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Thursday, September 03, 2009

Close Race? You Need the Base

It is the liberal base of donors and activists that the Blue Dogs will need in those close 49-51% 2010 races in moderate districts we keep hearing so much about.

Conventional Wisdom seems to assume that Blue Dogs are allying with Republicans against their President and the majority of their Party as a matter of electoral expediency, when it seems to me that expediency demands they hold their noses and support the Public Option.

Activists understand that it is foolish to challenge incumbents from the left in districts that are not so left-leaning. We are quite willing to support reasonable and moderate candidates to our right who are willing to keep Party discipline in epochal fights like health care reform -- fights that define the Party and its position in governance in generational terms -- even if they cannot always be counted upon otherwise because they are bound to represent their constituents.

This is not a hard principle for us to grasp. We have plenty of work to do challenging incumbents in our Party whose constituents are left of the voting records of their "representatives," rather than indulging quixotic self-marginalizing efforts to unseat incumbents whose records reflect moderate constituencies or who are even left of their constituencies (if still to the right of the activist left).

But that doesn't really seem to be the logic of the arguments we are hearing now from Blue Dogs and their apologists.

Either they think the Base will support them anyway when it comes down to it, just because they have a D next to their names, even though they are demonstrating here and now why there is simply no reason at all to do so since a DINO majority is not a majority that does anything worth doing, or they think constituents who really want to be represented by Republicans will support a Republican-lite with a D at the end of their names over a real Republican, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding.

Or maybe they really do want -- I mean, as a matter of principle -- the overabundant majority of everyday Americans to suffer and die so that insurance company CEOs can get even richer while bankrupting the country; in which case this is, you know, like, a principled stance on their parts, just one involving principles that are unfathomably evil and stupid.

If you are a Blue Dog and you face a close race in 2010, you need to look to your base and do what makes us happy, else you can be sure that you will lose without our help. Earn it. Support the Public Option. Otherwise, just quit or become a Republican or whatever. Who the Hell needs your sorry ass, anyway?

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