Legal Commentary

Who Won?

By Big Tent Democrat

Matt Yglesias writes a couple of interesting posts. First on Mark Critz's special election win in PA-12:

Former John Murtha staffer Mark Critz’s win in the PA-12 House election is just straight-up embarrassing for Republicans. The Democratic strategy was straight out of the 2006/2008 playbook. Find a moderately conservative House district and run a somewhat heterodox Democrat. [. . .] Add up a shifting coalition of such members to the big block of solid House liberals, and Nancy Pelosi can put an effective governing agenda together.

Hmmm. In terms of issues, was this strategy a winner for progressives? As opposed to Dems? In the other post, Yglesias wrote:

I think the ideological stakes in the Pennsylvania Senate primary were not that high, but from an organization/momentum standpoint this is certainly a win for the netroots and liberal activists that should build credibility going forward.

(Emphasis supplied.) This seems inaccurate to me. It is true that some Netroots types worked for (literally) the Sestak campaign, but he was hardly a cause celebre. The key is Yglesias' first sentence - "the ideological stakes . . . were not that high." Actually there were no ideological stakes at all. This will become even more apparent as Sestak starts his inevitable sprint to the Center for the general election.

In electoral terms, the blogs had a good night last night, as the candidates they decided to root for won. The exception is the Arkansas Dem Senate primary, which was absolutely the focal point of Netroots ISSUE work. (Score one for the Firebaggers!) Lincoln's abysmal performance is both an ideological and tactical win for progressives. The chances of any Dem winning the Arkansas Senate race are not good, but Lincoln would have not had this primary problem (and a better chance in November) if she had not crossed progressives on issues.

Kentucky was a nice win for local Kentucky progressives. Hard to imagine the national Netroots mattered much at all in Jack Conway's win over Dan Mongiardo. But Conway's win was issue based it seems to me. He was clearly more progressive than Mongiardo. That said, Conway will also sprint to the Center for the General Election.

That's politics folks.

In the end, I still endorse this prism:

As citizens and activists, our allegiances have to be to the issues we believe in. I am a partisan Democrat it is true. But the reason I am is because I know who we can pressure to do the right thing some of the times. Republicans aren't them. But that does not mean we accept the failings of our Democrats. There is nothing more important that we can do, as citizens, activists or bloggers than fight to pressure DEMOCRATS to do the right thing on OUR issues.

And this is true in every context I think. Be it pressing the Speaker or the Senate majority leader, or the new hope running for President. There is nothing more important we can do. Nothing. It's more important BY FAR than "fighting" for your favorite pol because your favorite pol will ALWAYS, I mean ALWAYS, disappoint you.

In the middle of primary fights, citizens, activists and bloggers like to think their guy or woman is different. They are going to change the way politics works. They are going to not disappoint. In short, they are not going to be pols. That is, in a word, idiotic.

Yes, they are all pols. And they do what they do. Do not fight for pols. Fight for the issues you care about. That often means fighting for a pol of course. But remember, you are fighting for the issues. Not the pols.

You win when your issues win, not when Obama, Sestak, Halter, Conway or Crtiz win. Did progressive issues win last night? In some races yes. In others? Not really.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 19, 2010 (boomark / email).