“Many activists believe that Lieberman’s conciliatory approach undercuts the party’s unity, consistency and confrontational posture, all of which are essential for an effective opposition party. They resent his style more than they resent his voting record, which is not very different from those of many popular Democrats.
Lieberman obviously still has incumbency, fund raising, name recognition and good poll numbers on his side. Yet Democrats’ enthusiasm for devoting resources to this internal battle, instead of to races that actually could win back Congress, reveals the increasing significance of leadership strategy in the debate over the party’s future. While Lieberman may be the most noticeable target, he is not alone.
Last month, the influential progressive organization MoveOn.org asked its members if it should devote resources toward similar primary challenges. (For full disclosure, I wrote a chapter for the 2004 book “MoveOn’s 50 Ways To Love Your Country.”) The group announced that 84% of respondents agreed, and it is now leading a primary challenge to Texas Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar.
Critics of this approach say an opposition party cannot afford to quibble with its elected members, and that all resources should be devoted to winnable swing districts in the next election. But that misses the whole point: Proponents of primary challenges are actually strategizing beyond the next election.
They believe that some of the party’s most visible scars are self-inflicted. Its reputation is tarnished by prominent Democrats who capitulate to Republicans at every turn, undercutting the entire rationale for an opposition party, and by candidates who define their personal strengths by knocking their party’s perceived weakness, as Zell Miller and Evan Bayh have done with national security. Eradicating such timidity and disloyalty would be good for the party; challenging it is just common sense.
Today, Democratic activists have little patience for leaders who still don’t get it. The Santa Monica-based Digby’s Blog explained the contrast in a post this month: “The grass roots of the Democratic Party see something that all the establishment politicians have not yet realized: Bipartisanship is dead for the moment, and there is no margin in making deals. The rules have changed. When you capitulate to the Republicans for promises of something down the road, you are being a fool. When you make a deal with them for personal reasons, you are selling out your party. When you use Republican talking points to make your argument, you are helping the other side.”
If Democratic leaders listened to this insight, they would understand that many of their supporters yearn for confrontational leadership and unwavering allegiance to the party — reasonable requests that do not require major ideological shifts.
The primary challenges to Lieberman, Cuellar and other like-minded Democrats are designed either to purge the targets or to temper their conduct, while warning other elected Democrats that disloyalty now has a cost. It is a valiant effort finally to give the Democratic Party more discipline, all the more striking because the calls for unity are coming from the bottom up.”-from Ari Melber’s op-ed in Forward, via The Huffington Post.