MoveOn's latest move: "Should we take on Right wing Democrats?"

[mom cat]

This arrived in my e-mail this morning:

MoveOn: "Should we take on Right wing Democrats?"

Dear MoveOn member,
This year our top goal is breaking the right-wing Republican stranglehold on Congress. That is our main focus every day.

It is also part of our work together to hold Democrats to their Party's highest values on issues like foreign policy, economic prosperity and good government.

That sometimes means grappling with specific right-wing Democrats who consistently side with big corporations and right-wing Republicans.

One approach is to support progressive primary challengers to right-wing Democrats. We think this makes sense but it's a big decision so we wanted to check with you and other MoveOn members. What do you think? Click below to let us know.

http://political.moveon.org/whattodo/?

The story about "the Democrat who sold out" has become too familiar. Too often progressives tip toe around these betrayals. But there needs to be real consequences for these Democrats.


Replacing a right-wing Democrat with a more progressive Democrat will help voters more clearly understand what Democrats stand for—and that will help Democrats win.

Many of these conservative Democrats we would challenge represent states or districts that are heavily Democratic—so we're not imperiling a Democratic majority by doing this.

Why is this a big decision? At some level it isn't—we've consistently held Democrats feet to the fire on a long list of issues. But challenging right-wing Democrats in an electoral setting would be new for MoveOn.org Political Action. That is why we're asking for your feedback. Click below to let us know what you think.

http://political.moveon.org/whattodo/?

Who are the Democrats we would challenge? One example is Congressman Henry Cuellar in Texas. Cuellar is a right-wing Democrat infamous for supporting the Bush agenda and Republican legislation.

He is wrong on many core Democratic issues like the war and Medicare, he often undermines key Democratic initiatives and too often pokes progressives in the eye with his votes and statements. (More on Cuellar tomorrow.)

We would start with the worst like Cuellar and work to build a progressive majority one election at a time.

A Democratic majority will be a big step towards progressive reform. But at the same time we have to work to build a progressive majority that will work towards bold reforms.

Please help by giving us feedback on this decision.

http://political.moveon.org/whattodo/?
Thanks for all you do.

–Tom, Jennifer, Rosalyn, Justin and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Tuesday, February 14th, 2006

P.S. Here are some key practices we'll follow:

Member endorsement. MoveOn.org Political Action only endorses candidates with the consent of MoveOn members in the state or district—surveying them before an endorsement. If members are split, we won't endorse.


Viable candidates. We don't want to waste your money—so we work hard to pick candidates who have a real shot at winning.


A progressive majority. We believe that all Democrats are not the same—and we work to elect progressive members of Congress when we can.

[xultar]

1. I don't agree with this. Fighting your own is STOOPID.

[ClintonTyree]

5. Should we consider them "our own".....

if they consistently vote with the GOP and against the ideals of the Democratic Party? Nelson(DINO)- Nebraska, comes to mind. There's no way this guy is a Democrat, he's a bush enabler.

[xultar]

7. I'm open for a party that incorporate different views. Isn't that what

Democrats stand for or are we to all lock-step on the same thing and purge all that do not agree?

[cantstandbush]

17. They are not "my own" anymore than the Dixicrats of the south were.

I keep saying this, we need a third party made up of like-minded, princpled candidates who will take the best from both parties and leave the rubble and special intersts that are against the people behind. It IS possible. But as long as folks keep saying it's too difficult and impossible, it will be. I believe the country is read for this.

[mom cat]

18. We can work to find new people who will really be "our own"

[Warpy]

6. Not when they're WRONG. Then it's imperative!

Those party conservatives who have been running things for the past few decades couldn't be more wrong. They've lost us all 3 branches of government, that's how wrong they are. They've presided over the destruction of our economy by siding with GOP fad economics, that's how wrong they are. They've conspired with the GOP to strip us of our Bill of Rights protections and get us into an unwinnable war of corporate convenience, that's how wrong they are. They've attacked women's rights, civil rights, and labor rights whenever they could, meaning they've been attacking the vast majority of people who live in this country, that's how wrong they are.

If you want to roll over and play dead in the name of party unity, that's your problem. The rest of us are going to be out there fighting those conservative shitheads with everything we've got.

We want our party back, we want our country back. Fighting is how we'll get it.

[IndianaGreen]

12. They are not "our own"

Yhose that voted for the bankruptcy bill sided with the banks against the consumers. They are not our friends!

[ClintonTyree]

2. Damn straight we should target DINOs.......

what's the difference if it's a Republican or a Democrat voting for bush's policies? There's a few Democrats that vote with the Republicans almost every time, why do they even pretend to be Democrats? Some people say, "Democrats from Nebraska are different than Democrats from New York"......bullsquat! You're either a Democrat that embraces the principals of the Democratic Party or you're not, end of story. We have to let these DINOs know we're NOT happy with their choices or they'll just continue to vote with the Republicans like they have been.

[Wilms]

3. Who we talkin'?

Sounds like they have a few targets in mind. (Wouldn't want to see them to go "scatter-shot Cheney" on this.)

Wonder who they are, who they'd challenge them with, and on what specific criteria.

In a way the challenger could be a long shot and still foster a needed discussion.

We'll see what they have in mind.

[mom cat]

19. That it the great thing... They are asking for OUR input..

:smoke"
If we think strategically, we can reform the party.We can recommend specific races where we have a chance to do selective pruning.

[Wordie]

20. Good point. It seems to me if the impetus for this comes from the local

level, where people know the population that will be voting, that this could be a good thing. People who are in the local area have a good idea of the political winds that are blowing there, and so would be best able to assess a progressive candidate's chances in the primary. If the progressive lost, the incumbent could still be supported in the general, if his/her voting record (however bad) was still likely to be better than a RW challenger's.

The only worry I have is that a particularly nasty primary campaign could give a RW challenger fodder to use against the Democrat in the general, were the new candidate to lose in the primary. But if the new candidates were to pledge to keep the focus on progressive issues during their campaign, and not make personal attacks, that wouldn't be a problem. A RW candidate wouldn't be able or likely to use progressive issues to challenge an incumbent anyway.

I still feel a little leery of working against other Democrats, and I wouldn't want to see this being done nation-wide, in every race, but in specific cases, where the Dem in question is more a liability than a plus, this could be a very good thing.

On edit: It seems to me that there are two criteria that local groups ought to consider, when deciding whether to run a progressive challenger to a DINO:

1. Can any progressive candidate win in the general in that district? (That's crucial - if the district so predominantly RW that a win isn't going to happen no matter how good the candidate, why bother?)

2. Is there a truly viable candidate to run against the Dem incumbent? (It doesn't make any sense to run a candidate, just because he/she has progressive values, if the candidate is weak for some other reason.)

I like the way moveon is approaching this, by asking for input.

[mom cat]

21. I like it too. I think that they have done their homework on setting up

the criteria. They want to be selective and are encouraging a lot of local input. This is not the Cheney shotgun approach by any stretch of the imagination.

[rpannier]

22. I just got an e-mail from Move On

It's scrubs new boyfriend Henry Cuellar. He is a dino is a dem stronghold -- so strong the pukes aren't fielding a candidate. They're supporting his predecessor Ciro Rodriguez.

[obreaslan]

4. I'm ok with fighting it out in the Primaries....

But I'm starting to worry about all of this in-fighting. Is this really the time we want to start trying to purge the party? With the recent developments with Hackett in Ohio and the calls against ousting the DLC'ers, I fear that we will play right into the hands of Karl Rove this November.

Don't get me wrong, I want to see the DINO's like Lieberman and the Nelsons out, but if they get the nod for November, I will support them. THe DLC is bad for this party and should be removed, but we need every "D" possible in the House and the Senate in order to save this country from ruin. Now is not the time to gather the firing squad in a circle, so to speak. We need to fight the real enemy first, then we can worry about routing out the enemy within.

IMHO.

:scared:

[Warpy]

10. That's what DLC types say every election cycle.

The party base is GONE. Unless the party starts to get it back, then conciliatory bullshit will just be happy talk among party conservatives, because the concept of winning elections or even holding on to the seats they have now will only be a theoretical one.

In order to get the base back, it's absolutely vital to support economic populists. It's necessary for the party itself to withdraw support from its sainted DINOs, no matter how wealthy GOP policies have made the bosses.

I refuse to participate in my financial destruction or that of my country. I will not vote for a DINO, a DLC conservative, or any other stiff the party bosses decide to offer in the name of the rich keeping their tax cuts.

[wtbymark]

8. I'll say it again!

This IS the year. If you're a dem and pander to the corperations instead of your constituants (populous constituants) YOU'RE OUT ON YOUR ASS!!!!!!!!!
We will "Leiberman" you

[rpannier]

11. Here's a question for you...

Sen Ben Nelson (D?-NE) votes heavily with the pukes, more so than Hagel does. Nelson's voting record apparantly is line with what the people of Nebraska believe. So, is he responding to his constituants.

[rpannier]

9. Go after the R's first

then worry about the questionable D's.
We gotta keep this simple. To borrow a bit from the movie '1776' "The issue here is getting back control of congress."

[IndianaGreen]

13. Let's start by supporting Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman

Lieberman must go!

[mrgorth]

14. I think this is a good thing

First, this is moveon we're talking about here not the DNC. It is good for these GOP-lite candidates to know that there is a left wing branch of the democratic party and we are not happy with their behavior. Frankly, if whatever funding moveon can provide to a primary challenger is enough to unseat a democratic incumbent than I doubt he had much support to begin with. Conversely, haveing challengers from the left could pull some of these DINOs to the left the way Huey Long pulled FDR to the left. Let them know we're out here and pissed. I like it.

[Mark E. Smith]

15. My reply was that we need to remember who the real enemy is

Under the guidelines being laid down by some ideological purists John F. Kennedy would have been considered a "right wing Democrat." So would Harry Truman.

Let's just beat the shit out of the Republicans first for a change, OK? We're always so damned good at doing that to ourselves.

If Move On starts attacking Democrats I will no longer want anything to do with them.

[rpannier]

23. I got an e-mail from them

Their target seems to be limited to one person Congressman Henry Cuellar -- you may remember he's scrubs new bf -- they guy scrub was rubbing cheeks at the SOTU. It's a district where the pukes run nobody so the winner of the primary goes to Congress. They're supporting his predecessor Ciro Rodriguez.
I can get behind this decision.

[katinmn]

16. Absolutely! We should always vote for the quality candidate

Not the party. There is a big difference.

[dolstein]

24. What right-wing Democrats?

Sorry, but the days of the Dixiecrats are long gone. Just because a Democrat doesn't kow-tow to the left-wing agenda of Move On doesn't make them right wing.

I still don't see how running moderate Democrats out of the party is a formula for political success. You win by adding votes, not substracting.

[mom cat]

26. Not subtracting them. Just replacing them with more representative

representatives. Isn't that what politics is about?

[omega minimo]

25. MoveOn went silent running after the (second) bogus election in 2004

Excuse me, mom cat, I've been wondering ever since: where did they go and why? All of what followed would be moot if Americans had responded and MoveOn was uniquely positioned to make it so (during MSM blackout on election stories.)

"It is also part of our work together to hold Democrats to their Party's highest values on issues like foreign policy, economic prosperity and good government."

And free and fair and verifiable elections?

"That sometimes means grappling with specific right-wing Democrats who consistently side with big corporations and right-wing Republicans."

And corporate crony voting machine controllers?

"Too often progressives tip toe around these betrayals."

Indeed.

[Adelante]

27. We should fight Republicans

And fucking take power.

[MrTriumph]

28. Yes, we should fight R's and DINOs.

x

[Texacrat]

29. If they do I will fight to defend those centrist Democrats

Who are they going to go after, Ben Nelson? We can't win in some areas without moderates.

[IndianaGreen]

30. Joe Lieberman must go!

We have an antiwar Democrat in Ned Lamont. Let's all rally around Lamont and get rid of Holy Joe once and for all!