First of all, although it is true that Markos basically celebrated the departure of nine moderate Democrats from the Senate over the last decade, he did not say that he hopes that Mark Pryor and Mary Landrieu lose their reelection bids this year. He definitely did not say that he hopes that Kay Hagan and Mark Begich lose. So, the premise of Matt Bennett and Jim Kessler’s piece is a bit stretched from the outset.
And then there are problems with this, too.
Moulitsas might have a stronger case if the moderates he abhors were replaced by more liberal members. But almost every instance saw the opposite result. Of the 10 former Democratic senators that Moulitsas identifies, seven were replaced by Republicans, one by Montanan John Walsh, who is in a fight for his political life this year, and another by Democrat Joe Donnelly of Indiana, who is unlikely to make the DailyKos Pantheon of Progressiveness. Just one, Joe Lieberman, of midnight-blue Connecticut, was succeeded by someone to his left. Meanwhile, the moderate Democrats in tough fights this cycle are running against Tea Party true believers.
First, Markos only listed nine (not ten) former senators. Second, Joe Donnelly replaced Dick Lugar, not Evan Bayh.
While I agree that the Democrats would be better off with more seats in the Senate, the authors of this piece don’t take into consideration an important part of what Markos was saying. Yeah, it’s true that Fritz Hollings was replaced by Jim DeMint and Zell Miller was replaced by Johnny Isakson. But it’s also true that Pete Domenici was replaced by Tom Udall and Mike DeWine was replaced by Sherrod Brown. Tammy Baldwin, Mazie Hirono, Elizabeth Warren, Martin Heinrich, Ed Markey, Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy, Jeff Merkley, Brian Schatz, and Sheldon Whitehouse are all more progressive than their predecessors.
The real debate isn’t over whether or not progressives want the Democrats to win Senate seats in red states. The real debate is about how best to do that. Why did Tom Harkin keep winning in Iowa? Why doesn’t Sherrod Brown vote like he comes from swing state? Why did Jon Tester get reelected?
For the most part, Democrats who took the Blue Dog approach were wiped out once the Great Recession began in earnest. Progressives weren’t exactly thrilled to see them go because it cost them their role in the majority of the House of Representatives. But they also understood that corporate Democrats had nothing to offer that anyone wanted.
Progressives knew that Blanche Lincoln would lose, which is why they didn’t fear damaging her in a primary. Mark Pryor has a better chance this year, but if he loses he will lose for the same reason that Lincoln did. He isn’t sufficiently on the people’s side.
The other thing that is important to consider is that there is a difference between a red state senator voting with the Republicans from time to time, and a red state senator endorsing the Republican nominee for president (as Miller did in 2004 and Lieberman did in 2008). If you’re going out in the media and trashing the leaders of your own party, then you are not that much of a plus.
Ask yourself a question. Why did the Jim Crow South vote for the New Deal? Why did they make common cause with the northern urban ethnic machines?
If you want southern votes for the modern Democratic Party, you can’t be a corporate tool. Unless you’re running in Virginia, that is.
If Kay Hagan and Mark Pryor want to save themselves, they should be talking about giving everyone free college tuition or something.
They made common cause because both were okay with stiffing nonwhites in the New Deal.
Much better analysis than John Cole’s but then it is past drink-thirty in West Virginia.
Mary Landrieu needs to make offensive (to Democrats) votes from time to time. Especially on things that stand no freaking chance to pass the House, even if her vote were counted. “Democrat” can be a dirty word in Red States, so you have to establish “independence”. Joe Manchin is going to bend over and take it on coal issues, but he also worked with Pat Freaking Toomey to get us as close to a post-Newtown gun control bill as we were likely to get.
But Corporate Democrats are different from Red State Democrats. They really bring nothing to the table for Democrats or their constituents.
The only problem is that the power of incumbency means that those seats lost – in Red States at least – simply won’t be won back any time soon.
“If you’re going out in the media and trashing the leaders of your own party, then you are not that much of a plus.”
Why is reliably voting against labor, education, and the environment worse than endorsing a Republican presidential nominee?
The Blue Dogs only survive if there’s a large fraction of the electorate that just pull the “D” lever because that’s what they’ve always done.
For the other voters, if they WANT a Republican, they’ll VOTE for a Republican, so a Blue Dog with a “GOP-lite” position is a sure loser.
The traditional/habitual Democrat voters were once dominant in the South, but much less as time goes on.
The progressive agenda is dead. It will remain dead for the foreseeable future… until americans stop their flirtation with the radical GOP. There just aren’t enough progressives who bother to vote and the radical GOP has found it easy to elect truly horrible people to positions of power.
I suspect many recognize that electing the crazy demagogues is OK because, ultimately, no one gets hurt by it… No one we know or care about anyway. If often seems like some relatively well off people care more about the poor than the poor themselves. We resist cuts to welfare programs for the elderly even as the elderly destroy our preferred candidates in election after election. What’s the point? Americans must be made to feel the impact of their votes (or lack thereof). Nothing will change as long as we protect the “the people” from themselves.
We all know what the problem is in America so I don’t know why we still pretend the government can fix it.
“Here’s a current example of the challenge we face,” he writes in the book’s prelude: “At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 140,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappear? And what happened to the wealth that all those middle-class jobs created?”
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/12/jaron_lanier_the_internet_destroyed_the_middle_class/
Not saying that Lanier doesn’t have a point, but growth of the internet doesn’t explain why the turning point for the middle-class in American was 1973 (not 1999).
Of course I cannot properly characterize Mr. Lanier’s views in one bite. As someone who has worked with middle class factory workers for the last 30 years, I can assure you that the changes in technology which started in the 70’s and got a big bump from the internet have decimated industry. Throw in globalization and the rise of Wall St and no one has a chance.
I realize that we don’t want to admit that our embrace of these new gadgets and ways of buying useless junk destroyed our economy… but… oops.
As the venerable Kevin Drum satirized these changes today…
B&N (Barnes & Nobel) was a “brick and mortar” outlet, a category that flourished in the 20th and early 21st centuries. Back then, books were physical objects that had to be “shipped” to “stores.” Potential buyers would drive their “auto-mobiles” to these stores and then walk around to examine the titles in meatspace. When they were done, they would approach “cashiers,” who were employees of these stores, and exchange “money” for volumes that were printed on paper and bound with glue and thread. It was all very complicated and unsanitary, and I can’t really go into all the details in this short space. You can check out Wikipedia on your cerebral implant if you’re interested in learning more.
Way back then, we had black phones with dials. Other colors, styles, and push buttons were available, but there was a charge for those luxuries and didn’t work any better (at least not after “party lines” became obsolete). Those suckers were built like tanks — practically indestructible. TPC sent out a (union) worker to install new lines (for a modest fee) and fix broken lines (usually no fee).
Monthly basic phone charge was equivalent to 4X (or less) the hourly minimum wage. (Long distance calls were expensive). It was a utility not a toy. And Lily Tomlin could make us laugh with Ernestine.
Aren’t these the same people who penned a piece trashing Warren and de Blasio for their positions? Lol. Pot, meet Kettle.
It’s white-collar suburban workers who are the backbone of today’s Republican Party in the South, especially the ones who made their incomes since 1968. The most vicious racist rhetoric comes not from blue-collar workers but for small business owners, bank tellers, independent contractors of all kinds, ambitious lawyers, and greedy doctors.
As a fellow Southern Redstater (as if there were any other kind)this is mostly accurate about who the GOP is today
As one who lives a bit south and west of you, I’d add to the above list certain rural working class citizens who are really struggling economically, but who don’t have the courage to go against those they borrow money from, go to church with, and maybe work for, and vote Democratic, particularly while we’ve a Black man in the Presidency.
Right now our state legislature has just finished its session and passed a whole raft of egregious legislation that the governor will probably sign. Like offering up a pitifully low-on-air life raft to our rural hospitals by rescinding the federal law that says they have to treat anyone who walks into their emergency room. And, take away the power of the Governor to expand or not Medicaid and make him share the authority with them. And forbid that anyone at all provide programs to help people sign on to Obamacare. God protect us all. Sadly, though, all of them will still vote for the Republican.
They deserve what they get.
Well, now, that’s a very cruel Republican thing to say. Plus it says that no one is willing to do the work to change the situation here politically. Throwing up one’s hands in utter defeat and cynicism is not going to get us anywhere. Which is why, as much as I like the other candidate running for the US Senate in the primary against Michelle Nunn, he will probably lose, and she, rather than he, is the only person who stands a chance against the Republican field.
As conservative as she is, and she’s not her father’s daughter for nothing, she’s far better than anyone on the other side. As long as the GOP us unable and unwilling to move itself towards the side of sanity, then any Democrat is better.
One of the other laws that may have cleared both state houses yesterday is one that allows for guns in churches, airports, and other public spaces. I circulated a petition arguing against that bill’s passage among a few fellow citizens that I felt might be opposed to it.
One of them was a cousin who’s a retired Episcopalian priest in the Northwest part of the state (the northern part of our state seems to be the residence of most of the really radical reactionary politicans). He responded that he was through with the Republican party at the “STATE” level. I am still of a mixed mind whether that’s a hopeful sign or not that the voting populace may be about to vote differently.
There’s no electoral benefit for Democrats in any state to be “moderate”. No matter how they vote, the right-wing-controlled media will paint them as a flaming liberal. Biggest example: Obama.
Democrats who make “centrist” votes just disappoint their supporters with no compensating benefit. It’s a lose-lose deal. Pryor probably sunk his chances by coming out against the minimum wage – he was ahead before, and now he’s behind.
There can be a benefit to sucking up to powerful local industry groups – e.g. coal miners for Manchin and offshore oil for Landrieu. And with guns, the country has gone so far to the loony right that a Democrat could support open-carry of semiautomatics and they’d still be OK for the lefties as long as they supported background checks. But in general, supporting centrist positions is electoral idiocy for a Democrat.
Totally false. Case in point: Mark Warner. Mark Warner is the most popular politician in Virginia by virtue of his track record as a moderate, and by branding himself and Virginia Dems as moderate created a slipstream that got other Dems elected, including Terry Freakin’ McAuliffe. Terry McAuliffe! I mean, seriously!
Anyone who tried to run for office in Virginia as an unabashed liberal Democrat would get spit out like something in a frat boy’s dip cup. Democratic voters around here aren’t particularly liberal in the first place. Democratic politicos run as moderates when running as liberals would wreck their chances. They don’t do it for spite, they do it because they want to win.
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