New Dems And Teabaggers-- A Headache For Both Parties

Both Beltway political parties have been having problems with their conservative wings. Inside Congress, ascendant "New Dems"-- the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- are making common cause with Republicans on a range of issues, many-- they claim, at the behest of Steve Israel who didn't learn any useful lessons from the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse of 2010. He "advises" vulnerable freshmen to ignore Democratic values and principles and vote with the big money interests. That helps explain why so many New Dems have been backing GOP and lobbyist attempts to gut the Dodd Frank Wall Street reforms. But will the Democratic base bother to come out to vote for congressmen who have betrayed them? It's hard to imagine that progressive activists who helped propel Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL), Ron Barber (New Dem-AZ), Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY), Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ), Scott Peters (New Dem-CA), Dan Maffei (New Dem-NY), Ami Bera (New Dem-CA), Bill Foster (New Dem-IL), Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) or Ann Kuster (D-NH) will be there for them again in 2014. These 10 freshmen, the worst of the worst, have been the Democrats Boehner and Cantor know they can count on so that they can call their legislation "bipartisan."

Even when it came to something as straight-forward as opposing the GOP decision to raise the cost of student loans, 4 miserable New Dems-- Maffei, Joe Garcia (FL), Peters and Jared Polis (CO)-- all backed Boehner. How about unconstitutionally removing President Obama from the Keystone XL Pipeline? Can you imagine a Democrat voting for that? 19 did-- including freshmen likely to suffer the consequences at the polls next year: Cheri Bustos (IL), Bill Enyart (IL), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY), and Patrick Murphy (FL).

Here's the House Financial Services Committee vote on a very right-wing, piece of legislation written by Wall Street lobbyists to screw over and endanger consumers. Freshmen are put on that committee because it's considered a prime honey pot for Members who want to take bribes from Wall Street. The New Dem freshmen who backed the legislation:

• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA), multimillionaire
• Bill Foster (New Dem-IL), multimillionaire
• Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL), multimillionaire
• John Delaney (New Dem-MD), multimillionaire
• Kyrsten Sinema (New Dem-AZ)
• Denny Heck (New Dem-WA), multimillionaire

Realistically, there's one way for the Democrats to stay afloat in 2014-- the Republicans. They're even worse. I noticed in campaign spam from New Dems last week, they were all making a point of how much worse their opponents are. And that's true. When I personally complained about her miserable right-wing voting record, one freshman told me she hopes I'll be happy with the Tea Party candidate running against her. Patrick Murphy and Sean Patrick Maloney, two of the worst freshmen by any measurements, each sent multiple e-mails last week warning about how bad their opponents are. And, as Doyle McManus explained in an OpEd in the L.A. Times yesterday, the well-funded and resurgent teabaggers are already causing the GOP enough trouble to dwarf the damage the New Dems are doing to the Democratic Party.

The approach of congressional primary elections makes the tea party a major force too. The groups have a track record of turning out in force for low-participation primaries, and adherents are an essential source for donations and volunteers in Republican campaigns.

"Tea party supporters are responsible for almost all of the total campaign activity performed by party supporters on the Republican side," a team of political scientists led by Ronald B. Rapoport of the College of William & Mary reported in a recent study. "Tea party supporters are not just a faction within the Republican Party; they are a majority faction."

The problem, of course, is that this majority faction inside the party holds views often at odds not only with a majority of all voters but with the rest of the GOP.

According to polling that Rapoport and his colleagues oversaw, 63% of tea party Republicans want to limit immigration; only 48% of non-tea party Republicans agree. Among tea party adherents, 76% want to abolish the U.S. Department of Education; only 10% of non-tea party Republicans agree.

Most strikingly, when asked whether it was more important to cut the deficit or create jobs, 63% of tea party supporters opted to cut the deficit first. Among non-tea party Republicans, the priority was reversed, with 53% putting jobs first.

That polarization already spells trouble in the House, where tea party members recently balked at "reform conservative" proposals offered by their own majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), beginning with a bill to increase funding for high-risk health insurance pools as an alternative to Obamacare. (Spending was spending, the conservatives objected; they opted for another vote to repeal Obamacare instead.)

It spells trouble in the Senate, where the tea party's newest star, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), has brought old-guard GOP leaders to the edge of rage by publicly criticizing them as "a bunch of squishes." He and other tea party senators have succeeded in blocking House-Senate budget negotiations, charging that talks might lead to a deal to raise the federal debt ceiling, which they oppose.

"I don't trust the Republicans, and I don't trust the Democrats," Cruz said.

And he's not wrong: Some Republicans do want to compromise with President Obama over the debt ceiling. In the short run, GOP leaders don't want to be blamed by the White House for touching off a financial crisis that might interrupt the economy's recovery. And in the long run, many in the GOP establishment-- including House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio)-- worry about being branded the party of austerity.

"That's the label President Obama is trying to put on us," said David Winston, a pollster and political strategist who has advised Boehner. "But if we become the party of austerity, then President Obama and the Democrats become the party of economic growth."

Instead of standing solely for spending cuts, Winston argued, the GOP needs to present a clearer plan for economic growth if it is to make headway in the 2014 elections. "Let's have a real discussion of what you would get with a Senate Republican majority," he told me last week. "We have to define a choice."

But tea party members aren't as worried about winning elections. According to another Rapoport survey, roughly three-fourths of tea party activists say they would prefer a strongly conservative candidate who's likely to lose over a relatively moderate candidate who's likely to win.

On paper, 2014 should be a good election for the GOP. It's the sixth year of the Obama presidency, a time when opposition parties historically do well. Democrats face an uphill battle to hold on to their 55-seat majority in the Senate. Midterm voter turnout is usually lower, so they can't count on the surge of young and minority voters who helped Obama win reelection.

But they have at least one asset: the civil war within the GOP. Once again, Democrats may prove lucky in their opponents.