No sitting elected official will welcome ANY change in the regime under which s/he won power.
Nobody now in power wants to enlarge the franchise.
The corporate media are minions of the status quo.
The more nothing changes, the more things stay the same.

The real story here is that the right wing crocodile tear machine is still strong enough to make Congress spend time on its false and cynical foolishness. Not enough has been done to figure out how to tear down (or shout down) their institutions of propaganda.

Of course, it doesn't help that those Dems went along with it, and thus stupidly rewarded the noise machine so that they will do it again next time, but by the time Democrats had to make the choice on this vote, they had already lost.

You're exactly right. Most people are uncomfortable with change and that's especially so in DC.

Hell, the Dems won Congress and still act like the GOP is in charge.

Far more appealing to take these interlopers down a peg.

What's interesting to me is that they seem to think condemning fellow citizens' exercise of free speech somehow "takes them down a peg."

If anything, I imagine this fires up the MoveOn membership somewhat - even the portion of the membership that thought that the ad was a poor decision just a few days ago.

I think you've got it exactly backwards. I don't doubt that the Democratic Senators voted for the bill precisely because they thought it was in their best interest (both collective and individual) to do so. They were given a choice between appearing to endorse ostensibly rabid anti-American leftists and perhaps gaining a few fringe votes, or appealing to moderate/centrist middle American voters by supporting the resolution, and they calculated that the latter would be much less damaging to them at election time than the former. And--as progressives demonstrated so clearly in 2004 by falling in line behind John Kerry, the DLC's candidate--they're probably right.

But then again, I'm a retarded baboon.

Yeah, kinda what John Caruso said. What makes you think the Democratic party is a sort of institution that would benefit from embracing MoveOn? The Democratic party is an equivalent of a typical European center-right Christian Democratic party, while MoveOn appears to be center-left (San-Francisco style).

Interesting take on that Mr. Schwarz. I always thought it was because the Democrats were trying to pick up conservative votes that they supported things such as the MoveOn bill.

If my original thought was right, the Dems are idiots. If your take is right, the Dems are just lazy and scared, holding on tight to their small piece of power. Your take is, if anything, much less disturbing.

going after petraeus was daring and seemed likely to generate squirms because pro-war dems wear people like him like overcoats against the storm. to have more fun, one could place a small ad in the washpo:

"general david petraeus is one of the most powerful and ambitious warlords in iraq"

No matter what you say, the only way to get new leadership in a party is to force that party's defeat. I'll actively work to that ends, even though that means voting for Republicans. Just not voting only removes a vote from the D column. voting for R when you usually vote D more or less doubles the party's losses.

I pray daily that a Third party tries to make a real run at the war. This is the only hope a third party will likely have to establish itself as a successor to the Democratic party. If they start now, byt 2016 they will have a credible case for election and the public will be desperate enough to give it to them. If nothing else, it would force the Democrats to act on the war or risk annihilation. If the leaders of the party want to be nothing more than rulers of social clubs, let them.

I think that sob Leahy owns Halliburton stock!

What makes you think the Democratic party is a sort of institution that would benefit from embracing MoveOn?

I don't think that Jonathan's point was that there would be some immediate electoral reward to the Dems for supporting MoveOn, but clearly quasi-grassroots groups like MoveOn represent about the only source of genuine energy and "excitement" that the Dem party is now capable of generating.

Alienating groups like MoveOn is not in the long-term interests of the Dem party, because it's basically pissing off (and pissing away) the next potential generation of Dem political activists.

But "long term interests of the Dem party" have never been a part of the calculations of Dem elected officials, who would rather follow short-term self-interest to maintain their privileged status within the rotting corpse that is today's Dem party.

No matter what you say, the only way to get new leadership in a party is to force that party's defeat. I'll actively work to that ends, even though that means voting for Republicans. Just not voting only removes a vote from the D column. voting for R when you usually vote D more or less doubles the party's losses.

That makes two of us for a net shift of four votes. We've got a tough field to hoe to make up the 65-35 deficit. The republicans need to have a few more hollow victories to get that gap a bit closer.

I support MoveOn with money occasionally; they say they have 3.1(?)M people in their camp (which I guess is about 1+% of the population, and that 1% is prone to act up/be loud so net effect is far greater than 1%), and the ad was right down my alley. I enjoyed it and the associated harumphing by the responsible adults.

If they kept up obnoxiously pushy ads like this I may just give them money more often so they can keep doing it.

If Democrats hypothetically wanted to get some sort of benefit from Moveon, they'd just treat it like Republicans do Talk Radio or any of their flak machines. "I can't speak for Rush, but he's got a right to express his views. That's what I love about America blah blah boilerplate blah. And by the way I'll be on his show tomorrow".

Alienating groups like MoveOn is not in the long-term interests of the Dem party, because it's basically pissing off (and pissing away) the next potential generation of Dem political activists.

Pissing off generals often is more hazardous.

SteveB: Who else are MoveOn members going to vote for? Greens? Republicans?

The Democrats know they own the votes of MoveOn members lock, stock, and barrel. So they have no reason to take any political damage with the wider populace (as they likely believe they would have if they opposed this measure) just to make MoveOn's members happy. The corpse isn't rotting, except from an ethical/moral standpoint--it's winning, as the 2006 elections illustrated.

The Democrats play to the middle not only because they're institutionally inclined to do so but because the left has given them no reason to do otherwise. That's (one of the reasons) why the mass support for Kerry among progressives in 2004 was so damaging, IMO.

I thought the MoveOn ad was in poor taste and was not in the interests of the left or anyone else, for that matter. However, for the Senate to condemn political speech is truly abominable.

Why not amend the resolution to decry the administration's misuse of the military to sell its foreign policy? Why not amend the resolution to also decry Michael Ledeen's recent comments about General Abizaid? Why not just vote against a bad resolution and then come outside the halls of Congress and condemn it, if that was your opinion?

The unfortunate thing about the Democrats is that they don't have a top-down media/think tank/lobbyist/interest group noise machine like the Republicans. They have to deal with independent groups who have their own agendas and their own ideas - that is, they have to studiously ignore them instead of benefiting from them.

The Democrats know they own the votes of MoveOn members lock, stock, and barrel.

It's not just about votes, there are many levels of support a person can provide (or not provide) to a party. The most obvious is money. MoveOn is a money machine for the Dems, but even if MoveOn's leadership wants them to continue in this role, the level of response to MoveOn's funding appeals depends on how people feel about the Dem party. Lots of people can easily go from sending their $50 check and voting Dem to just voting Dem, or even staying home and not voting at all.

Then there are the intangibles: do young people see Dem party activism as something that's interesting and exciting, or hopelessly lame? A whole generation that could have been mobilized to support the Dems can simply decide to tune out.

The Senators who decided that MoveOn needed to be slapped down don't care about any of these things, of course. Their money doesn't come from small donations, and they'd be happy if voter turnout and activism, especially among the young, was even lower that its already abysmally low levels. So the future of the Dem party is sacrificed because these people just don't give a shit. And that (I think) was Jonathan's point.

If Democrats hypothetically wanted to get some sort of benefit from Moveon, they'd just treat it like Republicans do Talk Radio or any of their flak machines.

hard to do that. rush is a person. there's a social relationship. similarly there was a comprehensible social bond among members of the christian coalition, with another charismatic elite leader. moveon.org is an internet address and a laundry list without a friendly face. shaking hands with moveon feels and looks about as natural as shaking hands with a toaster.

if i had a point, and that's always a question, myself, i don't think moveon should have a face. i think it should loom and loom again. politicians should be afraid of their constituents. agreements they make with each other that go against the will or the welfare of the people should ring false when publicized and it's a long time past that their political convenience and the world's welfare are tightly connected. moveon puffing up and hissing also makes it harder for the press to declare a monopoly on truth, when what they have is a monopoly on history.

I haven't seen the ad but it MUST be a beauty to raise this much hell. If they are smart they'll NEVER slack off.

They piled on buses and went to Ohio to monitor the election and (afterwards) to try to prove that Kerry actually won the state.

I know people who went to Ohio after the '04 election, and others who protested from a distance, and they weren't doing this out of a love for Kerry. They were concerned about the theft of the election by Diebold Corp. The same was true in 2000, when those most willing to fight Bush v. Gore were a good distance to the left of the Democrats, and didn't care for Gore, but were outraged by the racial purging of voter lists. Meanwhile, Dems (and Gore himself) couldn't roll over fast enough.

I agree with your analysis of the '04 election. As I've said before, my point is not that the Dems pay any immediate price for the MoveOn vote or the FISA vote, or any of their many other betrayals of their base, but that there's a long-term erosion of support and especially enthusiasm for the Dems, and that's to the long term detriment of the Dem party. Young people turned out in record numbers, both as voters and volunteers, in '04 and '06, they now see the results, and many of them, I suspect, feel used and disillusioned. Won't many of them simply decide to join the growing ranks of non-voters, especially once the extra-scary George W. Bush is out of the picture?

This isn't a problem for the Dem leadership, of course. In fact, they welcome disillusionment, because the short-term result will be a reduction in the demands placed on them. They can continue to divide up the ever-shrinking numbers of voters with the Republicans, winning some, losing some, running corporate-funded campaigns based on shitty 30-second TV ads.

But can this go on forever? When the percentage of eligible voters who participate drops to 20%, or 10%, will it matter? And meanwhile, a huge opportunity for building a mass-based political party that can win not just people's votes, but their passion and their loyalty, will pass us by. When I write of the long-term costs to the Democratic party, it's the loss of this potential that I'm thinking of.

And meanwhile, a huge opportunity for building a mass-based political party that can win not just people's votes, but their passion and their loyalty, will pass us by. When I write of the long-term costs to the Democratic party, it's the loss of this potential that I'm thinking of.

From that perspective, yes, I completely agree with you. I often think about that in a larger sense too--the tremendous good that this country could do with the vast power at its disposal, when instead it chooses to use it to destroy the hopes, dreams, and lives of billions of people around the world, for the benefit of a tiny minority.

But the Democratic Party doesn't exist to encourage mass-based passion and loyalty; it exists to get Democrats elected. We may rate it as a failure in terms of the first goal, but in terms of the second--the only one that matters to most Democrats--it's doing relatively well. And certainly well enough to convince the Democrats that they should keep doing what they're doing, and to convince them that that strategy benefits both them and the party as a whole.

From the late, great Walter Karp's "Indispensable Enemies":

It was a Republican state party boss, Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania, who early [in the 20th] century stated with notable candor the basic principle and purpose of present day party politics. In the face of a powerful state and national resurgence of reform and the sentiments of the majority of the Republican rank and file, Penrose put up a losing slate of stand pat party hacks. When a fellow Republican accused him of ruining the party, Penrose replied, "Yes, but I'll preside over the ruins."

Apparently, not much has changed over the past hundred years.

Oops - just saw that the exact quote used in my previous post has already been appended to Jon's original "Iron Law of Institutions" post.

My bad. Sorry for the redundancy.