Mollycoddling the Moderates
With a number of major agenda items in the pipeline, will the Senate leadership and outside progressive groups fight the new moderate Democratic caucus in the Senate? Or does the group wield enough power that they're essentially immune to push back?
You may recall that last week, Evan Bayh paid a visit to Joe Scarborough to announce he would lead a working group of conservative Senate Democrats, modeled in some ways after the Blue Dog caucus in the House. At the time, Bayh joked that three or four of the group's fifteen members were in the "witness protection program," too intimidated for some reason or other to publicly align themselves with Bayh et al.
The new coalition could wield tremendous power. Its 15 members comprise just over a quarter of the Democratic caucus, which makes them bigger than the House Blue Dogs whose 49 members make up just under one-fifth of all House Democrats. (And, of course, in the Senate, Democratic votes are more crucial than they are in the House because every major piece of legislation is susceptible to a filibuster).
Many saw the move as the crystallization of the power of Senate moderates, a few of whom famously (or, perhaps, infamously) took control of the stimulus bill and watered it down until it met their approval. At the time, Harry Reid said, "they cannot hold the President of the United States hostage.
But now that several conservative Democrats are aligning to influence legislation on a regular basis, Harry Reid doesn't seem to care at all. In fact, he contributed a quote to Bayh's official press release, saying "If we are going to deliver the change Americans demanded and move our country forward, it will require the courage to get past our political differences and get to work," he said. "New ventures like this group offer us a new opportunity to get things done and I support every effort that puts real solutions above political posturing."
This may be filtering down through the Democratic establishment where, for the most part, there's been complete silence about the working group. The notable exception is the Campaign for America's Future, which has set up an initiative called "Dog the Blue Dogs", encouraging people to "call conservative Democrats in the House and Senate and tell them to not be lapdogs for the...right who want to obstruct the administration's common-sense agenda."
Robert Borosage, co-director for Campaign for America's Future, says "We pushed early and hard because we were alarmed that Bayh et al were publicly opposing the president a majority vote on health care and energy that could be done under reconciliation. This struck us as much more destructive than simply working hard to amend or change the president's program. This is empowering the Republican minority that has made obstruction their signature posture."
The group USAction has joined the Campaign for America's Future in circulating the "Dog the Blue Dogs" request. I have some calls out to other organizations to see whether or not they'll be taking an official position, but early signs suggest they will follow Reid's lead and won't be particularly vocal opponents of the so-called Moderate Dems Working Group.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Now who is this Brian fellow? Can we haze him yet?
March 23, 2009 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
At least he didn't start out with an overly dramatic headline such as "Obama Failure Imminent as Blue Dogs Form Ranks."
March 23, 2009 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where in the Constitution does it say that only people on the extremes of the political spectrum get any input?
March 23, 2009 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where does it say in the constitution that only opinions ranging from moderately to the right of the majority of the population, to far right, get any input? Because that's how it's been for a very long time now.
Bayh is not in the middle of anything; he's simply a right-winger.
March 23, 2009 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why are we accepting the label of "Moderate" for this caucus. Shouldn't it be the "Conservative" or "Right-wing" Democratic caucus?
March 23, 2009 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ring-wing appeaser caucus. Iraq War enabler caucus.
March 23, 2009 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.brianbeutler.com/about/
March 23, 2009 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
that looks like a Bernese Mountain Dog. . .
March 23, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I found another image of him HERE If you have the images side by side you can see it's him. His shave is a bit different though.
March 23, 2009 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL!
March 23, 2009 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can we please not refer to Bayh as a "moderate?" In the left to right spectrum of opinion within the Democratic Party I consider myself a "moderate." Bayh, I would put in the "self-aggrandizing not-very-bright a-hole who has way too high an opinion of himself" range. (Oh, wait, that's not an ideology.)
Admittedly, if "right" is defined as "right wing of the Republican Party," then I'm in the commie pinko socialist Islamofascist terrorist coddler, range. But on that scale, if "moderate" means "middle," a "moderate" is somewhere to the right of Richard Nixon.
March 23, 2009 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's all a matter of the population you choose. Within the population of the Democratic party, Bayh is not a moderate. Within the population of the country as a whole, Bayh is probably closer to the middle than you (or I).
March 23, 2009 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
On almost all issues he is substantially to the right of where numerous polls have shown the middle of the country to be. He is a right-winger by any reasonable standard you choose.
March 23, 2009 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seen a poll lately? The wingnut freakazoid positions, to which Bayh clings like an fugitive to a sanctuary altar cloth, get the approval of at most 25 percent of the population.
What Bayh labels as far-left commie ideas - like a living wage, affordable health care, renewable energy, massive investment in infrastructure, stopping global warming - are warmly embraced by more than half and usually more than two-thirds of the population.
No, both Steves are correct: Bayh's a wingnut on the lunatic fringe. He has no right to the label "Democratic" much less "moderate."
March 23, 2009 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
See, my real point is that I really don't credit Bayh with any kind of a coherent ideology. Instead, he's alway struck me as like politics' answer to John King or David Broder. He's just a hairdo stuffed full of facile Beltway conventional wisdom bullet points that he kind of spews out automatically whenever he's presented with an issue that is more or less related to one of them. It only looks like conservatism because the Beltway CW can't let go of the halcyon bygone days when Gingrich was president.
March 23, 2009 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's so true. These folks aren't "moderates". They're just Benedict Arnolds. They've enabled every horrific idea the Republicans have put forward in the last decade or more.
March 23, 2009 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
interesting. part of me wants to think that this "moderate dem" subgroup could be a means of testing whether a multi-party system could be implemented in the US. Yes, obviously the Blue dogs and Bayh's Boys (or whatever) are hardly a solid group with x seats in congress. But it's clear that the simple Red/Blue divide is well...simplistic. If an "informal" (extra-legal?) group such as the Blue Dogs were needed to pass legislation, then doesn't that mean we're sort of dealing with a coalition government (i.e. numerous smaller parties working together)? I realize that this is kind of nebulous as an idea, but I've always wondered how Americans might go about chiselling away at the binary system we have now. I'm not saying the alternative is without flaws, but it seems like the two-party system is far too easy to exploit by forcing people to choose between extremes (as opposed to truly selecting a representative that...you know...represents their values.
sorry to go on.... thoughts?
March 23, 2009 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please stop calling these DINOs moderates,They are conservatives for chrissakes!pretending to be democrats.Moderate dems are like Levin,Schumer etc.
March 23, 2009 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess Bayh and the likes of Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor, Mary Landreiu et al haven't done enough damage individually, now they want to unionize
and and attack Democratic/FDR principles as a group.
March 23, 2009 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reason Bayh is pulling this stunt is that his wife is deeply involved with healthcare management. It would be against his bank account if he supported any healthcare reforms. Imagine that!
I'm sure if we dug around we could find a money trail on every blue dog and moderate dem in the Congress.
March 23, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
These people are so unbelievably short-sighted.
It's like they have Stockholm Syndrome. They're so afraid of being called "liberal" that they'll do anything to avoid the label and claim it's the only way they can get elected in their states and districts.
But they're so badly wrong. Like 1994, if they obstruct Obama's agenda -- or weaken its impact as they did on the stimulus bill -- the voters' takeaway will be that they can't trust the Democrats to govern (and not unreasonably so). The result will be a Republican sweep a la '94. If there's a Republican sweep, the first people to lose their jobs will be the blue dogs, just as moderate Republicans were the first to lose over the last two election cycles.
If they get behind the Obama agenda and enact it, they will show the voters they can be trusted to govern and they will have a much better chance of reelection.
March 23, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Moderate Democrats" = Corporate Whores who serve the rich and not the people
March 23, 2009 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
oleeb,
exactly.
March 23, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Vichycrats.
March 23, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Moderates."
"Moderates?"
I think that's being overly generous - and not very realistic. So, just who are we trying to kid, here?
They can deny it all they want, but the entire Congress is nothing but an easily bought off and sold out "Parliment of Whores."
Regarding their behavior with the economic mess, every last one is protecting his/her re-election money first and maybe trying to solve the mess second.
And if the American people are lucky, they might survive the economic delima. But in the long haul, the rich will be even richer and the poor will be even more poor.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
March 23, 2009 4:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I certainly intend to call alleged member Amy Klobuchar's office. The idea of "witness protection" ought to stick in anyone's craw: they're saying, flat out, I'm going to conceal my position from the constituents who elected me.
I think just hating on them for their position on the left-right axis (I do too) misses the more disturbing aspect that there's an explicit attempt by some members to avoid accountability to voters. Their votes will come out obviously--but they ought to own up to their efforts as part of this caucus: then stand or fall honestly at election time.
March 23, 2009 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who can we get to run against Amy in the primary next time? Wouldn't it be just like her to vote for some health care "reform" that will tmake Minnesota more like Louisiana in the interest of "centrism", of course. Why should MN children grow up to be "above average" (in the words of Keillor) when we can be dummed down to southern fried centrism. What is wrong with her! There is no political pressure for her to be a surrender monkey.
March 23, 2009 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a great victory for Republicans. Splitting the Democratic caucus along rigid ideological lines has been their goal all along. Their vociferous attacks on Obama and his legislative agenda has been aimed at intimidating "moderate" Democrats into breaking with the administration. Now they have succeeded.
Senate Republicans have strengthened their filibuster and created a potential working majority. And the fact that Harry Reid "doesn't care at all" shows what an incompetent nincompoop he really is.
The idea that fragmenting Democratic Party party into various egocentric fiefdoms and special interest groups is "a new opportunity to get things done" should be enough to get Reid committed and put in restraints so that he is no longer a danger to himself or others. Sadly, what would get a person committed in normal life is considered normal behavior in the stark raving nuthouse called Congress.
March 23, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I grew up in Indiana during Mr. Bayh's meteoric rise from secretary of state, to governor, and then to senator. Never once did he risk an ounce of political prestige for any significantly progressive/liberal cause. He was always looking to the next office and Hoosier Democrats were too victory starved to hold him to accounts in any way. Plus, he had his liberal daddy's last name, which gave him a ghetto pass in leftwing circles. "Well, at least he's better than a Republican," they would console themselves. "One of these days we'll get the majority back and then he'll be able to vote like a Democrat." I heard this line from staffers who worked for the state party in the early nineties! Well, last year, Bayh learned that his window had closed. He will likely never be President. So, now that he's free to vote his conscience (safely ensconsed in the Senate majortiy), he's decided to bolster his power by serving as a broker of swing votes on the rightwing of the Democratic Party. The only thing Democrats can do is try to win every Senate seat in every blue or purple (and emerging purple) state with real Democrats--not the likes of Corzine! (Seats like Bayh's and Nelson's will revert back to the GOP someday...and good riddance at that.)
March 23, 2009 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Personally, I'm going to pospone getting angry for when I actually see something other than smug Villager-pleasing press releases. I keep hearing about how Evan Bayh is organizing some sort of resistance cell within the Democratic caucus and they're having meetings and mapping out strategery about specific bills, and yada yada yada, but I'm not really seeing anything other than a lot of pompous outgassing at this point.
March 23, 2009 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the best moves the Republican Party ever made was to infiltrate the Democratic Party through an organization called the DLC.
And the country will be paying the price for the next couple generations.
At least....
March 23, 2009 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
This would not be happening if the Democrats had a decent majority leader. Harry Reid is too weak. No majority leader would be better than Harry.
March 23, 2009 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
What can we do anyway? The Senate hates us.
March 23, 2009 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wil lrefrain until they actually do some obstructing. They talk a big game but they don't vote together. Bayh is one I would love to punch in his smug face. That guy will never President specifically because he won't make it past a Dem Primary.
March 23, 2009 9:45 PM | Reply | Permalink