David Sirota: Progressive Senators Learn How to Use Ben Nelson-ism for Themselves

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http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0204-26.htm

Progressive Senators Learn How to Use Ben Nelson-ism for Themselves
by David Sirota


I spent my week on Capitol Hill, and specifically in the Senate, and I came away realizing the big problem Democrats face: Their caucus is held hostage by a small faction of people like Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) - conservative, Republican-appeasing senators who play hardball by always threatening to vote with Republicans to stop or water down mainstream Democratic legislation. For the Ben Nelsons, their behavior is very smart: in a narrowly divided Senate, threatening to undermine the Democratic Party pulls the Democratic Party towards their positions. This week provided a great example: with almost the entire Democratic caucus already on record supporting an earlier resolution demanding the redeployment of American troops, the Nelsons - by letting Harry Reid know they will vote against even non-binding legislation to stop an escalation - have turned the debate into one about how to avoid really using Congress's power to stop President Bush's surge. That's a huge shift and it displays real power.

The problem with the Ben Nelsons pulling the caucus toward a Republican-appeasing position like the Warner bill and then passing that bill is that a slew of pro-war Republicans running for re-election (Smith, Sununu, Collins, etc.) will now have a legislative vehicle to claim they are supposedly "against the war," even though the Warner bill doesn't actually do anything to end the war or even the escalation. You could have made the argument that on war and peace, the substance should be more important than the politics of squeezing GOP senators. Except, that argument collapses like a house of cards when you realize that the Senate is debating non-binding resolutions that have no force of law and don't actually end the war.

If you are going to be doing nothing real anyway, it seem particularly ridiculous to not at least use what you are doing to draw a sharp contrast between you and your partisan opponents (this also raises another side issue: if Democrats were going to do nothing real anyway, it seems silly not to have first rammed something very strong through the House, where majority power is much stronger, and then force Senate Republicans to either take it, or embarrass themselves by voting against it - and really, who cares if it gets voted down under those circumstances because again, the bill is non-binding anyway).

While on the Hill, I heard a number of Democratic staffers voicing anger at people like Sens. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) for coming out and saying they will defy the Democratic leadership and vote against Warner's bill. Such complaints were also echoed to me by some of the outside anti-war groups. Their basic point was that those who vote against Warner are siding with the Republican leadership, who want to escalate the war. They, of course, have no similar criticism for the Ben Nelsons, who originally threatened to side with the Republican leadership had the Iraq resolution actually been strong (aka. not non-binding, or at least strongly worded), and whose pressure likely engineered Democratic efforts to defeat such strong legislation last week. It is this double standard that tells the real story of a critical imbalance.

Because the Ben Nelsons have been playing footsie with conservatives for so long on every issue, it is now considered non-controversial and accepted practice that the Ben Nelsons will always play footsie with conservatives and that they must always be appeased. This is particularly true since the progressive wing of the party has not been willing to play a similar game of hardball. Put in conventional left-right terms, the Democratic leadership has only had to worry about its right flank and not its left.

Progressives, of course, should cheer Feingold and Dodd for playing hardball, and not fall into the trap of trying to blame them for the potential failure of the Warner bill (which again, both does nothing because it is non-binding, and actually is a major legislative retreat from where the majority of senators already are). These two senators are forcing the Democratic leadership to think not only about the Ben Nelsons, but about progressives as well. They are making clear to everyone that the Ben Nelsons don't have some exclusive right to manipulate the Senate's narrow margins for conservative ends - and that this narrow margin, in fact, can be used for progressive goals. Suddenly, Harry Reid has to think about how he can keep Feingold, Dodd and other progressive senators from staying on board - and that means he might have to make concessions.

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1. I love David Sirota - thanks for posting this.

One of the best and brightest minds in progressive politics these days. :hi: