It sounds as if the Democrats are starting to form a circular firing squad over the public option in the health care debate. At a time when the party is losing independent voter support, some progressives are saying public option or political purge. From TPMDC:
“If Harry Reid does not have the leadership skills to get 60 votes for cloture and give a Democratic president an up-or-down vote on health care, progressives will help defeat him in 2010, even if that means Republicans take that seat,” said the head of one progressive organization, who’s still working out the detail of the campaign. “There is no use for Reid’s vote if 60 Democratic votes means nothing on cloture, and no use for Reid’s leadership if his leadership is so blatantly ineffective.“
Deja vu? I heard Democrats talk this way in 1968 when some said it would be good for the party if Hubert Humphrey went down to the defeat — that cleansing it of people like Humphrey who weren’t overtly enough anti-Vietnam war would restore the party to victory in a few years. It didn’t quite happen that way.
I also heard it in 2000 when friends said there was no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush so they’d stay home or vote for Ralph Nader. But when GWB got in power they noticed there were some tiny differences in things such as environmental policy, the Supreme Court — to mention just a few. Some folks felt the same way — and came to the same realization after the election — in 2004, as well..
The danger for progressives and the Democratic part is that is if they are as dismissive of independent, centrist and moderate voters’ concerns as many in the GOP are, and if they decide to prune the ranks of other Democrats who didn’t go along with their party wing’s wishes, then they could feel deja vu (again). And all of the talk about bringing about changes in environmental policy, Supreme Court appointments — to mention just a few — under a Democratic majority will prove to have been just that.
On the other hand, Republicans can use some cheering up. And seeing Democrats go after Reid and others who didn’t agree on the public option would please GOPers, who increasingly seem to have a fired up base (whether what they’re fired up about is true, accurate or not).
Republicans circle the wagons; Democrats fire on their own wagons. One party seemingly doesn’t try to expand its coalition, but consolidate and keep an existing one. The other (if we see a political bloodletting if progressives don’t get their demands met on the public option) party would would banish or purge part of a coalition that resulted in its victory.
Which strategy seems more likely to be beneficial in an increasingly polarized 21st century?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.