This Risk of Being Moderate in Congress

The Wall Street Journal article “Primary Sends Shivers Through Capitol Moderates” profiles the fate of incumbent Congresspeople who are perceived as straying too far from their party’s base. While the prodigal Democrats are targeted by MoveOn and ActBlue, the Republicans are targeted by the “Club for Growth.”

“We’ll be working this fall for ‘more’ Democrats, but today we struck a blow on behalf of better Democrats,” wrote Markos Moulitsas Zuniga on the popular blog DailyKos.com Tuesday night. “Our caucus is once again on notice. If they continue to serve corporate interests rather than their constituents, if they insist on remaining aloof to the nation’s popular sentiment, they’ll get booted in a Democratic primary like Joe Lieberman in 2006 and Al Wynn in 2008.”

The problem for me is that this analog to “Ethnic Cleansing” can get out of control with the criteria becoming so tight that only the zealots remain. My preference is for a criteria that leans as much on process as it does on policy. By which I mean whether someone is pragmatic, cooperative, collaborative and trans-partisan. Or in other words, someone who supports incremental steps to refining and perfecting the process of government through tighter ethics rules, public campaign finance, redistricting reform, voting counting integrity, open primaries, etc.

I would not be happy to lose a representative because of the genuine difference on values such as on gun control when they are otherwise in alignment on making sure we have an increasingly representative government. Likewise I would not want a corrupt and sinister representative who can expertly pander to the radical elements of the party.

Sometimes people disagree who are reasonable, fair and honorable.