So the blogosphere is turning the Democratic Party into a social democratic, European-style party? Wow, talk about overestimating influence . . .

America isn't Britain yet, and this won't make it so. For one thing, most British politicians - and the people they represent, and the institutions that inform all of them - are essentially in the center. There's no raging debate about Christianizing the schools, or killing the government, or any of that.

I think the loss of consensus is very bad, but until the right loses its holy zeal cum slimeball monolith, there's no alternative. The right makes righteous noises about how consensus is equivalent to date rape...and then practices it upon the left.
Nope, the right has bought a long time in the wilderness.

Actually, there's probably no raging debate in the US either - it's just that a handful of cultural extremists have sucked all the air out of the debate, and so now we have to act as if people like Coulter and Limburger represent something more than crackpots making themselves wealthy while laughing at the people they purport to represent.

And if Mark is right that a broader concern for social democratic policies is one outcome of this, it would be well worth it.

Anybody see this climate blowing in?

I don't.

What I see is a media (print and video and internet portals) that fatuously gaze at celebrity navels.

In other words:

What we have here is a culture that consistently worships the rich and ignores the poor.

Is social justice in the offing?

Hell no.

It is not even on the long range radar screen.

What I see is the wanton destruction of the middle class and the creation of two tiers:

The wealthy rich.
The poor who dream of being rich.

That's where we are heading... with the celerity of the Titanic in the black cold Atlantic night...

Kevin, how do you suggest we beat back the Republicans unless we do that kind of thing?

We're fighting to stay alive.

Perhaps the Democratic Party is waking up to the understanding that if you reach your hand across the aisle and it keeps getting bashed with a hammer that you shouldn't do that anymore. The Republican leadership in the House has been particularly nasty to their colleagues in the Democratic party, from holding votes open way longer than necessary in order to strong arm passage to denying Democrats access to House facilities to conduct investigations and oversight. Bipartisanship has ceased to become anything other than capitulation for Democrats because Republicans don't give. They don't have to when they control everything. One hopes that when the situation changes that the Democrats neither forgive nor forget that they've been treated like dirt and unleash commensurate payback on those responsible, pundits be damned.

If we can move away from a first-past-the-post system to a more parliamentary system, amen to that - but we'll also need the representational reforms so that niche parties (Libertarians, Greens) can actually get their views represented on key issues, even if they (as in Europe) end up caucusing with one party most of the time, anyhow.

The best possible thing for democracy would be moving the Senate from its current state - in which it's the absolutely least democratic element of our system of government - to the most, and make it a proportional representation of parties on a national ballot with an exceedingly low (say, even, 1% or 2% threshold) qualifying percentage.

Of course, that's not going to happen, but man would it be sweet.

I don't buy it...being pro-choice, fo example, won't get you elected in giant parts of the country. Ditto for being pro-life...This thesis would suggest that their simply will no longer be Democrats from Kansas or Republicans from California.

No more Rudi's and no more Harry Reid's?

I don't buy it...

Is this good or bad?

This is a very bad idea. Republicans have been trying to reach across the aisle to Democrats for bipartisan support of legislation, but almost all Democrats have refused to do so due to the influence of Kos and his group of liberal blogofascist bloggers. Liberal bloggers have made it impossible for Democrats to support laws proposed by Republicans.

Joe Lieberman was one of the few rare Democrats who were willing to support bipartisanship and consensus in making laws, but now the liberals blogofascist are trying to run him out also. Liberals have forgotten how their support of Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Howard Dean and other left wingers have made the American public look at them with contempt for their extremist left wing views. They would rather lose and remain ideologically pure rather than do what's good for Americans. Their constant partisanship has destroyed the civility in American politics.

I'm having serious problems finding out anything substantive about Lamont...the only thing I hear in this race is stuff about Lieberman, none of which is news to me. If I'm going to vote for Lamont, I need to know something about him. I'm worried that Lamont may just turn out to be...well what? Shouldn't we know a bit more than not-Lieberman?

A CT primary voter.

I think the House would be the place for a proportional system, but I warn against a low threshold. In Germany, 5% work well, 4% might be better, but when you go below that, you soon get so many small parties that you just paralyze the system.
Apart from that, a more proportional component in the presidential elections would be important, but starting with a proportional system for the House would be a start and an example.

Whatever switch to parliamentary style democracy may happen, it will be an aberration unless there are changes to the constitution to make it permanently advantageous to do so. For the time being it makes sense, but it seems to me that it is swimming up stream with the Constitution that we currently have.

I'm reluctant to believe that interesting observations like these are really some larger general trend in the political thinking of Americans, but your point about crossing party lines to work with the opposition sounded, well, quaint. The only way to "work with the opposition" these days is to assume a completely prostrate position. Seems to me it became an unthinkable option after folks got burned the first couple/few times. Any lack of bipartisanship from here on in is directly attributable to this administration & the DeLay Congress.

Little hard to see how it will play out. But Lieberman may stay in office as an Independent or a Republican. If politicians switch parties, what happens to yer theory?

Despite Al's crack-smoking, this is already the state of things for the Republican party: reaching across the aisle is heresy. While bipartisanship *sounds* commendable, when only one party practices it, it's a recipe for capitulation.

A game-theoretic analysis shows this leading to an ugly end, but the same anlysis shows no other option. Fortunately, a historic analysis shows that we've been down this route before, and that we return to bipartisanship when *both* sides get sick of the ugliness.

Germany has a strictly pariamentary system, and party discipline is quite high in general. But in many floor votes you have dissidents. This holds specially in matters of "concience" like abortion or stem cell research.
When it's about taxes foreign policy, discipline is usually (but not always) 100%.
The current situation with a Grand Coalition (ca. 70% of the members of parliament backing the governement) is quite different though. With such a large margin, nobody really feels responsible for the outcome of the vote so we get a lot of dissidents.

The idea that you sometimes cross party lines to work with the opposition goes from being a sign of grace to being literally unthinkable.

Given that the GOP has been operating this way for quite a while, I agree with many in the above comments: bipartisanship is dead.

No, it's not bipartisanship but poodlism that's under attack.

Many well respected dems in conservative states and conservative districts hold views outside of liberal expectations. Actually, if you look at recent polls*, conservative democrats (Conrad, Dorgan, Nelson, Johnson) and liberal republicans (Snowe, Collins) are among the most popular senators in the country. In addition, senators (e.g. Reid, Lott) perceived to hold authentic convictions counter to their parties interests are respected specifically because of it.

* http://www.surveyusa.com/50State2006/100USSenatorApproval060725Approval.htm

It wouldn't take a PR system for stronger party discipline. In fact it would be an obstacle. since the inevitable result would be more parties. Since we have more pieces in our coalition, the right would ultimately benefit.

No, all you need for party discipline is a serious threat to deny renomination to a candidate. The Republicans have built such a machine through their central direction of campaign donations. Without realizing it, the bloggers are doing the same thing. They can now select "disloyal" Democrats for attack in the primary, and can direct enough resources to a challenger for that candidate to achieve the threshold of viability. The mere threat of a credible challenge is enough.

If Lamont beats Lieberman, you can bet that Democrats who willfully defy party loyalty will take a long look and recalibrate. It only takes one.

Well, this form of governing would help in doing away with all of that useless thinking.

Lieberman has been behaving like a stealth republican - supporting bush when he can. DINO: Democrat In Name Only, is the label that applies to him. Claiming that "netroots" has anything to do with it is incorrect. It is the voters in his district that got tired of his deceit.

This is a special circumstance brought about by the extreme partisanship and steamrolling of this administration. With the return of a more conciliatory administration of either party, the wave will reverse and there will be more calls for bipartisanship from the general public.

I'm trying to understand the sacred nature of "bipartisanship" under George Bush and the Scorched Earth Republicans. If I recall correctly, this is the party that puts a poison pill in every bill in order to demonize Democrats no matter what the outcome. Example -- putting anti-union legislation into the Homeland Security authorization bill....or putting a massive tax break for billionaires in the minimum wage bill.

Keven -- love the blog, but what planet have you been on for the last, oh, say, 12 years? You've got Ann Coulter -- favored speaker at Republican fund-raisers -- calling Democrats anti-God traitors. You've got Hannity, O'Reilly, Limbaugh -- there's a billion dollar national industry in Liberal Vilification, where bipartisanship is considered treason.

The entire problem with our currently political environment is that it's turned into a war, but only one side is fighting. The other side is still pretending it's just a friendly skirmish.

C'mon folks -- does anyone here -- Kevin?? - think Karl Rove or Grover "Geld The Democrats" are interested in a "bipartisan" solution on their way to making America a one party state? Yeeshh...

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Do you truly, truly believe that the Democratic Party is "90% of the way there" towards taking on the role of a "social democratic party with a broader agenda than just pleasing a small core of interest groups"?

I don't.

I wish it was, though. If it was, I'd probably be a Democrat today.

But I'm not.

Patrick Meighan (a Green Party voter)
Venice, CA

Democrat attacks on the Bush administration would have been far more successful if Lieberman hadn't been in the picture.

Liberman hasn't been a Democrat in a long time in the same way that Israel hasn't been a US ally in a long time - the Democratic Party has given Lieberman far more than they have received in return; the US has given Israel far more than the US has received in return.

Israel is a ball and chain around America's neck, contributing nothing to peace in the Middle East and nothing to American security or foreign policy interests in the region, at least as compared to the amount of harm it causes to those interests.

The same holds true for Lieberman - his contributions are far outweighed by the damage he's done to the cause of liberalism.

It's not about intolerance of other opinions within the party - there is plenty of that already - but removing a cancer that is eating away at the soul of the party without any contribution or normalcy, with viewpoints that are indefensible and irreconcilable factually, logically, morally, and philosophically with any liberal goals.

I think this is exactly backwards. While the Republicans have turned the Congress into a parliamentary body, it seems to me very unlikely that blog supported candidates like Tester, Webb, and Feingold are going to be marching in lockstep.

That is the caricature--that the blogosphere, or rather the grass roots dissatisfaction that it reflects, are a bunch of intolerant lefty loonies demanding adherence on all issues.

That's just not so. They're seeking leadership and authenticity. I'm reading Crashing the Gate again, and there is nothing more antithetical to the ideas in the book than this statement:

Democrats take on the role of a social democratic party with a broader agenda than just pleasing a small core of interest groups, but the flip side is that loyalty to that agenda is more-or-less absolute.

Rather, Markos and Jerome argue that campaigns should be run locally, responding to constituent concerns rather than DC concerns. It's Schumer who said that receiving money from the DSCC would only be possible if a candidate "toed the line" in terms of both message and choice of consultants.

The idea that you sometimes cross party lines to work with the opposition goes from being a sign of grace to being literally unthinkable.

At the moment, crossing party lines is terrible strategy, because the other side is in lockstep, parliamentary mode. They never cross over from their side, so there is no bipartisanship. There is either opposition or capitulation. But that's not the Democrats' doing. Kennedy thought he was working with the White House on NCLB, only to see the program distorted and underfunded in its execution.

Salt Water Sound at 12:44pm: Perhaps the Democratic Party is waking up to the understanding that if you reach your hand across the aisle and it keeps getting bashed with a hammer that you shouldn't do that anymore.

Amen to that. Working to create a just society doesn't by itself imply a de facto parliamentary system - but if the other party is working for a vision of society where the rich get all the goodies at the expense of everyone else, and have no interest in a just society, then the only logical response is to oppose that party.

Yikes! After quoting one writer who rejoices that "checklist liberalism" -- essentially, Zell Miller's idea that the national Democratic party is dominated by "the groups" and their parochial agendas -- is on the decline, Kevin Drum goes on to quote another writer who thinks the problem is just that the checklist isn't long enough.

What Democratic officeholders need is less flexibility, not more. They need not only to punch the usual tickets for highly organized groups pushing symbolic issues, but display their unqualified loyalty to other groups as well. In particular, they must not work with Republicans, ever. And if they do all this, America will become more like Europe, the great dream of American liberalism fulfilled.

Wow.

In my opinion you can forget a "turn to a European parliamentary model of party governance". In a parliamentary system the parties out of power organize shadow governments with shadow ministers to criticize the government of the day, and adopt alternative policies. Policy ideas get their ultimate legitimacy only by adoption by the parliamentary parties' leadership in advance of an election. The real action is not in parties as found in the streets, in the blogs, or in the think tanks. It is in the parliamentary parties that are the gatekeepers for ideas. It is a mistake to think that the rank and file parties in Europe dictate the terms of policy and ever reach majority status.

Our system has not supported the creation of such shadow governments, and our creation of policy alternatives is consequently diffuse. We tend to creep incrementally toward enacting new policies through small program authorizations and appropriations. When there is a change in parties in power, no one can be sure what new policies or programs are likely to be enacted. Cases in point: the Contract with America gave the illusion of impending action as if by a shadow government but wasn't enacted, and the 2000 election of George Bush didn't get us a Uniter Not A Divider. But we on the Democratic side don't have the institutional shadow government to effectively mock and scorn the resulting hypocrisies and lay out clear, credible alternatives for the electorate. No one speaks with authority for a minority party in the US on what it would do in power.

This structural difference is also why third parties don't sustain a breakout from fringe status here; the parties morph sufficiently in time to absorb strong new political movements into their institutional DNA. Case in point here is the GOP absorbing a majority of the Ross Perot independent voters after 1992, even though their libertarian streak clashes fundamentally with many on the religious right. Our elected politicians run fairly independent campaigns in their own names rather than as party members, and use their own polling to rhetorically associate with selected ideas as they search for a majority of votes. Only after the election do they negotiate with their colleagues on what they will actually do.

Lieberman does not work for the party per se, but for a majority of the electorate in Connecticut. I bet he knows where that majority line is drawn. If he loses, it is a special case of this time and place, not a fundamental turn to parliamentary politics.

but those are the basic buttons you press to be credentialed as a good liberal Democrat. After you press them, you can do whatever you want.

I think the fact that he's obviously pushing buttons in desperation and fear is the a bigger campaign weakness.

Increasingly people question his convictions or question his political strategies. The latter question is underlined by his stunningly crappy campaign and brain-dead independant party anouncement.

Lieberman is just a neoconservative (or neoliberal) that left-liberals can get at. He parrots Republican talking points on cue, disparages liberalism in the same tried and true Republican way, and more often than not votes with Republicans. He does a little Culture War™ for the cause of liberalism but Culture War™ is free and liberalism is not a cause. It is not hard to see his elephant’s trunk, however small, poking out from behind his fig leaf of bipartisanship.

The war is one issue, but the underlying frustration is with a government that is remote from the concerns of ordinary people (political socialism has not existed in the US since WWI). Another frustration is under-representation. There are no left-liberal voices in Washington that exist as a credible political force although there are tens of millions of left-liberals in the United States.

Jörgen in Germany is precise. Much of this can be traced to institutional representation. Oh, and we cannot forget the fantastic success of the Republican PR machine that has made conservatism and neoliberal economics common sense in the United States.

It would be nice if we could broaden how a Democrat is defined. The checklist liberalism allows them to vote the "right" way 2 or 3 times and call themselves a good democrat while they are sheparding through bills like the bankruptcy bill last year or not demanding more concessions on the Free trade treaties. Getting the endorsement of NARAL and the Sierra Club doesn't give you a free pass to destroy those folks who don't have enough cash to donate to your campaign.

I agree with Col Guano. The CT election is about the war in Iraq, and the Lebanon incursion only amplifies the stakes. As far as I can tell, Lamont's ads are trying to avoid the war angle, because people like me want to know he isnt a one-trick pony. In suburban south-central CT (near the area where Lieberman resides) there are a lot of Lamont lawn signs.

Golly. From the Italian elections to the CT elections! What a fun 2006 Ive had!

This is a reflection of the fact that the Democratic party needs to participate in the politics of TODAY, not some nebulous bygone age. It's been "unthinkable" for Republicans to reach across the asile for the past 8-10 years. Every time Democrats have reached across the asile they wound up with their hand caught in a political bear trap. Even the Republicans who might genuinely want to compromise are whipped into line by threats to their leadership positions or from primary challenges. This increased partisan dicipline is a reflection of the fact that Democrats are (finally) accepting reality.

"The idea that you sometimes cross party lines to work with the opposition goes from being a sign of grace to being literally unthinkable."

Kevin, since you more or less implicitly endorse the notion that Lieberman's "graceful" bipartisanship is a good thing, I think it's up to you to answer the question Digby posed yesterday, and to point to a single instance where his bipartisanship has resulted in something good for the country, much less for the Democratic party, in the last six years?

His total acquiescence on Iraq and the Supreme Court didn't seem to do him much good when he was snivelling about how the administration's lack of response to his questions about NOLA.

Let's all say it together: The BushCheneyRove administration is different, in kind not degree, than any other administration in US history. That's true today, if we don't get off the pot now, it won't be true in five, ten, or twenty years. And that, effectively, will mean the end of US history.

It's true, we have to blow off the right's caricatures of us and shape our own identity for this woeful century. Talking tough about the truth certainly won't turn us into Ann Coulters -- just the opposite, as that crowd is allergic to anything like truth. Just ask Al, and he'll fulminate inanities at you!

It's the relentlessness we have to emulate; the fencesitters respond to the intensity, not necessarily the consistency of the talking points.

Kevin, you and Mark Schmitt have a problem. Schmitt says, "After you press [the basic 'good liberal Democrat' buttons], you can do whatever you want." And you quote him (or say yourself) "What if all of a sudden you couldn't count on Democratic women just because you said that [the?] right things about choice" as part of the same argument, that Joe Lieberman has been falling in line on "checklist liberalism" - but the problem you guys have is that Lieberman has *said* a bunch of the right things, but voted the wrong way, and sucked up to Republicans while doing so, for years. Just look at abortion: Joe says he's pro-choice, votes against restrictions on abortion, and gets NARAL's endorsement. But he votes *for* cloture on Alito (after being part of the anti-Democratic and anti-democratic "Let's make Frist promise not to break the rules of the Senate by never making him mad" Gang of Fourteen) and says that rape victims shouldn't mind a "short car ride" to find a hospital that'll give them emergency contraception. Do you think women (and other choice-motivated voters) are more likely "betraying" Joe by voting on other issues, or simply catching up with the bullshit Lieberman is peddling - "Vote for me! I'll support you! (note: offer not valid on votes of any importance)" - and deciding that he is *not* defending their interests or priorities?

I wouldn't put you guys in a class with the Jonathan Alters and Al Hunts of the punditocracy (today's self-styled Paul Reveres, heralding the coming of blogofascism), but when you identify politicians as "pushing all the right buttons" you need to realize that just because *they* push all the right buttons, and *you* take them at their word, does not mean that they might backtrack (Schmitt's line, "you can do whatever you want" probably wasn't intended to include screwing the people who vote for you on their primary issues, but it certainly works that way), and it does not mean that voters shouldn't hold them accountable. *THAT* is what I think is motivating a lot of the anti-Lieberman sentiment - that the national scold is a liar (about his positions) and a fool (about what's really going on in this country - and around the world).

No. It's not like these realignments and adjustments in political life have never happened before. The realignment in the Democratic Party, if it happens, will necessitate a realignment in the Republican Party.

It's not that bipartisanship is unthinkable. It's that bipartisanship with anti-Enlightenment, absolutitist, inept fear-mongers is unacceptable. I suspect the next time the Dems hold a majority in the Senate all of those famous moderate Repubs will actually act like moderates, and that a good many Repubs who have been too cosy with the numbnut faction yet represent purple or sane districts (could be anywhere, but I'm looking at you Norm Coleman) might well get swept out of office in payment for their sins.

Bi-partisanship is a useful strategy for the party in power -- and a necessary one if it hopes to remain in power over the long haul.

But it is a suicidal strategy for the out party -- if it hopes to become the party in power.

The Republicans didn't get where they are by practicing bi-partisanship. They became the majority party only after becoming a genuine opposition party. Now that they are in power they could afford to -- if they chose to -- be carefully magnanimous toward the concerns of the Democratic opposition and the voters they represent. It would, in fact, be an excellent strategy for solidifying and expanding their base of support. (Their failure to understand this is one reason why their majority status is already so threatened.)

The pundits, in admiring (or at least rarely criticizing) the Republicans' high-handed efforts to cut Democrats (and the voters they represent) entirely out of the governing process, while at the same time castigating every Democratic effort to act as a true and necessary opposition party, are actually encouraging both parties to act against their best (political) interest. As well as against the long term best interest of the constituents they represent and the country at large.

When we have one party rule, the out party needs to be encouraged to act as a genuine opposition party as a check on the ruling party's power. At the same time, the ruling party must be reminded it owes a responsibily to the entire country, beyond just its "base," and strongly encouraged toward bi-partisanship.

Democrat attacks on the Bush administration would have been far more successful if Lieberman hadn't been in the picture.

This seems like idle speculation and a weak attempt to justify voting for Lamont--which there are better reasons than this.

Kevin pointed out a poll that showed over half the population believed we found WMD in Iraq. That has nothing to do with Lieberman. That is a poor job by the media. The GOP strategy of painting anyone who asks questions about what the GOP is doing as aiding and abetting terrorists is more to blame than one mere man. That has been a 50 year, tens of billions of dollars operation.

--

I wonder if Kevin would like to have to agree absolutely with the David Sirotas of the world. I'd leave the party if that were the case. I like dissent, including intra-Party.

The idea that Republicans practiced reach-across-the-aisle bipartisanship is beyond ludicrous and well into the status of Big Lie. No bill even got a vote that didn't have a majority of the majority approval.

Go, Lamont. Go!

I would find more partisanly dedicated and parliamentary parties less trustworthy and sensible than I do the more traditional state of affairs in this contrary. The shrinking the importance of compromise and bipartisan action seems as though it would reduce restraint and thereby risk unbridled ideological crusading on the part of whichever party was to stumble into the majority.

The ever more national stage of politics and devoted homogeneity of the parties is depressing. What should be a local Connecticut concern over an elected office assigned to the state has been exploded into some hideous national freak show with loudmouths, demagogues, and busybody ideologues shouting equally insipid cheers and harangues from every corner of the nation. This can only inspire more of the moronic grandstanding for national attention that has become the bugbear and malefactor of senatorial debate.

I hate the notion of outright parliamentary organization with its pernicious party discipline that so handily narrows the range of ideas that reach the floor and marginalize members without leadership posts more than the congressional system of the past could even at the height of the feudal power of committee leaders. One might as well just send in perhaps a dozen or so real congressmen and then fill the full five hundred and thirty five up with automatic voting machines apportioned appropriately and with single-minded reliability to the parties in accordance with the national vote and a few randomly set to 'rebel' at uneven intervals just to give the real people something to be dyspeptic about now and again.

Our current electoral system is poorly set up for a parliamentary or false parliamentary arrangement. The rigid bipolarity of the American political party system minimizes the distortion caused by using single member plurality elections, but they are still a poor fit to any system wherein parties are of great import as the preponderating of national over local concern on the part of legislators makes the difference in numbers more acutely felt and majorities more necessary as the 'grandeur' of the issues swells. Some more proportional system seems in order. Indeed, though I do think the chance of this is small, a more proportional system could permit the entry of relevant third parties into congress which might inhibit the dedication to agendas of the major parties by virtue of the smaller parties holding enough of the margin of victory over defeat to compel some concession from the larger parties.

"I would find more partisanly dedicated and parliamentary parties less trustworthy and sensible than I do the more traditional state of affairs in this contrary.'

An interesting post, and a fascinating Freudian slip in the opening sentence, above.

Birkel is back! Is he repentant?

Without realizing it, the bloggers are doing the same thing. They can now select "disloyal" Democrats for attack in the primary, and can direct enough resources to a challenger for that candidate to achieve the threshold of viability. The mere threat of a credible challenge is enough.

Publius (are you the Law and Politics Publius?) I have to take issue with this. The bloggers realize exactly what they are doing, they have said it again and again. With Cueller, with Lieberman, if you challenge them in primaries you scare them enough to force them to toe a tighter line or at least not go on national TV to gleefully backstab Democrats. This is exactly what they are doing and they know it. It was the original plan.

I do not think it works yet however. I believe if the bloggers throw up a primary challenger and they lose as with Cueller, the candidate's reponse will be "You did everything you could and I STILL beat you. Fuck you I don't give a shit about you." Cueller's actions since his victory bear me out.

This is why I feel it's so important to beat Joe to show the movement has teeth.

If both these guys are right (and only time will tell if they are), it basically suggests an explicit turn to a European parliamentary model of party governance without the formal structure of an actual parliamentary system.

I think Josh Marshall has mentioned it several times, but the GOP (both House and Senate) has run its affairs like a parliamentary party, three-line whipping and all, for the last decade. The Dems have only just worked that out. It was Grover Norquist, after all, who described bipartisanship as date-rape.

Sometimes the circumstances of the time require absolute party discipline; sometimes they don't. This applies as much in parliamentary systems as the sui generis American Congress. When one party is, frankly, trying to extinguish the other as anything other than a dog to be kicked for electoral effect, the only solution is for the dog to bite back, ideally at the throat. When the party of DeLay is eliminated, then bipartisanship can return.

Picking up on Jörgen's point, it may be time for the Senate to become something akin to the Bundesrat (or even the Italian Senate): a party that represents the distinctive interests of the regions (read: states), but in a way more reflective of demographics.

However, it seems the only Democratic Senator primaried is a Jew. If Lieberman loses the primary, it will reveal Jews and Isreali supporters have no place in the party. The Daily Kos and James Wolcott would rather Israel be pushed in the ocean, then any support of any war occur. If any Jew votes for a Democrat this year, they have put more guns in Hezbollah and Hams' hands.

Bipartisanship was clubbed in the head in 1994 and died during the Clinton impeachment hearings. When the Dems controlled the House they went out of their way to be bipartisan. Partly because many of their members were conservative dems and partly to smooth things over with the Republican Senate. Gingrich's (and Delay/Rove's) tactical brilliance was to take the exact opposite tact. The strategy was 50% + 1 and rigid party discipline. They achievee great sucess with slim majorities because the pundit class clamored for bipartisanship and the dems didn't realize the game had changed. The repubs may have been too successful in that their are very few conservative dems left and a host of 'liberal' Republicans now endangered.

I agree completely with JSF. The only thing Americans should think about when voting is 'is it good for the Israelis.' No matter what Alterman and Lerner say, if you don't support Israel you deny the holocaust and your forbearers weep.

I think Josh Marshall has mentioned it several times, but the GOP (both House and Senate) has run its affairs like a parliamentary party, three-line whipping and all, for the last decade.

Good point. Anyway, this whole discussion isn't really about whether the US system is becoming more like a parliamentary system. The essence of a parliamantary system lies in the fact that the executive and the legislative branches are one. Unless we make some rather huge constitutional changes, the US will have anything but a parliamentary system. What we may get is a system where the national legislature is characterized by increasing levels of party discipline. Just like we've had in past eras.

Troglodyte:

No I am not the Law and Politics Publius. When I started blogging I didn't know there were already several Publius's running around, but then it seemed too late to change.

I wasn't referring to bloggers not knowing that they were threatening incumbents to instill party discipline. What they don't know they're doing is building a party organization. Not that I believe that's a bad thing.

You might be right about the efficacy of primary challenges in some cases. But I know of several political leaders who have had to change their positions in order to survive those challenges, with the result that in the future they are more reliable.

JSF, Bibi,
America must stand by the Mongolian people. The only question we must ask when looking at domestic affairs should be "is it good for the Mongolians". Damn these people for running a primary against Senator Ghengis the great Mongolian-American voice in Congress.

Next year in Ulan Bator, and may the horses run with you.

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When the other side regards bi-partisanship as "date rape" and compromise as treason, it's probably a mistake to try to be bi-partisan. Just sayin'.

Patrick -

Interestingly, the Democratic Party (particularly the California state party) advocates for both Clean Money and instant runoff voting. It's in black and white in the CDP platform.

its a false analogy. there is no need for anyone in the Democratic party to tow an ideological line. As if CT voters were made at Lieberman because he had made a vote or two in the wrong direction!

the problem people have with him is that he actively works to undermine the majority positions of the Democratic party, while putting up a sham appearance of adhering to them. his votes regarding Bankruptcy, cloture on the vote for Alito, etc. He votes against Alito in the confirmation hearing when it doesn't matter, but when it did matter, he was right there sticking a fork in the Dems' back. There is just too much flow of information these days for someone like Lieberman to pull this shit and get away with it, and that's a good thing. Plenty of Dems who continue to hold office are allowed to disagree about all kinds of things. This is an undisputable fact. The idea that Lieberman is being targeted just because he sometimes disagrees with most Dems totally misses the point, and cuts him slack that he doesn't deserve.