Tuesday, October 31, 2006

 

Credit Where It Isn't Due

Item: Digby catches Democratic pollster (and possible closet GOP watercarrier?) Thomas Riehle, card-carrying member of the institutional Beltway Democrats -- you know, the ones that have spent the past two decades trying to make the Democrats into GOP Lite? -- doing his damndest to give the Beltwayers the credit for the historic House takeover that's about to happen. To advance his argument, Riehle busily inverts reality, claiming that the netroots is being cautious while the Beltwayers are being bold. Even though less than two months ago, the Beltwayers and their god Joe Lieberman were still telling any Democrat within earshot "Don't talk about Iraq". Even though the netroots has been pushing secure and cash-rich Democratic candidates to cough up some bucks for fellow Democrats in tight races. Even though the netroots has been, per fellow netrooter Howard Dean's fifty-state strategy, backing "long-shot" candidates from the beginning and have been hammering the Beltwayers for months for the money needed to push these suddenly-competitive candidates over the top. Item: Rahm Emanuel's pimping a similar message of Beltwayer puissance. (But look for Rahm Emmanuel's stock to drop like Pets.com if Dems retake Congress and he loses his neighboring district after spending three million dollars on his handpicked candidate.) Item: BlueDogger Ellen Tauscher’s singing the "BlueDogs and DLCers and Beltwayers deserve the credit for the big win" song, too. She was on the front page of yesterday’s NYT spewing this nonsense in an effort to disparage the fifty-state strategy and Dean (and us, who are the biggest backers thereof). Once? A random happening. Twice? Chance, perhaps. Three times -- and all within a week? Conspiracy. Which is why it wouldn't hurt to fire off a few letters reminding media people who REALLY deserves the credit for next week's big win.


# posted by Phoenix Woman @ 10/31/2006 06:28:00 AM
Comments:
Without the so-called Blue Dogs the Dems would be in permanent minority status in both houses of Congess and about 47 states. I'd be nice to 'em if I were you.
# posted by Blogger Robert Pearson : 10/31/2006 10:11:00 AM
 
Let's go to the videotape, W. Up until the Democrats actually started calling out Bush on Iraq, we WERE the permanent-minority party and destined to stay that way. (And it wasn't until a few months ago that the Beltway Democrats finally caught up with their own base and got over the fear of criticizing Bush on Iraq, even though the polls have shown that Iraq has been a millstone around GOP necks for nearly two years -- and only because some Democrats were willing to buck the DLC/BlueDog code of silence about Iraq.)

We started following the Blue Dog/DLC's ape-the-Republicans, screw-the-unions-and-minorities, suck-up-to-corporate-America policies back in 1990. And the result?

Aside from Clinton's 1992 win (which he probably owes to Ross Perot's swiping a good chunk of the GOP vote from GHW Bush), the DLC/BlueDogger Way has cost us the House, the Senate, most of our Governor's Mansions, and most of our state legislatures. Only in the last couple of years, thanks to actions by the despised netroots and the base you guys like to dump on, has this trend started to turn around.
# posted by Blogger Phoenix Woman : 10/31/2006 01:19:00 PM
 
The work turns both ways, wahrheit. Without the people who are working Howard Dean's and Jim Dean's 50 State Stategy, and the people working the ground for all of Dem campaigns, including those for Blue Dogs, the Democratic Party of the DLC goes nowhere. Grand speeches about serving the middle don't cut it; the hard work does, and that's where you can always count on Dean people and other groups of progressives to get the work done - and count on the bloggers the DLC despise to spread truth well beyong the blogosphere. Big pat on the back and many hugs to these people, even if we lose something so important next week. Especially if we were to lose next week - the fact the DLC can't comprehend is that we all keep on walking, even if we're on an uphill climb (thank you for that verbiage, JT!).
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 11/02/2006 10:31:00 PM
 
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