Trying To Redefine What It Means To Be A Democrat… In A Bad Way

Beltway pundits tend to get their opinions from their friends in the political parties and, for the most part, those opinions tend to be worthless. In the video above from her show on Tuesday, Rachel Maddow amuses herself at the expense of all the conventional wisdom that showed Southern Democrats having virtually no chance against an onslaught of top Republican recruits. It isn't working out that way.

Rachel forgot to mention-- while discussing how the only Democrat in bad shape in Arkansas is gubernatorial hopeful Mike Ross-- that Ross, before being forced to retire from Congress rather than face defeat was a notorious Blue Dog who voted far more frequently on core issues with Republicans than with Democrats. She kind of conflated him with Beebe and Pryor, but he's far to the right of either-- and anathema to main grassroots Democrats. That's why Beene has a 74% approval rating and why Pryor is up over Tom Cotton by double digits while Ross is losing to right-wing Republican crackpot Asa Hutchinson 49-42%.

Democratic voters don't see things the same way pundits do. This year Democratic voters, for example, are clearly rejecting conservative New Dem Allyson Schwartz for Pennsylvania governor, in favor of progressive Tom Wolf. The grotesquely crooked conservative hoping to grab Schwartz's House seat (PA-13), Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky-Clinton, has seen her enormous lead dwindle to half! In Hawaii, another corrupt conservative, New Dem Colleen Hanabusa, probably wishes she never gave up her House seat to challenge progressive Senator Brian Schatz. He's beating her by double digits. All three of these conservatives-- two of whom are widely known for their ethical problems as well as their anti-family, right-wing politics-- were touted as "sure things" by the pundits.

Tuesday, right when Maddow was poking holes in their prognosticative skills, I left for dinner with a House candidate from Wisconsin. She mentioned that when she was in DC recently, an operative came up to her and shook hands and offered her a card that, under her name, said "Third Way." The Wisconsin candidate excused herself and made a beeline for some real, values-based Democrats in the room.

San Jose Mercury News political columnist, Thomas Elias, however, sees a resurrection of the Blue Dogs-- in California no less! He asserts that, in approving the jungle primary 4 years ago, California voters also may have inadvertently set up a de facto third political party in Sacramento, a conservative one (who Elias, of course, refers to as "moderate"). "For lack of a better term," he writes, "this group might be called the 'Blue Dogs,' borrowing a name from a group of moderate to conservative Democrats who served in Congress in the 1990s and carefully picked and chose which liberal causes to support."

Just such a group now exists in Sacramento, and it promises to grow larger after the June primary that's already taking place via ballots mailed out this month. The group has no formal organization, but that might come as its numbers grow.

Based on an analysis of all roll-call votes in both the state Legislature and Congress, USC political scientist Christian Grose found the average state legislator was more moderate over the last 18 months than for many years previously (http://bit.ly/1lcluSU).

Diminished polarization of the parties in the Legislature took place against a background of ever-increasing partisanship in Congress, a phenomenon applying in both the House and Senate.

Most movement, Grose found, occurred among Democrats. This may partly be because, as noted in an investigation by former Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Gary Cohn, increasing numbers of Democratic legislators are less beholden to labor unions for their campaign money and more dependent on corporations and the state Chamber of Commerce.

Cohn found that some of these lawmakers-- he named Marin County's Marc Levine and Republican-turned-Democrat Steve Fox of Palmdale as prime examples-- skipped or abstained from several key votes. Abstentions affected the fate of bills aiming to help farm workers, require economic impact reports for proposed new big box stores and require more disclosure from some health insurance companies before they raise rates.

One possible addition to the Blue Dog ranks this year might be Steve Glazer, until last year a top advisor to Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who later worked as a consultant to the chamber. Glazer, an Orinda city councilman, now seeks an Alameda County seat in the Assembly.

"I am trying to redefine what it means to be a Democrat," Glazer told one reporter.

For sure, Glazer has parted company with the labor unions that support most Democratic campaigns. But that doesn't make him any less liberal on issues from gay rights to gun control and abortion, areas of relatively little interest to business.

How many Blue Dogs get elected this fall will in large part be a product of the current primary. The more Democrat-on-Democrat races ensue, the more contests will pit union contributions against business dollars.

Their outcomes can be surprising, too, as when former Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom two years ago won in an Assembly district created by reapportionment over Democratic Assemblywoman Betsy Butler, a strong labor ally who previously represented a district that marginally overlapped the new one. Butler now seeks a vacant state Senate seat and this fall will very likely face another Democratic rival not funded by unions.

No one can be quite certain how all this will play out in the long term. A moderate wing for the most liberal state Democratic Party in the nation? A three-party system?

Raise your hand if you think this guy is a buffoon.