And I'm not saying we don't, but merely that we should make it a bigger deal. And I don't mean just grab the right-of-center of voters who could be persuaded to vote Democratic, I mean we should be converting Republican politicians to join the Democratic Party.
At the moment, we are not, and that needs to be examined.
The great wipeout of 1994 saw two Senators and five Congressmen switch from the Democratic Party to the GOP in 1994 and 1995, according to Wikipedia. Conversely, since the Democrats took back Congress in 2006, Republicans at the local and state levels became Democrats, but not a single legislator in Congress defected from the GOP to the Democratic Party.
In between, Zell Miller was essentially a Republican in everything except in title, Joe Lieberman the Independent was BFF with Bush and McCain, and Jim Jeffords left the GOP but never officially joined the Democrats. To date, only one Congressman who currently was in office at the time switched from the Republicans to the Democrats.
To be sure, we are winning the argument and have been winning the argument for two elections and counting. Some might say we can and should just bide our time until 2010, let Republicans throw up all sorts of blockades to progress until they get picked off one by one at the voting booth, so we can elect real liberals to office and do things our way.
Fair enough. Still, it is an interesting one-way trend that would be interesting to explore.
First off, we wouldn't be where we are now had Republicans met President Obama's call for bipartisanship. We wouldn't be waiting for reinforcements at the midterm elections or from defections if Republicans had shown the same deference they had wanted us to exhibit (or, some would say, the same deference that we had actually exhibited) when they were in charge. But the party of 21st century obstructionism is, at this moment, giving no quarter. Why?
Let's take a parallel situation from the state level. Rachel Maddow had Karen Bass, the California Assembly Speaker (Democratic), on her show, and explained the circumstances surrounding the Republicans holding the state budget hostage in the California legislature (click here and scroll to about 5:09):
"Let me just tell you that it is not always the individual legislators...there are many legislators that would like to do the right thing and they understand what the right thing is. The problem in California, just like the rest of the nation, is right-wing talk radio...as a matter of fact, one famous station in our state has put Republican legislators heads on sticks. And they have threatened to recall them, they have threatened to run a candidate in a primary against them, and the individual Republican Party committees in different cities and regions have called for the recall of legislators. So it is not always the individual legislators, it is the Republican Party in the state of California."
- Karen Bass, California Assembly Speaker (emphasis mine)
The potential for backlash against moderates on the right is more than among the grassroots, but, at least at the national level, institutional. If you want to understand the level of discipline in the GOP, read about the Republican Study Committee in an article from CQ Politics:
"Still, the generous bipartisan rhetoric also comes with risks — especially from the ideological home base of both lawmakers, the [Republican Study Committee], which has a reputation for trying to mete out tough discipline for leaders who get too comfortable in stoking bipartisan accords. It was a group of junior RSC members, most famously, who were instrumental in the failed coup against GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia in 1997."
- Alan K. Ota, CQ Politics
Conversely, such backlash simply does not exist on the left; there is the liberal blogosphere and the channeling of resources to oust Lieberman as a titled Democrat in the 2006 Connecticut primary, but talk radio and institutional "discipline" on the right has more history. We on the left do not have that reputation. We just don't know that world.
Additionally, party switches typically occur in one direction, and not in the direction that we like. We aren't familiar with good fortune in that area either.
But it's strange, because it seems to suck to be in the Republican Party if you desire to show any hint of bipartisanship. So it's tough, some would say cruel, on the other side. Why is it difficult to entice the Snowes and Collinses and Specters of the Republican Party to defect? Why, in all of Christopher Shays' years in Congress, was he a Republican all this time?
Honestly, I don't know (if there are mitigating circumstances, I would love to hear them) and to tell the truth, there aren't that many GOP moderates left in Congress now that we've nearly picked them clean in 2006 and 2008. But they are still there, and we as a Democratic Party can and should make a case for sensible moderates to have a place left-of-center in the political spectrum. The opportunity for expanding our tent in the face of an entrenched and shrinking minority is there, and those of us on the left cannot rest on our already large majorities, but rather work to expand them still.