Glenn Greenwald and DLC-spokesperson Ed Kilgore make their cases pro and con here and here. Basic argument pro: What good are Democrats if they collaborate or enable the GOP's right-wing agenda?
Other than (arguably) the resignation of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general and a very modest increase in the minimum wage (enacted in the first month after Democrats took control of Congress), one is hard-pressed to identify a single event or issue since November 2006 that would have been meaningfully different had the GOP retained control of Congress. The Congress of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi has been every bit as passive, impotent and complicit as the Congress of Bill Frist and Denny Hastert was. Worse, in contrast to the Frist/Hastert-led Congress, which at least had the excuse that it enabled a wartime president from its own party while he enjoyed high approval ratings, the Reid/Pelosi Congress has capitulated to every presidential whim despite an "opposition party" president who is now one of the most unpopular in modern American history. It's difficult to imagine how even Reid and Pelosi themselves could contest the claim that the Democratic-led Congress, from the perspective of Democratic voters, has been a profound failure.
With those depressing facts assembled, the only question worth asking among those who are so dissatisfied with congressional Democrats is this: What can be done to change this conduct? As proved by the 2006 midterm elections -- which the Democrats dominated in a historically lopsided manner -- mindlessly electing more Democrats to Congress will not improve anything. Such uncritical support for the party is actually likely to have the opposite effect. It's axiomatic that rewarding politicians -- which is what will happen if congressional Democrats end up with more seats and greater control after 2008 than they had after 2006 -- only ensures that they will continue the same behavior. If, after spending two years accommodating one extremist policy after the next favored by the right, congressional Democrats become further entrenched in their power by winning even more seats, what would one expect them to do other than conclude that this approach works and therefore continue to pursue it?
Kilgore's response was pretty flaccid, so rather than quote him I think commenter to Greenwald's post Diomedes makes the better counter-argument:
Greenwald seems to me to be reflecting the attitude of many left-wing progressives, but I think it much more appropriate to remember that the voters in these congressional districts knew they were voting in conservative Democrats, liked it that way, and probably wouldn't go for a liberal if one had been offered.
Instead of brandishing our pitchforks in the name of intellectual purity in the party, why don't we consider that those voters who elected the Blue Dogs may have intended for the Democrats to work with Republicans on issues that can gain cross-aisle consensus?
And an even bigger issue: we've been crying for years that Reagan took the middle of the electorate from us and his successors wouldn't give it back... now Bush has disgusted those folks so much that they're giving us a shot... and we bemoan their influence?!
Embrace them! Embrace the Schweitzers and Jon Testers and Heath Schulers and the like! They make us look like what a party in power should be; representative of a broader spectrum of American thought, and a "bigger tent" than the more narrow-minded regional Republicans.
We won't regain power until we stop our incessant calls for purity of thought.-- Diomedes
I have no problem with Greenwald's articulation of the problem; the question for me is how to find the right solution. Greenwald talks about the Democratic base being frustrated because its elected representatives don't implement its agenda. But the bottom line is that each elected politician is accountable to his own base, which is composed of the constituents who elected him. And the fact is that most of those constituents, as disgusted as they might be currently with the GOP, don't particularly buy into the the agenda of the so-called Democratic base, which it perceives as too far left.
The question for me is not whether I agree or disagree with the agenda of the Dem base--on most issues I agree. The question, rather, is whether Main Street agrees, and if it doesn't whether people like Greenwald can convince many who live there to vote for the candidates that he approves of. The Republicans will be irrelevant for the next few years, at least, so the real question is whether the Dems will become the party of the center left or the center right:
As long as they [Dem leaders] know that progressives will blindly support their candidates no matter what they do, then it will only be rational for congressional Democrats to ignore progressives and move as far to the right as they can. With the blind, unconditional support of Democrats securely in their back pocket, Democratic leaders will quite rationally conclude that the optimal way to increase their own power, to transform more Republican districts into Blue Dog Democratic seats, and thereby make themselves more secure in their leadership positions, is to move their caucus to the right. Because the principal concern of Democratic leaders is to maintain and increase their own power, they will always do what they perceive is most effective in achieving that goal, which right now means moving their caucus to the right to protect their Blue Dogs and elect new ones.
But here's the problem: As long as so many districts in Main Street America want to vote center-right Blue Dogs into office rather than candidates more sympathetic to the left-leaning agenda of the Dem base, the struggle to implement the agenda of the Dem base will continue to be a losing cause. The real challenge is to find a way to persuade Main Street to support candidates who are center-left. That is the only long-term strategy that can work effectively to bring about some of the changes we all so desperately need. Punishing Blue Dogs isn't the answer; finding and supporting credible center-left candidates who can run against them and win on Main Street is. If credible center-left candidates with integrity can't be found to stand for election to offer an alternative to the Barrows and Hoyers, then nothing changes. Pressure exerted by the Dem base will never be able to compete with the pressure exerted by corporate money. The left can only succeed with people power, and that people power derives not from the Dem base alone but by persuading Main Street that its interests and the interests of the Dem base are closer than is now the common perception.
Jim Webb is a kind of paradigm of the center-left candidate I have in mind for these districts. But then again, he voted for the FISA compromise. Things, alas, are not neat, and that's why some kind of litmus test just won't work. I don't see Webb as co-opted or as a Blue Dog, nor do I see Obama that way, despite their FISA votes--but neither are they creatures of the Democratic base. I see them rather as the politicians who have the credibility to influence Main Street to shift from center right to center left. If they can move the amorphous middle leftward, the Pelosis, Hoyers, Emmanuels, and Blue Dogs will follow.
Maybe, maybe not. I'm not particularly optimistic about that, because even if Main Street shifts, corporate money still remains the most important factor influencing the Pelosis, Hoyers, and Emmanuels. But so long as the amorphous middle leans right, nothing is possible because these co-opted politicians have nothing to fear from the electorate. They know they have no reason to fear the base who can always be dismissed as "extremist" so long as its views are not Main Street's views.
UPDATE: One of the great misunderstandings about the way most politics get discussed is that the electorate is the most important player in our political process and that public opinion matters. It just isn't and it doesn't, at least on the national level. We have evolved into a ceremonial democracy, and the art of politics now is to continue the charade that legislators in doing the will of elite power are really doing the will of the broad electorate.
Whenever left types talk about opinion polls and how most Americans agree with them, I have to wonder if they really understand how things work. Public opinion doesn't matter except when it coincides with elite opinion. It doesn't matter if most Americans want to get out of Iraq or want universal health care, unless that's what elite power wants. Lots of people see through this charade, but it doesn't matter because most people don't, and the charade continues so long as most people think that the theater is reality.
I think that the broad electorate has the potential to demand that the political process serve its will, but that's simply not what is happening now. And it will not happen until the broad electorate is sufficiently aroused to demand that its legislators do its will rather than the will of powerful interests. Until that happens, politicians will continue with the charade--tell voters more or less what they want to hear, and then do the work of elite power.
So when pundits or bloggers or anybody talks about politicians doing what their constituencies want, it's nonsense. With a few toothless exceptions politicians do what the broad electorate wants only when it coincides with what power interests want or don't care enough about to oppose.
So I admire the efforts of Greenwald and others to try to hold these politicians accountable, but its a quixotic effort so long as the broad electorate's will to hold its representatives accountable is dormant. The real political challenge is to arouse that sleeping will.