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Blue Dogs Have the Power, Don’t Want the Responsibility

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Matthew Yglesias is frustrated with conservative Democrats who influence party direction and then blame progressives for the results (emphasis is in original):

One of the most frustrating things about self-described “centrist” Democrats is their general unwillingness to face up to the fact that they’ve been the dominant faction in the Democratic Party for decades. …

I think Barack Obama’s campaign sort of broke with that mold, as does Speaker Pelosi in the House, but the reality is that the pivotal members of the House are moderate Blue Dogs and the pivotal members of the Senate are moderates like Mary Landrieu. Consequently, governance in the Obama era has been determined by what moderates like Mary Landrieu are willing to do. Which is fine as far as it goes, but it means that if voters don’t like the results Landrieu doesn’t get to complain that someone else screwed things up:

Other centrist Democrats said the results in Massachusetts could become a blessing in disguise by forcing Democrats to rein in their legislative agenda and focus on less expansive policies than the health care overhaul now teetering with the loss of the Democratic majority’s crucial 60th vote.

“The loss in Massachusetts should serve as a wake-up call to the wing of the Democratic Party that wants the federal government to overreach and overspend,” said Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana. “We need to get back to the basics.”

You can easily imagine an alternate universe in which the Senate Democratic Caucus took an oath of party loyalty, that all 60 Democrats would vote for cloture on all leadership-supported bills, allowing measures to pass with just 51 votes. … Had that happened, and had the voters been displeased with it, then it might make perfect sense for Landrieu to complain about some non-Landrieu “wing” of the Democratic Party.

But in the world that exists, the only “wing” that matters is the Mary Landrieu wing. … Either the strategy is working better than the alternatives, or else it’s the Landrieu wing that needs to change things up. But defeats can’t be the fault of the people who haven’t been in the driver’s seat since the seventies.