As proved by the 2006 midterm elections—which the Democrats dominated in a historically lopsided manner—mindlessly electing more Democrats to Congress will not improve anything. Such uncritical support for the party is actually likely to have the opposite effect. It’s axiomatic that rewarding politicians—which is what will happen if congressional Democrats end up with more seats and greater control after 2008 than they had after 2006—only ensures that they will continue the same behavior. If, after spending two years accommodating one extremist policy after the next favored by the right, congressional Democrats become further entrenched in their power by winning even more seats, what would one expect them to do other than conclude that this approach works and therefore continue to pursue it?
If simply voting for more Democrats will achieve nothing in the way of meaningful change, what, if anything, will? At minimum, two steps are required to begin to influence Democratic leaders to change course: 1) Impose a real political price that they must pay when they capitulate to—or actively embrace—the right’s agenda and ignore the political values of their base, and 2) decrease the power and influence of the conservative “Blue Dog” contingent within the Democratic caucus, who have proved excessively willing to accommodate the excesses of the Bush administration, by selecting their members for defeat and removing them from office. And that means running progressive challengers against them in primaries, or targeting them with critical ads, even if doing so, in isolated cases, risks the loss of a Democratic seat in Congress.
They tried that once before against former Senator Joe Lieberman. Oh wait...Lieberman's still a Senator, he's just not a Democrat anymore. They successfully ran him out of the party but not out of Congress, and now he's running around the country supporting John McCain. A real "progressive" success story.
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