With each passing day I become more disgusted with Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats who clearly are incompetent to govern and lack the spine to take on corporate interests - especially the health care insurers and pharmaceutical companies. It's the the point that whether or not a health care bill passes means nothing because the likely product coming out of Congress will be an abomination that does nothing for average Americans. Yet, self-important Democrats still do not grasp why they lost the races in Virginia and New Jersey in November. I increasingly know liberals who wish they had not voted for Obama since he has failed to deliver on anything except more of the same old tired bull shit. Politics Daily has a piece that looks at the simmering seeds for a Democrat civil war that could match what's happening in the GOP. Here are some highlights: *
Democrats are having fun highlighting the "civil war" within the Republican Party, but their schadenfreude may be short-lived. Conservative and moderate Democrats are failing one liberal litmus test after another, stoking not just frustration on the left but also potential primary challenges.
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The list of those tests starts with the public option, a proposed government-sponsored health insurance plan that appears to be losing ground on Capitol Hill despite continued popularity in opinion polls. And that's just the beginning.
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"Democrats are generally discouraged across the board because they don't feel that anything's getting accomplished," says Ben Tribbett, executive director of the Accountability Now Political Action Committee. Already there's the real possibility that Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter will challenge Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who has voted against a public option and is sagging in state polls.
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As for the House, "if there hasn't been progress made, I think you'll see a number of people stepping forward in a large number of districts" to challenge Democratic incumbents, Tribbett told me. He has so far been to meetings in eight states where activists may organize primary challenges, including the Pittsburgh area district of health-bill opponent Jason Altmire.
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The Democratic Party is in power thanks to a diverse coalition and is trying to accomplish many of President Obama's sweeping, complex campaign goals. The result is a big tent so strained at the seams that it threatens to burst open on a daily basis. The battle often looks like a straight-up competition between different wings of the party, but those agitating for primary challenges say it's not that simple.
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Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says the "netroots" target politicians who are representing "corporatist interests" rather than their constituents and mobilize behind "populist candidates that play well in their states" -- people like Jon Tester in Montana and Jim Webb in Virginia.
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PCCC also commissioned a poll of Virginia Democrats and independents who voted for Obama in 2008 but did not show up for the governor's race this year. Forty percent said that it made them less likely to vote when Democrat Creigh Deeds said he would "opt out" of a federal public insurance option. Green called that a signal that the base may not turn out for Democrats who opposed the public option -- and "there would likely be a lot more energy" around challengers to those members.
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Progressives are advancing the idea that they can perform a great service to Democrats by weeding out weak incumbents. Sure, there could be intramural fireworks in the primaries, they say, but the greatest harm is leaving the vulnerable incumbents in place and watching them lose in November as the base stays home.
Democrats are having fun highlighting the "civil war" within the Republican Party, but their schadenfreude may be short-lived. Conservative and moderate Democrats are failing one liberal litmus test after another, stoking not just frustration on the left but also potential primary challenges.
*
The list of those tests starts with the public option, a proposed government-sponsored health insurance plan that appears to be losing ground on Capitol Hill despite continued popularity in opinion polls. And that's just the beginning.
*
"Democrats are generally discouraged across the board because they don't feel that anything's getting accomplished," says Ben Tribbett, executive director of the Accountability Now Political Action Committee. Already there's the real possibility that Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter will challenge Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who has voted against a public option and is sagging in state polls.
*
As for the House, "if there hasn't been progress made, I think you'll see a number of people stepping forward in a large number of districts" to challenge Democratic incumbents, Tribbett told me. He has so far been to meetings in eight states where activists may organize primary challenges, including the Pittsburgh area district of health-bill opponent Jason Altmire.
*
The Democratic Party is in power thanks to a diverse coalition and is trying to accomplish many of President Obama's sweeping, complex campaign goals. The result is a big tent so strained at the seams that it threatens to burst open on a daily basis. The battle often looks like a straight-up competition between different wings of the party, but those agitating for primary challenges say it's not that simple.
*
Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says the "netroots" target politicians who are representing "corporatist interests" rather than their constituents and mobilize behind "populist candidates that play well in their states" -- people like Jon Tester in Montana and Jim Webb in Virginia.
*
PCCC also commissioned a poll of Virginia Democrats and independents who voted for Obama in 2008 but did not show up for the governor's race this year. Forty percent said that it made them less likely to vote when Democrat Creigh Deeds said he would "opt out" of a federal public insurance option. Green called that a signal that the base may not turn out for Democrats who opposed the public option -- and "there would likely be a lot more energy" around challengers to those members.
*
Progressives are advancing the idea that they can perform a great service to Democrats by weeding out weak incumbents. Sure, there could be intramural fireworks in the primaries, they say, but the greatest harm is leaving the vulnerable incumbents in place and watching them lose in November as the base stays home.
*
More on the disaffection of the youth vote that stayed home in Virginia and New Jersey can be found here. If the Democrats get whacked in 2010, it will truly be no one's fault but their own.
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