Centerfield

Hey SR,
I agree with your opinion. It is funny watching Huffington and Kos attack and praise. I still don't understand your stand regarding Obama, when many sadly anticipated Obama’s map to victory. In an attempt to gather some steam, he moved from CFR and the DLC in order to attract the Kos crowd. It is as though he conceded the center to Hillary to pander to the side he thought would be more valuable. When his numbers faltered, he made some more-warrior-than thou declarations that flopped. I doubt such reasoning would be very successful against Iran or Chavez, but perhaps he didn't realize Billary wouldn't be baited into "out-pandering” him to the Left (although B & H have done a certain amount of revisionism). Therefore, I am not sure of what you thought Obama represented and how this works with a more Blue Dog agenda. Simon was right to see Obama's gambit as "not centrist" though centrist has limited value. He certainly hasn't presented a bi-partisan synthesis of the best that Republicans and Democrats offer. He again declares that despite any gain by the surge, force will not bring resolution. Sure, but a sufficient degree of security is needed for negotiations. Democrats defended Maliki as the legal outcome of Iraqi elections. Pushing him aside would be quite “undemocratic” to say the least.

Despite Hillary's flaws, the other candidates present more fatal flaws once the real contest begins. Why? Because their campaign declarations pander more to the Left as does their records. If Billary can appeal to Independents, Blue Dogs and moderates and even pick someone like Bredesen to beef up the South and reassure DLCers, what will Kos do? Nothing. You can see their frantic anger already. Thompson or Rudy will be reason enough for the Left to vote not-Republican. MoveOn has broken a bit from the Kos camp in an effort to appear more moderate in the ads to come. Media Matters has taken some Liberal Media to task.. The NYT printed an op-ed piece by Cordesman on why Democrats should support the arms sale to the Saudis if Liberals want less of a US foot print in the Middle East. Won’t we have to arm our allies when we bring our soldiers home? Or are the Saudis and Jordanians, Sinora government, Yemen, the UAE really our enemies? Seeing that the Kossacks have no real answers that will sell nationally on these issues (oh they will hate the reaction to the surge report), Democrats are well advised to move to the middle come next year. I have a feeling however until the primaries are over Edwards and Obama will try to trip Clinton up on immigration, Iraq, Lobbyists, Free Trade, and a possible meltdown between the West and Iran. I say, “don’t take the bait if you want to win come November”. Recent sound bites will haunt as Republicans will try to depict Clinton as flip-flopping and pandering.

I am but one of many dropping the bomb on that one.

This is the same sad story we've all heard before. Once a party gains a majority, the noisy ideological wing factions immediately try to burn the heretics and lynch the apostates. The obvious result is that the party tends to go back to minority status as the other party picks off the disaffected and alienated less-ideological moderates by broadening their "tent."

Ideological wingers insist on ideological purity, but if their ideology was already a majority position they woudn't need to attempt such purges. Naturally, when parties move to a bigger tent, the wingers start screaming that the party has lost its way. Truth is that the parties are coalitions that must balance out the demands of the competing factions within the party, and those that are most successful at so doing enjoy the greatest long-term success in holding offices.

I've said it over and over and over again--the two parties are NOT single entities as we tend to think of them. They are each composed of numerous smaller factions, all of them at odds with each other, that band together to get a piece of the bigger party's power. There is not ONE Democratic Party, or ONE Republican Party. There are thousands of each, and within each of those smaller local parties are factions struggling to control their own piece of turf.

Anyone who has ever been deeply involved in local politics grasps this, as they've been involved in those struggles.

National ideological factions think their prize for winning a majority (even of just the party vote, much less national offices) is complete control of the party agenda and actions. To the extent they succeed they FAIL, by losing their power as they drive off the other factions that provide a piece of that coalition power.

Just about every word was right, of course, Tully.

But, just because of timing, he's almost certainly going to work much more constructively in this election cycle than the GOP wing.

After all, Ds have been 'out' for eight years, and Rs 'in'. Amazing how that one bit makes a huge difference, no matter who's running - the GOP coalition will likely stay split, and the Dem one will stay together.

Though the poor (D) Congressional leadership might hurt. Only Reid and Pelosi are happy with it. I'm trying to think of worse (D) congressional leadership in my lifetime and having trouble. Any suggestions?

After all, Ds have been 'out' for eight years, and Rs 'in'. Amazing how that one bit makes a huge difference, no matter who's running - the GOP coalition will likely stay split, and the Dem one will stay together.

To be annoyingly picky: The D's will have held both houses of Congress for two years by the time of the election. They are not "out." They are currently "in." As far as domestic policies go, their hand is the one on the wheel, and the only way to show that they're not responsible for the 2007-2008 Congress is to stack up vetoes. But to do that they have to pass legislation that gets vetoed, which means exposing themselves with contentious legislation that can be held against them. And they've tried very hard to avoid that, because it would force the Blue Dogs and New Dems to choose between re-election and party unity. Which is where we started.

They also held the Senate for most of the 107th Congress (2001-2003) and for the portion they didn't, the Senate was essentially tied 50-50. So there they were only "out" for four years, 2003-2007. They currently hold that Senate majority by the grace of Joe Leiberman. Technically right now, the Senate is a tie, 49-49, with two independents that vote Democrat. (Bernie Sanders is the other.)

The current problem for the GOP is not factional splits, but their seat exposure in the Senate and retirements in the House. They have 22 open Senate seats versus the Dem's 12.