Stepping Into The Breach

by digby

Back in 2000, I had a standard argument for Naderites who claimed “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between them” because they both are beholden to big business. I always said that you had to look at the coalitions that formed both parties and as long as Democrats had unions and women’s groups and environmentalists etc in their coalition, their big business ties would be mitigated and there would be better legislation produced. I was wrong.

Matt Stoller has been doing a series of posts over the last few months about how Washington really works and it sobered me up quite a bit. He has a new installment, here. It’s not that there’s not a dimes worth of difference between them, it’s that they are corruptly symbiotic and that symbiosis is mostly enabled by “bipartisan” players like Lieberman and the revolving door of lobbyists.

Stoller describes the way the right works in the post, but I think we are all at least fairly familiar with their style. It’s how the left works that is mind-blowing:

When a bill is introduced, a network of consultants, most of whom have corporate clients, begin to chatter about how taking a liberal position could weaken the Democratic Party. This is supplemented with a strong PR strategy by right-wing temporary coalition groups who put out networks of surrogates and ads to create a powerfully framed environment. Then business lobbyists come and visit Congressional offices, and make threats, attempt legislative bribes, or put out false but extremely persuasive pieces of information. There is often little real counterpressure, because liberal single issue groups have decided not to hold politicians accountable and do not cooperate with each other on issues not directly related to their vertical.

Within the Democratic party, resisting a bill is an exercise in holding the caucus together. The long minority status of the Democratic Party has allowed the development of bad faith actors within the caucus, who cut deals with right-wing groups and sabotage any possibility of resistance. Al Wynn is one such actor; Joe Lieberman is another. On key vote after key vote, these actors have sabotaged the progressive position through fake bipartisanship. It’s no surprise that Lieberman’s former chief of staff was a lobbyist for Enron; Lieberman himself is responsible for many of the corporate accounting scandals over the years because of his embrace of various financial lobbies.

One irony of the Lieberman race is that all the single-issue groups have endorsed Lieberman, and if you look at donations, so have the lobbyists. Indeed, this isn’t a fight between ‘the left’ and ‘the right’ as it is traditionally defined, since no one would put NARAL on the right or even in the center. This is about creating a disincentive towards bad faith actors and corrupt lobbyists on the left.

Stoller has had a very important insight in this series that I don’t think anyone has fully realized. The consultants who work for Democrats also work for coporations and they consistently pitch progressive ideas as being “too liberal” not necessarily because they are, but because these consultants have a conflict of interest that either makes them unable to see things clearly — or that makes them corrupt. In any case, they are giving bad advice to the Democratic party and it’s resulted in nice fat paychecks for them. Serving the public, not so much.

This brings me to the special interests in whom I had placed so much faith to counter such corruption. I had resisted joining in the critique of these groups because I thought they had some basis for playing both sides over the long term. But I thought they knew which side their bread was really buttered on, even so. Apparently not. Stoller describes them as having been co-opted by the corrupt system and lazily enjoying the fruits of the spoils like everyone else. I have to admit that even the most generous view shows they have lost sight of their own goals.

NARAL’s continued endorsement of Lieberman is a case in point. I will bet money that if Lieberman wins the race as an independent with a majority of Republican votes, within his term he is going to change his stance on abortion. It’s obvious that he is uncomfortable with the dissonance between being a social conservative and pro-choice politician, and he’s been feeling around for an argument to justify it for years. He’s the most likely pro-choice Senator in the country to switch. If NARAL thinks they can keep him on the reservation because they’ve been loyal to him, they obviously don’t know who they’re dealing with — or no longer care.

So, what to do? I quoted this comment by Matt Yglesias before about the role of the progressive blogosphere and the more I think about it the more interesting I find it:

The great benefit of the blogosphere is that it isn’t really an “interest group”; it’s more like an old-style membership organization (or a series of such organizations) whose existence used to do something to check what’s now become the out-of-control influence of business groups over the policy process.

I think the netroots and the blogosphere will end up performing many functions and I don’t know exactly where its influence will be most effective. But stepping into the breach and going after the system itself, from the outside, and functioning as the democratic check on the power of big money is one obvious area where we might be effective. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.

Stoller and Chris Bowers, Rick Jacobs and Joel Wright wrote a campaign memo based upon their extensive polling after the Busby loss in CA-50. I looked closely at the polling data and it’s fascinating stuff. They went very deep and came up with some results that are quite surprising. But its conclusions feel, at a gut level, like common sense to me, uncomplicated and obvious — and you hear nothing like it from the Democratic consultants.

I would recommend that everyone read this memo to get a sense of just how different these ideas are from what you hear coming from the campaign shops out of Washington. And if you agree that it is on the money then perhaps we can think of some ways to get this in the hands of candidates and their advisors. They should, at the very least, be exposed to these ideas.

I’ve long wondered why the insiders not only come to incorrect conclusions based on the data but how their political instincts became completely ossified. Stoller’s posts on this subject have finally offered an explanation.

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