One more thought on the NY-23 election. Or rather, the same thought on NY-23 but coming at it from a slightly different angle.
I think Jon Chait makes a fair point:
Rich paints Scozzafava’s heresies as minor. But suppose this was a solidly Democratic district, and party bosses put forward an anti-stimulus, anti-abortion, anti-gay rights nominee. Would Rich really oppose a liberal campaign to elect a more like-minded representative? Would he employ such virtiolic metaphors? There’s a lesson here about making a moral cause out of a procedural argument you’re not prepared to back in opposite circumstances.
I do think it’s a little weird that the people chortling to themselves about the insanity of the conservatives shooting themselves in the foot on this are a lot of the same folks who are all in favor of pursuing primaries to bump out moderate Democrats. In particular, they’re the folks who are right now (correctly, of course) pointing out how much better things would be if Ned Lamont was sitting in the CT-Sen seat.
Now, I agree with them on the content. I’d rather have a Congress full of Lamonts than Hoffmans. But accusing conservatives of being naive and stupid politically for attempting to push aside people who don’t actually embody the core values of their side doesn’t gel very well with holding a variation on the same attitude toward moderates on your own side.
I think the really powerful innovation in Democratic campaigning that distinguishes the Clinton years from the Obama ones is the way that folks like Howard Dean managed to put together a new coalition. One where folks in ‘safe’ Democratic seats are expected to act like it, while those in more marginal ones are given a bit more freedom.
Yes, it does cause endless frustration with your Nelsons and Bayhs and Landrieus. But the problems are, I think, much more about the institutional structure than they are about the failure of this particular political strategy. There simply is no way that we’re going to end up with 60 strong progressives votes in the Senate. It’s fantasy to expect it. Given the electoral and procedural constraints of the Senate, you have to be willing to make deals somewhere along the way.
You absolutely do need folks on the wings attempting to pull the party outward, but you also need a strong concern for the center as a mechanism for generating some sense of balance. The problem for the Republicans right now is that things fell apart – the center couldn’t hold and now they’re a rump party: run almost entirely out of the CAPS-lock wing.
That’s why the scary thought is the possibility that such a rump party might actually manage to return to a significant degree of power without any of the restraining elements. It’s a lot harder to do things that way, but oh the havoc you can wreak if it does work out.