You know, this might change now that Arlen Specter has defected to the Democrats, but have you ever wondered why Ben Nelson (D-NE) gets so little grief from the liberal side of the Democratic Party even though he has a Progressive Punch lifetime score of 43.7% on siding with the Democrats on crucial votes? Why aren’t liberals constantly braying about Nelson’s betrayal? Why don’t you see post after post in the blogosphere inviting Nelson to leave the party?
The simplest answer is that Ben Nelson keeps a low profile and he rarely badmouths his own party or the party’s leadership. He votes how he votes and he leaves the talking to others. But the other reason is that liberals are pragmatic. At least, they’re a hell of a lot more pragmatic than their counterparts on the right. We have deep political and moral differences with Ben Nelson, but he doesn’t make false promises and he doesn’t grandstand and he doesn’t badmouth us. We know that he represents a deeply conservative state and that he votes with us almost half the time. He didn’t vote for Obama’s budget tonight but I doubt you’ll find any blogs that are ripping him for it. No one is trying to push him out of the party.
We reserve our wrath for Democrats that make a habit out of criticizing liberals (like Evan Bayh, Harold Ford Jr., and Joe Lieberman). Even conservative Democrats from fairly liberal states, like Tom Carper of Delaware, are seldom criticized in harsh tones as long as they avoid providing talking points for FOX News.
It’s hard to believe that the conservative purists on the other side are so much less forgiving of their centrists than we are of ours. It’s totally self-defeating. Specter’s case is a good example. The reason he couldn’t win a primary in Pennsylvania is because independents and Democrats are not allowed to vote in Republican primaries in this state and, because all the moderate Republicans have already re-registered as either independents or Democrats, only conservative Republicans remain on the voter rolls. This gives the conservatives a chance to control who their candidate will be, but it also means that their candidate will only appeal to the little rump that is left of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania.
They seem convinced that their failure was brought about by the watering down of their core message by weak-kneed moderate Republicans. But their core message was plain to see to everyone at the Sarah Palin rallies during the 2008 campaign. It’s fucking frightening. Katrina and Iraq were bad enough, but unbridled, nativist, racism is not something appealing to people of color, young people, or people with a shred of decency. It the Pat Buchanification of the Grand Old Party, and more Republicans are going to defect the more ‘pure’ it becomes. At this point, I would advise Yankee Republicans to form their own party and have it funded by Wall Street, not Mega Churches.
Shorter: We think the Nebraskans as a whole are crazy on a whole lot of issues and so if Ben Nelson sucks only some of the time, we feel like we are ahead of the game…and we are.
Though I don’t think Nebraskans are crazy, in fact most are great people. Cornhusker fans are very classy, at least from my experience as a USC fan who went up against them for a couple years.
Ben Nelson could afford to vote a bit more liberally and still get elected. But he’s in a deep red state and trying to boot him from the party would be extremely counterproductive. Nate Silver recently examined how voting patterns change when somebody switches parties, and Nelson would probably start voting like Orrin Hatch if he switched.
I’ll save my ire for the Lieberdems in blue states – Specter, Lieberman himself, Carper, Bayh, that appointed idiot in Colorado (Bennet). Because those states deserve more liberal reps.
And Bayh is especially disappointing considering who his father is. Granted, Birch opened his mouth a little too much but his voting record(at least on big issues at that time) seems a lot more liberal than Evan ever has been.
correct.. you can thank ol’ Birch for getting the voting age dropped to 18.
And wasn’t Birch the major push behind ERA .. even though it ultimately failed?
dunno… probably. it was great having him as my senator back in the day.. too bad it was short lived. now we’re probably stuck with Evie for decades.
Notice I said “crazy on issues” not generally insane. Though reception in Nebraska when I have visited has been a little more hmm…. subdued? I am also not white for what that’s worth.
The only problem is that Wall Street doesn’t provide the votes to actually get elected. The mega-churches do.
not in New England, they don’t.
boy that rush limbaugh sure is a brainiac isn’t he?
At this point, I would advise Yankee Republicans to form their own party and have it funded by Wall Street, not Mega Churches.
It already exists and is called the Democratic Party.
First, one battle does not a war make, i.e. the ‘failure’ of the repug party.
Second, I’ve heard this all before. back in 1998-1999 when I was “blogging” over at Salon.com, there were plenty of people crowing about the democratic dynasty, how Gore was going to “win in a landslide” over that dumb, hick governor of Texas, etc.
I was one of the few people raising the red flag, predicting a Bush win.
People vote their pocketbooks.. the number of people claiming jobless benefits just jumped to 6.3 million, from the recent 6.1 million– which was a record high.
I get the fact Obama is a very popular guy.. however, at some point he is going to be held responsible for job growth. it’s not happening, and I don’t see much of a plan to MAKE it happen.
Turning on your own is pretty standard authoritarian behavior, take some time to read The Authoritarians by Prof. Bob Altemeyer, it might clarify a few things for you. The real battle here isn’t right vs left, liberal vs conservative, white vs black, or anything else that it is commonly presented as; the real battle is between authoritarianism and freedom.