Whoa!

Excuse me. For a second there, I thought I'd slipped through some kind of vortex in the Nevada desert and come out in an alternate universe where Democrats held commanding leads at every level of government and our prospects were even brighter.

That's the only rational explanation for having the luxury of time and resources to allow for all the intramural pissing and moaning in Democratic circles, these days, isn't it? Sadly, no. It's just business as usual for the party of Jefferson and Jackson. A good example is the current dustup between the DLC and the Center for American Progress.

The CAP would seem to be in ascendency, with a new campus program, a new blog and top forty style rotation on Air America for some of their main voices, including David Sirota. Sirota sounds almost under seige, though, when he writes....

"Let me be crystal clear in where I come down on this one: a person who describes themselves as a Democrat or a 'liberal/progressive', yet who advocates purging the grassroots while pushing a right-wing agenda on fundamental issues is just as dangerous - if not more dangerous - to both the progressive movement and the Democratic Party's long term viability than any Republican..."

I've been looking, but I'm afraid I just don't see any grounds for concern that a right-wing conspiracy is out to purge the Democratic grassroots of anyone, or that anyone from, say, the DLC, is so delusional as to believe they could achieve any such a thing if they tried. To the contrary, it's the self-styled champions of progressive liberalism that are most likely to call for a purge. Joe Lieberman is the perennial favorite target, but the gaggle of Senators that voted (like Joe) for the bankruptcy bill have generated significant levels of froth.

My two cents? It behooves us all to back off a bit. We've got just a little time to get ready for the '06 campaigns. Republican shenanigans with redistricting make every single Democratic victory at that level or in a Governor's mansion critical. In all the discussion of the bankruptcy bill, it bears remembering that while a Democratic Congress may have passed a bankruptcy reform bill (people, after all, deserve more protection from predatory lenders and the like), that bankruptcy bill would never have seen the light of day. Not in any Democratic Congress.

The tent is big, but really, the spectrum isn't that wide. We can all find common points to focus on as we seek the unity we'll need for victory.

Me, my kind of Democrat is the kind that votes for Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid so we can get back to arguments about what we'll pass instead of what we'll block again.