach: “they don’t actually advocate a more fiscally conservative policy” was mainly based upon your selective cherry-picking of the evidence and not upon the facts.

Why did you omit how the article mentions 8 Democratic senators who oppose using reconciliation for cap and trade? Your conclusion: “they don’t actually advocate a more fiscally conservative policy” is arrived at by the omission of the the very facts you claim are not there. If you’re going to make claims about

The last 4 lines are a typo. You can disregard them. Too bad there’s no edit function. :p

smoothjazz2008:
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Thanks for your response.
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Since I’m not actually in the habit of forming my arguments in spite of or in the absence of evidence, I can’t for the life of me reconcile the notion of Ben Nelson’s “fiscal conservatism” with his support for two insanely (multi-hundred billion dollar) expensive, almost decade-long foreign occupations with his simultaneous love for Bush’s enormous, profligate tax cuts:

Nelson turned out to be, after Zell Miller, the Senate Democrat most likely to support Bush and to differ from most Democrats. He helped to broker the big tax cuts of 2001 and 2003.

Even if we were to assume for the sake of argument that demands to include Republicans in the budget process (opposing the use of reconciliation) were somehow indicative of fiscal conservatism –a highly dubious claim, given the recent past behavior of the Republican majority– , how does one get past that basic calculation, smoothjazz2008?
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How can one support unlimited funding for two nation-building foreign occupations in which stacks of thousand dollar bills were literally shrink-wrapped, stored on wooden pallets and then lost, while arguing vehemently for the necessity of huge regressive tax cuts, and still be referred to as a “fiscal conservative” –without accompanying laughter, that is?

stuart,

You posit that there is a contradiction between fiscal conservatism and neo-conservatism. Perhaps there is no contradiction there and even if you think there is, then that would just be your opinion, and people who think that there is no contradiction between fiscal conservatism and neo-conservatism are just holding that opinion as well. The link you posted actually shows a lot more of Nelson’s fiscal conservatism, showing a long record of it:

* trimmed workmen’s comp
* He cut property taxes and reduced the income and sales taxes
* one of three Democrats to vote against the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill
* Nelson said in 2005 he was not opposed to personal retirement accounts “in principle,”

So you can mock Nelson’s fiscal conservatism by putting the phrase in quotation marks all you want, but his record shows a long history of “fiscal conservatism.”

As to your opinion that including Republicans in legislation is a “highly dubious claim”, there’s nothing dubious about it. You have merely obscured the facts of how Republicans would decrease the size of Obama’s budget with an attack on them. You can attack Republicans all you want, but that won’t change the fact that their participation in an Obama budget would lower the size of that budget and thus be fiscal conservatism.

As for your comment about how losing money precludes one from being a fiscal conservative, that’s like saying that if you are going to participate in a gay pride march, but you leave your sign at home, then you really don’t support gay marriage, or if you are out canvassing for Ron Paul and you forget to bring information on people’s voting places with you, that you really don’t support Ron Paul. The fact that people make mistakes while advancing their political agenda is not evidence that they are insincere in believing in their political agenda. Thinking that mistakes is evidence of insincerity is what is laughable.