Here’s something from Elizabeth Drew’s 1999 book, The Corruption of American Politics: What Went Wrong and Why:
The power of the base, especially its Christian Right component, explained what many people found so puzzling about the actions of the House Republicans in Clinton’s case: that they pursued impeachment in the face of overwhelming opposition to it in the national polls. They were far more concerned about the view of the base than about national polls. The donors couldn’t be offended. Turnout by the Christian Right was crucial to the party’s fortunes in elections, in particular to its ability to hold control of the House.
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee were immune to arguments from other Republicans, a few of them in the House itself, that what they were about to do would hurt the party, and that the removal of a popular President wouldn’t be good for the country. A major Republican figure I know, a man with excellent conservative credentials, trolled among the committee Republicans in December [1998], trying to persuade them that, though he probably agreed with them that Clinton’s behavior constituted impeachable offenses, they should use their prosecutorial discretion and decide that impeaching Clinton and trying to remove him from office was in neither the country’s, nor the Republican Party’s, interest. He failed utterly.
Referring to the committee’s considerations, which included an entire day on the subject of perjury. I said to this person, “They’re hearing perjury, perjury, perjury.”
He replied, “They’re hearing primary, primary, primary.”
The Republicans didn’t need the Christian Right’s money. Not really. They got their money from the Chamber of Commerce, from Wall Street, and from corporations. The Republicans needed manpower, and they needed votes. They needed religiously conservative people to forsake their class interests in favor of the class interests of the uber-rich. They felt compelled to appease the Christian Right.
The Democrats feel no such compulsion. We can’t magically create well funded primaries all over the country. Hardly any Democrats fear a primary, and one of them that does, Rep. Al Wynn of Maryland, has already co-sponsored Dennis Kucinich’s impeachment resolution.
Our problem is that we don’t have enough power.
Are you saying that progressive dems are less powerful than the Christian right base was? Don’t the dems need manpower and votes?
Before the Republicans co-opted the Christian right, they didn’t vote in large numbers. There are large numbers of people with populist or progressive tendencies who don’t vote? Why are they being ingnored by the Dems? Why are they chasing the Centrist Independents instead of the current non-voters? Why do we progressives/liberals continue to act like battered wives, sticking with our “man” and believing, contrary to all evidence, that they really care about us?
the progressives aren’t the ones acting like battered wives, that is the what moderates are doing.
The Dems are not afraid of us because we are not a credible threat. It’s that simple. You see what we’re doing with Donna Edwards right now. That’s great. But it is ONE seat.
We can’t just raise $100,000 at the drop of a hat, let alone for 12-24-36 races.
Republicans have a much easier time finding that kind of funding.
Every Republican that has come out against the war already has a primary challenger (Hagel, Gilchrist, Ron Paul, Walter Jones, and Inglis). Every one.
That’s the difference.
“The Dems are not afraid of us because we are not a credible threat.”
Then lets stay home this election, or all vote green, and let the republicans win. After that, they will be catering to us. And yes, I know that 4 more years of republican sucks. But having Hillary for 8 years could suck even worse.
how do you figure that 8 years of Hillary will be worse than 4 years of Rudy Guiliani or Mitt Romney?
But, forget about presidential politics. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about congressional politics. How do we get congress to vote for the rule of law?
Primaries are the way, but we don’t have the money to do much but tinker around the edges. Like it or not, money is the way to influence power. Once the nominee is selected, staying home? That’s too late. If they have to pick between motivating the base and easy money, they’ll choose easy money every time.
When we poured a quarter million dollars into Dodd’s campaign overnight, we showed that we can have both: a motivated base and a source of funding. But we can’t do that all the time.
Actuallly, I said that it could, not that it would. So it is just that, a possibility.
Let me ask you, what bothers you more, that Bush nominates someone that will not say that waterboarding is torture, or that some dems are willing to vote for that nominee?
Will it bother you more that a republican will continue with policies and practices that Bush enacted (signing statements etc ) or that Hillroy does it?
As progressives, having republicans in control, we know who the enemy is. If it were a Dem, (and a none progressive) it will make much harder for us.
All I know is that we can no longer give them a blank check, and that they no longer should take us for granted
Their primary goal is to keep money concentrated in the privileged few.
Populists, by definition, want a fair distribution of wealth.
Most of us will continue to get poorer as long as the Corporationists are in power. It will get progressively harder to raise money.
Raising money isn’t the problem. The need to raise money is. We must find a way to force a change in the system. I wish I had an idea of how to do that, but I don’t.
We have to take at least one of the Blue Dogs down to encourage the others. How do you think the thugs traumatized the Democrats? They took down Cleland. That psychology works in both directions. Wynn is a good candidate for replacement. It will have more impact that one might imagine.