Lieberman's Good Advice: Move On!
I am as disappointed as anyone with the latest (sadly unsurprising) move by Democrats in the Senate, in which they voted overwhelmingly to allow a non-Democratic member of their caucus maintain his chair of a committee that he should have lost on performance issues alone. Unfortunately, it did not appear that the Senators even considered the issue of job performance in their vote, instead focusing on whether or not it was appropriate to exact revenge for Lieberman's incessant back-stabbing during the last election cycle.
In the wake of the caucus vote, Lieberman was quoted as saying,
"The resolution expresses strong disapproval and rejection of statements I made about Sen. Obama during the campaign," Lieberman said. "And in that regard, I said very clearly, some of the statements, some of the things people have said I said about Sen. Obama are simply not true. There are other statements that I made that I wish I had made more clearly, and there were some ... that I wish I had not made at all. And obviously in the heat of campaigns, that happens to all of us. But I regret that, and now it's time to move on."
With that last statement, I whole-heartedly agree. The devotion of energy and time to debating whether or not Lieberman's statement sufficiently served as a sincere public apology or not is a pointless exercise in self-satisfaction that leads nowhere. The same goes for spending the next few days trying to guess which 12 senators voted the right way, and which didn't. We have more important work to do, and we need to start now.
"BETTER DEMOCRATS"
The "better" component of the "More and Better Democrats" dKos mission is a more complex, nuanced, and therefore challenging task than the "More Democrats" component, and therefore will require a significant and sustained collective effort if we are to realize that goal. Variables such as desirability for replacement, quality of primary challenger, quality of likely Republican Nominee, and prospects for general election success all must be prioritized and quantified before we are able to target the right races at the right time.
I am proposing that we at dKos start a weekly feature that addresses these challenges, maintaining a record for ongoing evaluation. We should first settle on a workable number of races at the Senate and House level for the 2010 elections, and work toward narrowing our focus to that number in time for the primaries. I don't know how many Democratic Senate seats will be up for re-election in 2010, but without that information, I am suggesting a target number of two for funding and supporting primary challenges. I am also suggesting targeting roughly six house seats for replacement with "Better Democrats".
We should start with a weekly account of disappointing actions by Democrats in each house, with a list of leading Democratic proponents for said action, along with a list of those Democrats who voted against our interests, with a running tally of incidences of such votes. As we develop a clearer picture of who we'd like to see replaced, we should begin to examine their states/districts for prospects of general election success when running a "better Democrat". Finally, as that list narrows down, we should identify the best available challengers for each targeted Congressperson, to see which primary contests present the best opportunity for success in both elections.
Once we have reached our target number of designated "Better Democrat" contests, the remaining weeks can be spent raising funds and organizing efforts on their behalf.
I am clearly not the person to lead this effort, as I lack the cachet, expertise, and visibility to do so effectively. I am just hoping that the right front pager sees this diary before it is knocked off the "recent" list. What say you? How would you organize such an effort?