Liberals, Democrats and Chumpdom

By Fester:
Recently, the chair of the DCCC, Chris Van Hollen complained that liberals were pressuring moderate and conservative Democrats and that it was making his job harder. 

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen, in a Wednesday afternoon news conference, said that a wide range of attack ads by groups like MoveOn.org could hurt potentially vulnerable Democrats in their 2010 races.

“What I’ve been warning people very clearly is, beware of forming a circular firing squad,” Van Hollen said. “We believe people should be focusing their efforts on expanding the Democratic majority, and that should be their singular focus."

His primary job is to protect Democratic incumbents first and foremost and then flip Republican held seats to become Democratic seats. I understand that is his perspective and his relevant performance metrics. He will be praised and see his power increase for having done a good job if there are 263 Democrats in the House on Jan. 3, 2011 and slammed if there are 249 Democrats in the House at the start of the next Congress. He wants as many resources to aid in achieving this objective. He also wants as many “easy” races as possible so that he can direct his limited resources to the “cherry on top” races and districts.    But those personal incentives may not line up with liberal/progressive or ideological incentives of other, non-coordinating entities. 

Nate Silver at 538 notes that Sen. Dodd is in deep trouble for the 2010 general election and raises the question about a tactical primary against Dodd as Connecticut is a generically Democratic state and a generic Democrat would most likely retain the seat.

While we have a long way to go until November 2010, it's fairly startling to see a four-term Democratic incumbent down by 16 points in a deeply blue state. And make no mistake: this is all about Dodd's negatives...

Unless, perhaps, their nominee is someone other than Chris Dodd. Dodd has swatted away rumors of retirement (although one wonders whether polling numbers like these could give him second thoughts). But, somewhat as the Republicans seem poised to do in Kentucky with Jim Bunning, the Democrats could also attempt to force Dodd's hand by giving him a primary challenger...

On paper, the most compelling alternative is probably Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, a longtime champion for working class interests. But DeLauro was Dodd's former chief of staff, and it's hard to envision her running against her old boss. Chris Murphy, however, could present a compelling alternative, as could potentially Joe Courtney.

The real question may be whether certain parts of the Democratic nerve center -- and particularly the blogosphere -- might throw their weight behind someone like Murphy. Dodd is quite popular with parts of the left for his vigorous challenge to FISA, and he is relatively liberal on most other issues as well. Unless the alternative were DeLauro, who is one of the couple dozen most liberal members of the Congress, this would not be a challenge on ideological grounds.

Speaking as a liberal, what is the point of having a majority or an expanded majority unless preferred policy objectives are being advanced as a consequence of that majority or enhanced majority?

If a larger majority is a necessary and/or sufficient step to advance preferred policy objectives such as significant health care reform, cap and trade or a less militaristic foreign policy, then a political policy of “winner-ism” is justifiable. For most of the netroots, this was one of the guiding ‘principals’ in 2002, 2004 and 2006 --- any Democrat, even a Blue Dog in a deep Blue district, was worthy of liberal support as a counter-balance to the emergency of the Bush-Delay-Rove attempt to force a constitutional moment.

However that emergency has passed, and there is a possibility of achieving positive political and policy preferences so ideology beyond “Not Bush” can come to the fore of the decision matrix. So why, on major policy initiative when it is evident that one or two more net Democratic Senators and half a dozen net Democratic Representatives is neither neccessary nor sufficient to pass significant liberal legislation as seen by the vote today to keep carbon dioxide cap and trade out of reconciliation and thus effectively killing it for at least this cycle and probably another one as well, should liberals agree to shut up and be the chumps of the Democratic coalition?

Why should liberals go after, for purely tactical reasons whose benefits will most likely not dis-proportionally accrue to liberal/progressive components of the Democratic Party, one of the liberals’ more significant allies? Why should liberals not raise a medium size noise when their interests are getting swatted aside? Why should liberals be the perpetual chump of the party when chump-dom is not necessitated by the circumstances?

Comments

[kcbill13]

It is all about demanding that if you want to be a congress critter, you have to support a basic set of principled core items that are the basis of the Democratic Party. Those are likely to NOT be core corporate items, so if we have people who are corporate whores with a D beside their name, primary em every time til we get principles back in the Democratic Party, or form a third party. There is no other way forward with these unprincipled bought and paid for DINO's. Tough biccies, Chris