You don’t have to go home
but you can’t stay here…
Yesterday I discussed the potential for too much inter-party squabbling that could end up hurting the GOP next election year and the MSM overblowing of the situation in the NY-23. Consequently, I head this morning that the GOP leadership in the New York Legislature has stripped Scozzafava of her leadership position. Now we all know that the NY GOP is not a bunch of right-wing, southern-extremists. Even for them, Scozzafava’s actions were a bridge too far.
Now let’s take a look at the Democratic Party and the problems within it that the MSM is barely covering. If you are looking for an example of real inter-party problems, you don’t have to look much further than right here. The chickens are coming home to roost and if you look at how they got here, it really is a problem they created.
Beginning back in 2006, everyone knew the Republican “brand” was poisonous. The Democratic campaign leadership, recognizing this, began actively recruiting, funding and positioning “conservative” democratic candidates to run in traditionally Republican seats. It was Rahm Emanuel, now the Chief of Staff to President Obama, that spearheaded this effort for the DCCC. It was a smart move politically and it worked. The Democrats ran as fiscal conservatives. They ran as social conservatives. They ran as pro-military. The result being, that a large number of those candidates won and the Democratic congregation said, Amen!
It worked again in 2008. Now in 2009 the national party is pushing what can modestly be described as a very progressive agenda during a very shaky economic outlook. Naturally, those 40+ conservative or “Blue Dog” Democrats are having trouble. Remember, they ran on fiscal responsibility, debt reduction, pro-life and pro-business issues. They have already been made to walk the plank on Cap & Trade and the various spending bills and now we have health care. They are voicing their concern on those issues that they pledged to be “blue dogs” on and what is the result?
Well, they now have liberal interest and activist groups running campaign ads against them. The fellow Democratic colleagues are openly criticizing their beliefs and pledging to remove any of their amendments from bills during conference. They are vilified by the netroots and cursed by Hill staff. Do they even remember who delivered the Congress to them?
If you want to talk about a Party tacking to the extreme and attempting to purify itself of intellectual diversity, look no further. You see, the Republican Party has always had a public conservative platform. It seems to me that what is going on is a return to its roots that got them to power. What is happening on the other side is a ideological clensing and purging of differing points of view.
But you won’t be hearing about that. At least until the postmortem is written on the 2010 elections.
Don’t believe me? Check out the latest Gallop numbers on the generic ballot test. The most telling part is when they state, “Since Gallup regularly began using the generic ballot to measure registered voters’ preferences for the House of Representatives in 1950, it has been rare for Republicans to have an advantage over Democrats.”
How are those Blue Dogs going to face their constituencies when it is time to campaign back home?
