Hey Democrats. Charlie Cook says we've split into three factions: Loyalists, Purists, and Skeptics.

[jefferson_dem]

Which are you? :shrug:

Three-Part Disharmony
Which of the competing Democratic schools of thought has the clearest view of the 2010 landscape?
by Charlie Cook

Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009

In assessing the severity of their current problems, Democrats have split into three distinct camps.

The first, the Loyal Obamaites, is made up of those most committed to President Obama, whether or not they're on his payroll. They stress that it is a long time until November 2010 and that their party's problems are primarily driven by the economy.

In their view, if the economy turns around over the next year, the president's fortunes and those of his party will improve. If the economy fails to improve, Democrats are pretty much screwed no matter what they do, the Loyalists continue. They maintain that tackling health care reform would be tough in any year, that candidate Obama promised to take on this challenge, and that he cannot back down. Some Democrats in this camp sound as if they would not mind if a dozen or so "Blue Dogs" lost next year, since on tough votes these moderate-to-conservative Democrats are not with the president and their party's House leadership anyway.

The second Democratic camp, the Purists, is chiefly composed of liberal activists and bloggers who see the current problems of the president and the party as the result of their being insufficiently liberal and of not sticking with their convictions. Purists see compromise as weakness or appeasement. And on health care they view anything short of a full-blown public option as a rejection of core Democratic principles. Oddly, universal coverage is not where they draw their line in the sand.

(Without weighing in on the validity of the liberal Purists' arguments, I would like the record to show that when conservatives made a similar argument -- that Republicans lost the 2006 and 2008 elections because they had veered away from conservative principles -- liberals laughed hysterically.)

Finally, there are the Skeptics, those Democrats who have concluded that this is not the cruise they signed up for. They worry that the problems facing Obama and their party's congressional leadership stem from something deeper than just the recession and that major strategic mistakes have been made. They can't see how this trajectory doesn't take their party to a bad place by November 2010. The Skeptics think that the rapid and unprecedented expansion of government -- under both Presidents Bush and Obama -- since last year's collapse of Lehman Brothers has gone too far and that costly health care proposals and cap-and-trade legislation are the straws breaking the camel's back.

<SNIP>

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cookreport.php

[Jennicut]

1. I guess I am partly loyal Dem and partly purist Dem

Not totally blind and not totally inflexible on every single issue. Which I guess means that not everyone falls into 3 simple categories.

The Skeptics...WTF did they think they were getting when they voted for Obama?

[seaglass]

14. Many people voted for Obama because he is a Democrat, that was enough. n/t

[LaydeeBug]

2. As a democrat, I reject being put into any category. ;)

making me a purist? But eh trial balloons and political theatre as of late has rendered me a skeptic, I guess. We will see.

[jefferson_dem]

3. I hear ya. My "which are you" question was pretty much tongue-in-cheek.

That being said, if I had to choose, I would be a (pragmatic) loyalist. :)

[Kahuna]

4. Sounds pretty accurate to me. I'm a...

:patriot:

[Avalux]

5. Categories suck and Charlie Cook is an idiot for trying to force us into 3 groups.

Trying to create wedges where there aren't any. The Democratic Party has NEVER been a party of lockstep and never will be. That's why we are the party of ideas and are responsible for moving this country forward while the other assholes only drag us down.

[PVnRT]

6. Who the hell is Charlie Cook, and why do I care what he thinks?

[jotsy]

7. None of the above, as a registered independent voter, I'm an equal opportunity critic!

I've contended for well over a decade that bipartisan politics are not in the best interests of the American public, and that the two party ping pong being played with us will only end if we loosen their grip by voting in off party candidates.

Charlie Cook, I imagine is slobbering with anticipation, as is much of his flat earth kind. They don't believe that America has another place to go but back to them when it's revealed that the House of Representatives acts as nothing more than an acronym, regardless of which party is in the majority.

[pinto]

8. Eh. And Cook doesn't fail to come to the conclusion that big government is "really" the problem.

"My own hunch is that the Skeptics are right that the Democrats' problems are bigger than the recession: Purple America is reacting to the growth of government with emotions ranging from dubiousness to outright hostility. So, the rebound for which almost everyone is praying won't necessarily fix the Democrats' problems."

:eyes:

[Forkboy]

9. I'm firmly in the skeptic camp.

Though I think all three are oversimplifications.

[grahamhgreen]

10. HE FORGOT THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS - DUH! ; )

[Faygo Kid]

11. GOP's three parts: Nuts, Violent and Useful Dupes.

Charlie's column is weak here. Dems are all over the board; we are not monolithic like the dittoheads that make up the Repukes.

[nevergiveup]

12. Politically I am difficult to pigeonhole.

If forced to define myself I would probably cop-out by describing myself as a pragmatic purist. When pushed in a corner I will defend Obama to no end but I can also be quite harsh when evaluating him. The one thing I am consistent on is my absolute hatred for the conservative fringe.

[KoKo]

13. If he dug deeper he might find combination of Purist & Skeptics

might have more in common than splitting them out. But, then...it was his job to come up with three camps. Makes for an interesting read and more fodder to say there are "Crazies on the Left and on the Right." Fits nicely with a meme that is being pushed.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. He forgot those of us who have been anti-war since about 1968

I'm interested in health care because of my personal situation, but I know that the three overriding issues, from which so many of our problems stem are

1) The overweaning power of the military-industrial-espionage complex

2) Legislators at all levels bought and paid for by the above

3) Corporate media that seem united in an effort to dumb down the American populace

Tame the military-industrial-espionage complex, institute public campaign financing and repeal corporate personhood, and forbid any corporation from owning more than one media outlet, and a lot of things will start to straighten out by themselves.