Reid to Grassroots: You're Not Helping
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been pretty clear that he plans to handle the conservatives in his caucus very gently. He's gone out of his way to praise the creation of the so-called Moderate Dems Working Groups, even going so far as to place a quote in the press release announcing the group's formation.
Not all Democrats or liberals are that enthused, though, and as I've been documenting, several groups--including Campaign for America's Future (CAF), USAction, Americans United for Change, and MoveON--have set themselves at odds one way or another with the 15-member caucus. Some have even gone so far as to launch ad campaigns targeting senators before they have a chance to meddle.
Well, Reid's taken stock, and he's not happy...with the grassroots.
Speaking at a breakfast briefing, Reid said, "These groups should leave them alone. It's not helpful to me. It's not helpful to the Democratic Caucus."
I've put out calls for comment, and will provide them as they come. Lauren Weiner of Americans United for Change emails to say, "we agree with Senator Reid that Democrats should not be impeded from moving forward on this transformative budget and this is not a fight between Democrats."
Their ad, calling for support for Obama's budget, can be seen below. It's not exactly of a piece with CAF's "Dog the Blue Dogs" campaign, but it's airing in such states as North Dakota, Nebraska, Virginia, Indiana, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alaska, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Delaware. If they're hoping to keep the targets a secret, they should prrrobbbably try harder.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Well, Harry, you're not exactly helping me either. Get back to me when you've delivered on any major reform, got us out of Iraq, stopped the stupid escalation in Afghanistan, produced a healthcare bill that someone other than an insurance attorney can understand....
What have you done for me lately Harry?
March 27, 2009 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Grassroots to Reid: Drop dead.
March 27, 2009 6:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Guess what, Harry? We're not trying to help you or the Democratic Caucus, we're trying to help the progressive cause. The purpose of the Democratic Caucus is to advance the interests of the grassroots, not the other way around, and the sooner you learn that, the better off everyone will be.
March 27, 2009 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
And you actually believe what you just wrote. Sheez.
March 27, 2009 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Until you are prepared to help the American people as a whole and not just your ideologically purified group of them, please STFU.
Yes, that's right the purpose of the Democratic Caucus is to help America. Period. full stop.
March 28, 2009 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Econ,
maybe we should analyze just what the grassroots wants of the Party and compare that to what the Democratic Caucus wants of the Party.
March 29, 2009 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
If the grassroots is trying to get the Democratic agenda passed, and the "moderate" dems are trying to obstruct it... well, I guess the only question to ask is, which side is Harry Reid on?
Sometimes I wonder what would have to change in the Senate to get Harry Reid replaced.
March 27, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't let these so-called people's lawmakers distract you from major issues in this Congress?
Illuminate these Senators names on every billboard across the United States. These should be recorded and go down in history along with traitor Benedict Arnold.
They are the ones who sold out American Workers by stamping out the federal E-Verify, to identify millions of ILLEGAL ALIENS IN THE WORKPLACE. With 10 million American jobless, these legislators left the door open for foreign labor. REMEMBER THEIR NAMES IN THE NEAR FUTURE. THEY REMOVED IT FROM THE STIMULUS/ OMNIBUS SPENDING BILL. REMEMBER THEY ARE ALREADY DEBATING--AMNESTY--BEHIND CLOSED DOORS?
Reid-Akaka-Inouye-Begich-Bennet-Udall-Bingaman-Udall-Boxer-Feinstein-Brown-Burris-Durbin-Byrd-Rockefeller-Cantwell-Murray-Cardin-Mikulski-
Carper-Kaufman-Casey-Conrad-Dorgan-Dodd-Lieberman-Feingold-Kohl-Gillibrand-Schumer-Harkin-Johnson-Kerry-Landrieu-Shaheen-Leahy-Sanders-
Levin-Stabenow-Lincoln-Pryor-Menendez-Lautenberg-Merkley-Wyden-Nelson-Reed-Whitehouse-Reid-Warner and Lady Pelosi. Xavier Becerra, Luis Gutierrez,Jon Kyl, Jeff Flake could also used their influence. We need E.Verify as a permanent tool in immigration enforcement.
Make your vote count and demand E-Verify in Washington. 202-224-3121 President Obama Switchboard: 202-456-1414/ The facts at JUDICIALWATCH, NUMBERSUSA, CAPSWEB.
March 27, 2009 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lou Dobbs, is that you?
March 27, 2009 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
That was very funny. Gave me a laugh. First one in a while. Thank you.
March 27, 2009 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
As time goes on, it's increasingly clear to me that the best thing Nevada progressives could do for their country in 2010 is to vote Harry Reid out of office, in the primary if possible, in the general election if necessary. Nevada is trending strongly Democratic, and we'll get the seat back in 2016. But the Senate Democratic Caucus is too stupid/corrupt to replace this buffoon as its leader.
March 27, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
That had to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. In the Primary YES but in the general so a Repub can do worse? You must not be a Democrat.
March 28, 2009 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I just posted this on Huffington: "You know, some Democrats actually know Reid's personal history and know the strengths that make the Democrats choose him as their leader (unanimously re-elected after last fall's election). Because I was curious to know how somebody as poor as he was made it out of Searchlight, Nev. (I've seen it--imagine the very most hardscrabble desert hole) I read profiles of him, e.g. in the New Yorker, and his book "The Good Fight." I wish everyone would challenge their stereotype of him and read that book. Most of you have no idea who he really is. "The Good Fight" is a great book, both politically and as a personal story. It's a page-turner and even funny. But I doubt that you will read it. More importantly, the bottom line is Reid is getting Obama's agenda passed. In the "first hundred days" they will have a terrific record, including this huge budget."
March 28, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is how I think of the impact of "centrists" on the Democratic Party. The party lets the centrists drive the car. The centrists head off down the road so busy texting their pubicists and campaign contributors that when they come to the fork in the road - one going left, the other going right, the centrists oblivious of their responsibility drive straight ahead into a brick wall.
March 27, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, the mental image!
March 29, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Once again Reid shows is no leader. His specialty is caving to anyone and everyone regardless of the issue. He wouldn't know leadership or loyality if it smacked him in the face. Can't we find some way to get rid of him as leader?
March 27, 2009 7:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, we can't!
March 27, 2009 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Harry Reid is a useless bag of f***. He needs to be retired, primaried, or voted out...period.
March 27, 2009 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not a big Reid fan, but to be honest I'm a little confused as to what a bag of f*** is? To avoid such confusion, I suggest that if you're going to swear, just swear. It's not like using the aster**** makes you any less crass. For me, aster**** or not, if you use swearing in angry manner, you devalue your comment. Whereas if you use it in a creative, funny, or interesting manner, you enhance the value of your comment.
PS: While "bag of f***" (if it means what I think it means) is arguably creative, ultimately the swearing was angry and unnecessary, and dragged down an otherwise valid point about Reid. And it's a weird phrase.
March 28, 2009 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Harry's Blue Dogs are kind of like health insurance companies. They pocket your money and then stand between you and the service you need and try to figure out how to prevent you from getting it.
March 27, 2009 9:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you all can take a moment's rest from the knee-jerking and mouth foaming, you might consider this. Harry knows he's not exactly a beloved figure with the people doing these commercials, and the folks like you who are funding them, and that they are thus rather unlikely to do what he says, don't you think?
Given that, one wonders about the depth of his sincerity in telling them to back off. Indeed one wonders whether he's taking advantage of an opportunity to play good cop to the big bad Left's bad cop with the "OMG ITS STILL 1993" faction.
March 27, 2009 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just don't see the evidence that Harry Reid has that much awareness of his environment.
March 27, 2009 10:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
NCS, I'm going to reply to you, because I've found that if I reply to one of the trolls who just make me want to destroy my computer monitor, it becomes a pissing war. However, if I address your (always) cogent points, maybe I can make one, myself...
I think the thing to observe here is that it doesn't matter if Reid is playing "bad cop". Or is that supposed to be "good cop"? Are we the BAD guys? That's the point.
If you believe that Reid is just stroking the Blue Dogs, really, what evidence in his history do we have that he will fight them on anything? And are progressives just supposed to sit there quietly, and say oh, I know he's really going to work to achieve our goals; he's just blowing smoke 'cuz he's gotta, and I trust him?
First of all, progressives are not meek like that, by definition. As if he didn't know that. Second, as a result, does Reid not realize (rhetorical question there also) that when the leadership of the Democratic Party NEVER says similar conciliatory things about the progressive wing of his Party, but ALWAYS kisses Blue Dog butt (and, for good measure, doesn't hesitate to smack-down the progressives at the same time!)... this sets the entire TONE in the media, as to who is "inside" (in control), and who is "outside" (mere static to be ignored)?
If the progressives who regularly gather here to comment are frustrated, may I suggest it's because we're tired of being publicly declared impotent and irrelevant, by the leaders of the Party which WE helped lead to victory (more than any other "wing", including the stinking Blue Dogs)?
We demand our megaphone. It's ours, we paid for it.
March 29, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good points all! We paid for it not only with money, but with our time and effort.
March 29, 2009 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
With all due respect to Reid, EAT A DICK. We aren't republicans and we don't fall in line, if we feel you are a threat to a progressive Agenda we will let it be none. I bet these moderates fall back on their bullcrap.
March 28, 2009 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
You do understand that "we do not fall in line" is why we can never get our agenda passed.
When Republicans get in power they change things to their liking. When Democrats get in power they squabble and get little done. I am pretty sure the last time the Democrats got what they wanted was During the Johnson administration.
March 28, 2009 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
For a supine, spineless, no-achieving little weenie, creepy the Majority Leader certainly does have some nerve! Sadly, as Economides pointed out, Reid is just typical of the party he represents.
March 28, 2009 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Blue Dog agenda may be YOUR agenda but it cannot be called OUR agenda, because MY agenda is adamently opposed to the Blue Dog agenda. The Blue Dogs and their fellow travelers enabled the Iraq War and they enabled the radical deregulation and lack of accountability that caused the current financial depression. Far from being moderate, the Republican appeasement caucus caused the current state of this nation. By going along with the extremists in the Republican Party they denied the American people a different alternative, an alternative that would have avoided war, maintained financial responsibility, worked for a more equal distribution of wealth and championed universal health care.
March 28, 2009 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Curious...do you think that there's anything the administration can do with these centrist-Dems to get them on board for healthcare reform? Or do you guys think things will work out in 2010?
I wonder because if these people are not voted out then we're in the same spot we're in now, except with less time left. I think if Obama manages to pass the healthcare reform he wants it's a guaranteed reelection, but relying on an election to filter out these centrists seems very risky. At least until the administration can figure out a plan.
March 28, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Back in '42 the French Vichy govt. leader Harry Reid I told the resistance, 'We're trying to work with the Nazis to run the country. You people in the Resistance aren't helping.' Then went back to stuffing his face with fois gras and helping himself to 12-year old hookers.
March 28, 2009 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually Harry YOU'RE not helping. Majority leader, Harry, not minoriy.
March 30, 2009 7:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Once again, Vichy Dems rise to the fore.
Pathetic.
March 30, 2009 10:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who would listen to, let alone follow, that sniveling, whimpering coward Harry Reid? If he says it isn't helpful to him then I say: GREAT! Because Harry Reid is a capitulationist who has handed the Republicans one victory after another. He is a weakling and a coward. I don't understand why he keeps the position of leader among the Democrats except for the fact that there are a number of other similarly cowardly and unprincipled Democrats in the Senate.
March 30, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought the democratic party was the big tent party that allowed for lots of different ideas, not a party of ideological purity. Now, I've been a long time lurker here and this is my first time actually commenting, but come on now. I'm no fan of Reid, but really, if I wanted to associate with folks for whom purity of ideas was most important, I'd join what's left of the Republican party. We have to allow all the various voices within the party to be heard, lest we end like them.
March 30, 2009 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a big-tent, genetically-stamped Dem, I'd like to point out two things:
1) I'm often been struck by the similarity in approach and commentary between 'non-political' progressives and John Fund's Club For Growth.
2) Until a different method widely replaces 'first-past-the-post' elections in America, there will only ever be two significant parties at any given time. Sorry. Fact. So, as demoed in FL'2000, every vote for the farther-out on your side, past a given point in the electorate's political spectrum, is actually a vote for the least far-out on the other side.
Absolutists like Cheney and Bush scared us. Why are we not scared of our own, hmmm?
March 30, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Attention Grassroots:
Let's go after Reid!
March 30, 2009 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink