Today's Gray Lady notes that Democrats, apparently heeding the SWNIDish call for reasoned engagement in the issues of the day, are fielding moderate-to-conservative candidates in House races in moderate-to-conservative districts.
We applaud this move, skeptically. Our skepticism stems from these realities that suggest that the party itself continues to veer sharply leftward, into irrational territory:
(a) Lamont is still the Democrat running for Senate in Connecticut, the result of the savaging of the gentle and wise Joe Lieberman. And party leaders have failed to acknowledge the awful mistake they made in permitting such a thing to happen, as Joe will trounce the leftist neophyte Lamont.
(b) Choices of where to run the Democrat moderates don't seem to us to be focused on making the party more moderate or the Congress more functional. To wit: in the Ohio First District, moderate and experienced John Cranley runs against Republican conservative Steve Chabot, the latter a candidate of distinguished record and unimpeachable integrity. In the Ohio Second, Victoria Wuslin, a left-wing candidate with no real political experience whose views (e.g. a gas tax based on the buyer's income) are at least a tad bizarre, runs against Jean Schmidt, a first-termer who's embarrassing to her district and vulnerable. Cranley will likely lose to Chabot, but he would have beaten Schmidt like a timbale. It would appear that revenge on Chabot, who was involved in the Clinton impeachment, is more important than actually winning a seat with a moderate.
(c) The Ds were supposed to have turned to the center with the appointment of Harry Reid as Senate minority leader after their 2004 embarrassment. Reid promptly became a reborn water-carrier for George Soros and the netroots socialists.
(d) No one is talking about the moderate House or Senate leadership that the Ds will appoint when they take power on the strength of their moderate candidates. Rather, we still expect Pelosi and newly-left Reid, not to mention the herd of senior nutcases who will preside over committees in both chambers.
If the Democrats are serious about becoming the party of the center, their first order of business should be, in an act of political contrition and wisdom unparalleled in the annals of party politics, to elect Joe Lieberman as minority (for surely this will be their ongoing role) leader of the Senate.
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