Reality within big tent parties
Posted by Greg on October 25, 2007
It has been interesting to watch the progressives attack the Bush Dog Democrats. Now, Politico reports that some of the fruits are coming home to roost.
A large group of “Blue Dog” Democrats has refused to give money to the party’s campaign committee so far this cycle, underscoring simmering tension inside the Caucus and concerns about the caustic language of at least one anti-war Democrat.
According to a review of Federal Election Commission records, 15 Blue Dogs have given no money to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as of Sept. 30, despite heavy pressure from party leaders.
This isn’t altogether surprising. Political parties, particularly big tent parties in a two party system, are invariably big tents in which different factions rule at different times.
Progressives took a beating in the eighties and ninties. They are more influential these days and of course they are going to try and use that to their own advantage. A lot of the sweat equity in the new democratic majority came from the progressives and they’re right and reasonable to expect some return on their investment. Moreover, given the president’s low approval ratings and the institutional rape being committed on American principles and institutions by the administration it’s perfectly reasonable to believe the democrats haven’t been confrontational enough thus far.
Progressives are on the rise in the Democratic party and they are going to try to move the center in their direction, just as the religious wrong and club for growth did to the Republicans in the past. It’s hardly surprising and far from wrong, it’s how the democratic process works and both strategy and tactics sometimes get a little blurry.
No matter how one votes on every other issue, there is one key vote that matters – that of majority leader/speaker of the house – and progressives are for the most part intelligent enough to recognize they are better off with a democrat voting for a democratic managed legislature than a republican voting otherwise. But when a seat is relatively safe in terms of swinging to the other party attempts to move the representative toward one’s preferred agenda makes a lot of sense.
It’s going to be fun to watch over the next years because the soul of the Democratic party is every bit as up in the air as the GOP’s.
