After reading diary after diary and comment today about how we need to rid our party of Sen Reid and send money and votes to Republicans...I felt the need to speak out.
What is the matter with DKos? Don't we realize that the Overton window has shifted? And so has our expectations...but our expectations and the congress has shifted to different degrees....
*****Update*****
Well this was an exciting diary...not on the Rec list but over 250 comments and most of them very interesting and civil. Thanks for your participation. I am heartened by the support of Democrats and believe when the chips are down next November, we will come together to beat the evil Republicans.../peace
Some at Kossackland believe because we have large Democratic majorities means that we should easily pass any progressive legislation that we all want and there should be no debate with moderates and conservatives within our party.
Instead we should throw them under the bus and go back to having debates with RW conservatives...
We did not elect progressive majorities nor did we elect a progressive POTUS...not even a majority of Democrats supported a progressive candidate (as you recall Dennis lost in the primary)
We replaced a wingnut warmonger idiot POTUS with a moderate, centrist pragmatist POTUS and a Right-Center consensus congress with a Left-Center consensus congress...
Now debating policy between LW and centrists to me is much preferred than debating policy between centrists and RWingers...because that is the choice if we want to dump all the centrists because without relying on primarying instead of dumping...that is what will happen...
Some of the ranting sounds like petuculant children who did not get their way immediately upon asking for it. Change takes time, work, energy, and compromise...it does not magically happen because a historic election occurred...just ask the opponents of abortion who disregarded their economic interests for 20+ years to save the zygotes...how many zygotes did they actually save...???
Do you want real change, then fight for it, grass roots lobby for it, primary strategically those who are out of touch with their constituents, primary people even if you don't win in order to remind them that they have a progressive constituency...don't cut off the head of the Democrats because of some pimples on his ass...
According to Progressive Punch every single Democrat votes more progressively than every single Republican. Now for the purposes of this discussion, I am only using "critical votes" which are a lower percentage in most cases than all votes. PP says that critical votes are votes that matter when the chips are down for passage of a key piece of legislation and not just a procedural vote. Although I would argue that procedural votes are important too.
Then there are those who do not like the methodology of PP (I would suspect mostly because they do not like the answer from the data). To those I would say, the methodology is not perfect (like missed votes count against you) but overall the methodology is applied equally so the relative percentages that are statistically significant are relevant. So I am talking about big picture...on can argue that a different methodology would come up with different numbers but not different classifications of liberals, moderates and conservatives for each party...
http://www.progressivepunch.org/...
All of the Republicans vote 10% or less for progressive policy with 3 exceptions: John McCain 11.3%, Susan Collins 24.3% and Olympia Snowe 27.1%...so 37 of the 40 Republicans are at best a 10% chance of supporting your progressive position
On the other hand all but one (1) Democrat and non-Republican (Lieberman I-CT) votes for progressive legislation more than 50% of the time...and that one Democrat is Ben Nelson (D-NE) at 43.5%...which his counterpart Sen Johanns votes 2% of the time for progressive legislation...I would argue that 43.5% is better than 2%...
Then there are 9 Democrats who shamefully vote only 50% - 70% of the time for progressive legislation...they are our true centrists/blue-dogs in the Senate:
Name PP% State PP State Rating
Kay Hagen 56.9% (D-NC) Swing
Max Baucus 64.4% (D-MT) Lean Republican
Mark Begich 64.7% (D-AK) Strong Republican
Michael Bennett 66.7% (D-CO) Swing
Mary Landrieu 67.6% (D-LA) Strong Republican
Claire McCaskell 68.2% (D-MO) Swing
Joe Leiberman (I) 68.5% (I-CT) Strong Democrat
Blanche Lincoln 68.8% (D-AR) Lean Republican
Mark Pryor 69.6% (D-AR) Lean Republican
Now we can quibble with the PP State ratings a little but it is clear we have some room for improvement for 3 of the 9 most unreliable Democrats in the senate...still voting 57% - 69% for progressive legislation is nothing to sneeze at compared to 10% or less for the likely Republican replacement...
Now lets look at the next group from 70% - 85% voting for progressive legislation. This is a respectable voting record and is quite reliable vote and also usually persuadable under the gun. However, even here there is some room for improvement...
Name PP% State PP State Rating
Thomas Carper 70.5% (D-DE) Strong Democrat
Mark Udall 70.6% (D-CO) Swing
Jon Tester 71.0% (D-MT) Lean Republican
Evan Bayh 73.9% (D-IN) Swing
Jim Webb 74.1% (D-VA) Swing
Robert Byrd 74.4% (D-WV) Swing
Kent Conrad 75.1% (D-ND) Lean Republican
Daniel Inoyue 75.8% (D-HI) Strong Democrat
Mark Warner 76.5% (D-VA) Swing
Byron Dorgon 77.5% (D-ND) Lean Republican
Tim Johnson 78.2% (D-SD) Lean Republican
Jeff Bingaman 78.3% (D-NM) Lean Democrat
Tom Udall 78.4% (D-NM) Lean Democrat
Harry Reid 78.9% (D-NV) Swing
Diane Fienstein 79.1% (D-CA) Strong Democrat
Herb Kohl 79.3% (D-WI) Lean Democrat
Bill Nelson 79.4% (D-FL) Swing
Jay Rockefeller 80.6% (D-WV) Swing
Amy Klobuchar 81.2% (D-MN) Leaning Democrat
John Kerry 82.5% (D-MA) Strong Democrat
Christopher Dodd 83.1% (D-CT) Strong Democrat
Robert Casey 83.9% (D-PA) Leaning Democrat
Jeanne Shaheen 84.3% (D-NH) Swing
What is left are the 26 pretty pure progressives that are the core of what Kossacks like. The group above of 23 leaning progressive and reliable 70% - 85% of the time there are some places for improvement here as well in about 4 - 7 who could be more in line with their constituents.
So in all there is room for improvement in about 7 - 10 Senate Democrats to siginficantly move the Senate Democrate to being more progressive on legislative priorities...so lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater and lets look at the big picture to grow the party and the progressive power from within rather than destroying it by adding RW Republicans for moderate Democrats...
In the end, I am for primarying any Democrat...I think win or lose it helps the party and reminds the legislator that there are progressives looking at their records...but once the primaries are over we need to come together just like we did in 2006 and 2008 and kick the Republicans' butts all over the country with a 50 state strategy. Every Democrat we throw under the bus is a break in that 50 state strategy and takes resources away from gaining and defending competitive seats...peace and think warm & fuzzy Democratic thoughts!!!!