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MODERATES ON PARADE.
The Senate moderates have come together -- in the pages of the Washington Post, natch -- to reassure the world of their support of President Obama's agenda. Sens. Evan Bayh, Tom Carper, and Blanche Lincoln are only forming a new moderate caucus in the Senate because:
1) The Republican leadership isn't doing a good job and they feel they can whip GOP votes. (Seriously, that's what they say.)
2) They have no idea what they're talking about. I've lamented in the past the fact that these senators rarely deign to explain why the make the choices they do, leading people to infer that it has more to do with their campaign contributions than their principles. Read this paragraph and you'll understand their whole gambit:
As moderate leaders, it is not our intent to water down the president's agenda. We intend to strengthen and sustain it. Moderation is not a mathematical process of finding the center for its own sake. Practical solutions are practical because they offer our best chance to make a difference in people's lives today without forcing our children to pick up the tab tomorrow.
This is truly beautiful nonsense. Being practical is good because ... being practical is good. Let me offer a few other riffs on this passage:
- "Communist solutions are communist because they offer our best chance to make a difference..."
- "Republican solutions are Republican because they offer our best chance to make a difference..."
- "Fascist solutions are are Fascist because they offer our best chance to make a difference ..."
You get the idea.
3) They worry that the president's agenda is going to alienate moderates and cost him his his political support, just as it did Bill Clinton in 1993. Except, you know, that Obama won a lot more votes than Clinton -- moderate votes! -- and that he continues to have the approval of moderates, all while saying the same things. Meanwhile, Bayh has the political experience of winning statewide elections in Indiana -- Obama won Indiana -- and losing national presidential campaigns -- didn't Obama win one of those, too? Bayh continues to misunderstand the current political dynamic, or he's stuck in the past.
It's a good sign, at least, that Bayh et. al. have faced enough political pressure that they felt it necessary to come forward and reiterate their support for the president. To be sure, the work they've done in the Senate to persuade moderate Republicans to back the president's agenda has been important and necessary, even as their cheerful willingness to say nonsensical things and take stands against their constituents' interests has been a drag. But if there's a middle ground between helping build consensus for important legislation and completely ignoring consequences of the policies they support, these moderates can find it. After all, tea-weakening incrementalism is tea-weakening incrementalism because it offers our best chance to make a difference in people's lives today without forcing our children to pick up the tab tomorrow. Right?
--Tim Fernholz
COMMENTS (12)
I seem to vaguely recall a moderate coalition to foster peace, love and harmony around Supreme Court nominations, the better to prevent nominations being limited to extremists like Sam Alito and John Roberts. Oh wait . . .
Posted by: Miracle Max | March 25, 2009 11:55 AM
What monumental losers, assholes, and preening frauds these DLC'ers are:
"...nearly half of the U.S. electorate calls itself moderate, and more than half of the rest identify themselves as conservative. That means Democrats could capture every liberal vote and half of the moderates and still lose at the polls. Many independents voted for President Obama and the contours of his change agenda, but they will not rubber-stamp it."
Translation: More people voted for Obama and his agenda than for any Democrat in fifty years. Nonetheless, we three, from dipshit irrelevant states that represent .33% of the entire US electorate know better what the people what, and what they want is the same old corporatist DLC hogwash that they rejected every 4 years, and which lost us the Congress and Senate in the 1990s.
Posted by: mars | March 25, 2009 11:59 AM
These public servants aren't grandstanding, or seeking publicity; on the contrary they only seek an opportunity to serve their president -- either President Collins or President Nelson, either one will do.
Posted by: Davis X. Machina | March 25, 2009 12:10 PM
Aggressive cat is aggressive. Defensive cat is defensive. Practical cat is practical.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 25, 2009 12:20 PM
Credit where credit is due.
One of the best moves the Republicans ever made was to infiltrate the Democratic Party through an organization called the Democratic Leadership Council.
It allowed the Republicans to get into the White House a DINO named Clinton who promptly signed into law every job-killing free trade pact he could get his hands on, TeleComs legislation that will seemingly allow Rupert Murdoch to eventually own every media outlet in America, the repeal of Glass-Steagall and passage of the Commodities Modernizaton Act which has allowed Enron style accounting to infect the regulatory structure and destroy the global economy in the process and has gotten us into the position where in order for any kind of Progressive agenda to get through Congress the Democrats apparently need a majority of about 98D to 2R.
But even then there would undoubtedly be a "gang of 87" waiting in the wings.
Bottom line: The Democratic Party that used to represent the little guy as compared to the Wall Street fat-cat NO LONGER EXISTS.
Long live the King!
Posted by: MC | March 25, 2009 12:45 PM
Please, stop calling them moderates. They are NOT moderates. Just because that is the word they want to use for themselves, does not make it so. And it does not mean that we have to use the term, just because they want you to.
The are conservative and corporatist (e.g., they could be conservative and economic populist, but they are not) Democrats.
Posted by: DrSteveB | March 25, 2009 12:51 PM
Why use the meaningless term "moderate" to describe these people? Let's just call them what they are: cowards.
Posted by: oleeb | March 25, 2009 1:37 PM
You left out Mary Landrieu, that proud bastion of moderation from Louisiana, who re-election campaign last year proudly touted her record of voting Republican. She helped pass the Bankruptcy Bill in 2005, just before hurricanes ravaged her state. She works for the oil corporations and proudly traded her vote for Pete Domenici's blessing. Ugh.
Posted by: jame | March 25, 2009 2:48 PM
"they can whip GOP votes. (Seriously, that's what they say.)"
And what better way to do that than to reiterate support for President Obama? These are smart, serious people!
Posted by: Notorious P.A.T. | March 25, 2009 5:54 PM
the repuglitard party is a cancer on America
Posted by: freepatriot | March 25, 2009 11:24 PM
Bottom line: The Democratic Party that used to represent the little guy as compared to the Wall Street fat-cat NO LONGER EXISTS.
Posted by: air compressor | November 19, 2009 2:51 AM
You left out Mary Landrieu, that proud bastion of moderation from Louisiana, who re-election campaign last year proudly touted her record of voting Republican. She helped pass the Bankruptcy Bill in 2005, just before hurricanes ravaged her state.
Posted by: sintered metal | November 19, 2009 2:53 AM