I refer, of course, to this postmortem analysis of the primary results in Pennsylvania, 2 House Democrats Defeated After Opposing Health Law, from yesterday's New York Times. It pains me to describe the writer, Jonathan Weisman, as a concern troll, but his first paragraph leaves me no alternative.
The defeat of two conservative House Democrats by more liberal opponents in Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary illustrates the strong hold the new health care law still has over committed Democratic voters and foreshadows an even more polarized Congressnext year in the aftermath of the latest round of redistricting.
Horrors! No more and better Democrats for the national desk! Let's see how the rest of the article plays out below.
Apparently, Mark Critz and Matt Cartwright, not named at this point in the article yet,
joined together with activist groups to pummel the veteran lawmakers [Jason Altmire and Tim Holden] over the opposition to the new health care law and climate change legislation — positions they had used to their advantage in the past to show their independence from President Obama and the Democratic Party.
This led the Democratic Party chair of Schuylkill County to complain that Holden's defeat meant
Last night, the Democratic Party became more liberal.
No celebration yet. Weisman warns us that both the Democrats and the Republicans are likely to send more polarized and polarizing candidates -- better Democrats, more reactionary Republicans (my terms here) -- and enlists Mike Ross of Arkansas, the head of the dwindling Blue Dog Caucus, to announce that
“Redistricting,” he added, “has been bad for the country."
Remember, this is NOT an op-ed piece. This is from the national news section.
More horrors. It seems that the number of Democrats in the Blue Dog caucus has dropped from 54 in 2010 to 23 now. This is a bad thing?
Now, we learn how Critz and Cartwright managed to depose these veteran lawmakers. Critz, of course, had "an army of organized labor supporters behind him' plus Bill Clinton, and also had the advantage of running without having had to vote on the bills Altmire opposed. What distinguished Critz from Altmire, as we know from DKos Elections, was labor support.
As for Cartwright, a self-funding candidate,
Mr. Cartwright pummeled Mr. Holden for his votes against the health care law. The League of Conservation Voters joined in, highlighting the veteran’s support for Bush-era energy policies that favored oil and gas extraction, and his opposition to Mr. Obama’s effort to cap greenhouse gas emissions.
Finally, Weisman talks to Daniel Mintz from MoveOn.org who supported Cartwright. Mintz said that Holden was too beholden to special interests. That, at least, was presented without any snark, unless you think MoveOn.org is snark in itself to the
Times.
Maybe I'm overreacting, but I've seen too much centrism and too many false equivalencies from the Times recently. I'll keep pointing it out as it happens.