Are You a Liberal? Harry Reid Invites You to Kindly STFU

Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet at 11:56 AM on March 27, 2009.

The Greens have a great recruiting tool in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. If your ideological worldview is consistent with most AlterNet readers, he'd appreciate it if you'd simply pipe down and let the grown-ups legislate in peace.

Politico:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that liberal groups targeting moderate Democrats with ads should back off, saying pressure from the left wing of his party won't be helpful to enacting legislation.

"I think it's very unwise and not helpful," Reid said Friday morning. "These groups should leave them alone. It’s not helpful to me. It’s not helpful to the Democratic Caucus.”

Reid, who said he hadn’t seen or heard the ads, added that "most of [the groups] run very few ads — they only to do it to get a little press on it."

MoveOn.org and Americans United for Change, the labor-backed organization that serves as the White House’s chief third-party operation, have started separate ad campaigns targeting moderate House and Senate Democrats to back Obama’s budget. A number of liberal activists have expressed concerns about a group of 16 Senate Democratic moderates who have been meeting in an attempt to bolster their influence. 

Reid has no qualms about the group, and said that “any public statements” Senate moderates have made have been helpful as the chamber takes up a budget next week that would cost more than $3 trillion. And he added: “Some people of course go to those meetings so they can issue a press release back home that'll make them appear more moderate.”

“I’m not one who is going to be driven by people on the extremes, saying it’s only my way or no way,” Reid said. “That’s not the way legislation works.”

Note the framing: these Blue Dogs aren't "conservative Democrats" -- an accurate description for senators like the Nelsons or Kent Conrad -- they are, in the formulation of most media coverage, "moderates." The reality is somewhat different ...

As D-Day noted yesterday, the Blue Dogs' only core principle is to protect Big Business from progressive reforms ...

Interesting move here by Evan Bayh, to deflect criticism from his role as chief obstructionist to the Obama agenda: claim that you don't have a single core principle:

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) is also unhappy with the friendly fire. Bayh…found himself targeted by an ad accusing him of “standing in the way of President Obama’s reforms.” “We literally have no agenda,” Bayh shot back. “How can they be threatened by a group that has taken no policy positions?”

Bayh’s claim that his group has no agenda is hard to believe. Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal explained yesterday, the group’s “stated goal is to…protect business interests.” Even before the group was officially formed, their efforts dampened a number of progressive policy proposals and they clearly have aspirations to expand their portfolio:

• Shrinking Economic Recovery: The group’s first significant “success” was “paring down the more than $900 billion economic stimulus bill to $787 billion,” reducing the government’s ability to spur economic recovery quickly. [Roll Call, 3/12/2009]

• Preserving The Bush Tax Cuts: Regarding Obama’s plan to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, Bayh said, “I do think that before we raise revenue, we first should look to see if there are ways we can cut back on spending.” [Politico, 3/3/2009]

• Delaying Cap-and-Trade: Bayh coaltion member, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), explained that the group might “push for a more lenient phase-in period for a cap-and-trade system and revenue-raising offsets to pay for expensive mandates.” [CQ Politics, 3/9/2009]

• Weakening Bankruptcy Protection: Centrist Democrats “forced changes to a House bill that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages, ensuring that the legislation better reflected the concerns of the financial-services industry.” [WSJ, 3/25/09]

The reality is that without a concerted push from the left, Democrats have rarely done the right thing. The complacency Reid and others in the party establishment want can only lead to a one-party system dominated by what David Sirota dubs the "money party."

Contrast Reid's attitude with that of FDR, who told activists who were pushing him from the left, "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."

Tagged as: reid

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.