Skunked And Stumped

Deaniac83 over at The People's View notes that in the major Democratic primaries this year at the Congressional level, the "progressives" are getting their asses kicked.  And by "progressives" I mean Kucinich and Ilya Sheyman.

For all the Republican primary woes, a very strong current of positive news is coming out of the Democratic primaries this year - the Democratic Congressional primaries, specifically. Whenever ideological warriors on the Left flank of politics aim to beat down common sense pragmatism, our base is sending a message: we want good results, not just "good fights." Early this month, in Ohio, the least valuable Democrat in Congress, Dennis Kucinich, went down in flames in his Democratic primary. True to style, he chose to exit the stage as his usual bitter self. And last Tuesday, in Illinois' 10th Congressional District, the Professional Left's wonder kid, Ilya Sheyman, lost by a near double digit margin to progressive businessman Brad Schneider. To listen to the Internet's Lefty keyboard warriors, Sheyman's loss was a big tragedy for the progressives, and well, it's all the polling's fault.

Sheyman is the former Mobilization Director for MoveOn.org, and organizing manager at TrueMajority.org. Big names on the "netroot" Left - the PCCC (I find it amazing that people keep associating with them despite their open racism), MoveOn (duh) and Democracy for America all got behind Sheyman for a big push. If there is a personification of "netroots," - aka the keyboard warriors - Sheyman is it. The computer commandos attacked Schneider as a "Republican", based on the fact that over the past two decades, he'd donated to four Republicans, totaling less than 10% of his political donations. Local Democratic leaders condemned the tactics of these groups for reprehensible half-truths about a fellow Democrat.

When election night rolled around, Sheyman lost. Big. He lost big despite the support of these groups, and despite outspending his chief opponent hugely.

And there's an important lesson there.  We need more and better Democrats.  There's honest debate as to which is more important, the "more" part or the "better" part.  I lean towards "more" first generating better later, but I can see the argument for "better" first to an extent.


But Sheyman and Kucinich are neither.

The IL-10 race was really a profile of the "Netroots" going all-in, tearing up their Democratic opponent, and... failing completely and utterly. It's perhaps the race that shows the biggest difference between the Republican base and the (actual) Democratic base: the Democratic base is looking for people who will stand up for what they believe in, and one of the things we believe in is the fierce urgency of governing effectively. Just as the Republican base is in the business of moving their candidates to the unrecognizable fringe, the Democratic base is rejecting ideological warfare in favor of pragmatism and solutions.

That's what the Democratic party stands for. That's what the Democratic base stands for. We stand for pragmatic governance with progressive goals. We stand for moving forward with what progress can be made, and always sticking around for more. We do not have a cow every time one of our own says something nice about someone in the opposing party. We believe that ideological warfare is harmful, and that to move our country forward, we must govern - and that governing entails compromises. We do not think that compromise is a dirty word. We are too smart to fall into a Tea Party trap of our own.

Most of us, anyway.