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

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 ...