from The Sultan Knish, The Democratic Party’s Civil War is Here

One is the old corrupt party of thieves and crooks. Its politicians, black and white, are the products of political machines. They believe in absolutely nothing. They can go from being Dixiecrats to crying racism, from running on family values to pushing gay marriage and the War on Women.

They will say absolutely anything to get elected.

Cunning, but not bright, they are able campaigners. Reformers underestimate them at their own peril because they are determined to win at all costs.

The other Democratic Party is progressive. Its members are radical leftists working within the system. They are natural technocrats and their agendas are full of big projects. They function as community organizers, radicalizing and transforming neighborhoods, cities, states and even the country.

They want to win, but it’s a subset of their bigger agenda. Their goal is to transform the country. If they can do that by winning elections, they’ll win them. But if they can’t, they’ll still follow their agenda.

Sometimes the two Democratic parties blend together really well. Bill Clinton combined the good ol’ boy corruption and radical leftist politics of both parties into one package. The secret to his success was that he understood that most Democrats, voters or politicians, didn’t care about his politics, they wanted more practical things. He made sure that his leftist radicalism played second fiddle to their corruption.

Bill Clinton convinced old Dems that he was their man first. Obama stopped pretending to be anything but a hard core progressive.

HKO

Interesting, but I not think the factions are that separated.  Many progressives are such true believers that any ends will justify the means.  Large governments which are required to force their agendas are inherently subject to corruption and cronyism.  The only difference is that they are more committed to a cause. The results may end up the same.

The same may be true of the old GOP and the Tea Party.  It seems that in this election the Tea Party ran more qualified (electable) candidates than before and the Democrats had more narrowly focused interests (Wendy Davis).  Wendy Davis was elevated from a single issue by a very enthusiastic media who thought her abortion filibuster was a defining political stance.  She made the classic mistake of believing her own press. Other Democrats running away from Obama had nothing left to run on other than trying to reignite racist and sexist fears from the sixties.  The country had moved on, but they had not.

In either case without getting elected either ideology becomes just sideline blogger issues.  Daniel Greenfield may be correct in foreseeing a major party split among the Democrats like the Republicans saw in 2008. The Democrats, however, have a far better likelihood of remaining unified at election time.

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