All I have to say is that it's long past time to hold some of these far right enablers accountable. If the party leadership refuses to enforce discipline in order to promote traditional Democratic values, then maybe blogosphere and other progressive groups can....
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“To clarify, Rep. Tauscher is not a blue dog.” The emphatic one-line e-mail, dashed off by a spokesman for California Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, is one of the first signs that a new coalition of unions and Internet activists has gotten the Democratic Party’s attention. Tauscher has long been a probusiness voice and outspoken member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition. Yet recently her conservatism–from supporting the GOP bankruptcy bill to airing her concern that liberals might run Congressional leaders “over the left cliff”–has put her in the cross hairs of an effort to reform the Democratic Party from the bottom up. She was branded a “top offender” on the website of Working For Us, a new political action committee pressing Democratic incumbents to support “economic security,” a “living wage for all workers” and a “progressive political agenda.”
Breaking sharply with the posture of most progressive organizations, the group will not simply criticize Democrats who fail that test. It will try to end their careers.Working For Us was founded by, among others, veteran labor strategist Steve Rosenthal, and it’s backed by unions, such as the Teamsters, Steelworkers and SEIU, that traditionally cultivate close relationships with Democratic politicians. But Working For Us is following the confrontational approach of top liberal bloggers, promising primaries to depose disloyal incumbents. Rosenthal says the group is a “marriage of the grassroots and the netroots,” uniting door-to-door organizers, unions and bloggers in an effort to “change the tenor of politics.”
The strategy is set by two boards made up of traditional labor leaders like SEIU secretary-treasurer Anna Burger and pioneers from the Internet left like MoveOn.org heads and Markos Moulitsas, founder of the top Democratic blog Daily Kos. Moulitsas has spent years fanning grassroots opposition to Democratic incumbents once considered untouchable. He rallied national support for Ciro Rodriguez’s 2006 primary challenge to Henry Cuellar, a Texas Congressman who supports estate tax repeal, free trade and George W. Bush, whom he endorsed in 2000. (Cuellar squeaked through the primary with 53 percent and went on to re-election.)
Moulitsas often hammers on three faults of conservative Democrats: economic conservatism, disloyalty to the party and desertion of their home districts’ priorities. In a recent blog entry making the case against Tauscher, for example, he highlighted that
she “consistently undermined the Democratic Party,” led the charge for the Republican bankruptcy bill and “acts like she represents Utah while serving in a 59 percent Kerry district.”
The district’s presidential voting history may sound more like political trivia than cause for revolt, but it’s actually a crucial prerequisite for netroots primary challenges. None of the incumbents targeted by the blogosphere in the last cycle hail from vulnerable districts or red states; they are all Democrats who are disloyal to the caucus and vote more conservatively than their constituents. Working For Us is adopting the same strategic standard to select its targets.More:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/04/977/
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