The Left Turns on Tester
Are the netroots turning against Montana Senator Jon Tester for not being liberal enough?
From Politico today:
“Not only will I do absolutely nothing to help his reelection bid, but I will take every opportunity I get to remind people that he is so morally bankrupt that he’ll try to score political points off the backs of innocent kids who want to go to college or serve their country in the military,” wrote Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, who fired the opening shot on his highly trafficked blog.
“To me he is the Blanche Lincoln of 2012 – the Democrat I will most be happy to see go down in defeat. And he will. Nothing guarantees a Republican victory more than trying to pretend to be one of them.”
...
“I think he’s alienated his base in the progressive Democrat circles and he’s going to definitely have a lot of explaining to do,” said Montana Democratic National Committeewoman Jean Lemire Dahlman, who dubbed his vote against DREAM “a grave mistake.” “I was surprised. It didn’t seem to jive with what I expect of him.”
Tester, who voted with his caucus to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, won the closest Senate race of the ’06 cycle — prevailing by just 3,500 votes — and is now considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats facing reelection. GOP businessman Steve Daines has already announced his Senate candidacy and Rep. Denny Rehberg is expected to make a decision on running sometime after the new year.
...[T]he liberal netroots were a critical part of Tester’s campaign machinery in 2006, helping him raise sufficient funds to upend party favorite John Morrison in the primary election.
Now of course back in 2006 the liberal netroots loved Tester precisely because he was the kind of Democrat who could win in a state like Montana. He supported gun rights, knew farming, wore a flat-top - while nonetheless supporting abortion rights and opposing the Iraq war. Under the then dominant ideology of "winner-ism," Tester looked like a winner.
He's still the same Tester. As Politico mentions, he votes left when he can: he cast the vote liberals wanted on Don't Ask, Don't Tell. (Unlike say Joe Manchin, who had an important Christmas party to attend.) But as in 2006, Tester still believes in "winner-ism" - and pointedly declines to vote in ways guaranteed to transform him into a loser. What's changed over the past 4 years is liberal tolerance for this kind of self-protection.
There are many things that drive the cycles of politics. But one of them surely must be the parties' fluctuating hunger for success - and their willingness to accept "what it takes" to succeed. Between 1998 and 2004, Democrats got a lot less hungry. After 2004, they got a lot more hungry. Now they seem to be getting less hungry again.
Sometimes of course, it's rational to prefer to lose a campaign - even a congressional majority - to score a big and enduring gain. The Democrats made that calculation very rationally about health reform in 2010. Private accounts for Social Security would have been the Republican counterpart. But the DREAM Act?
The Republican cycle moves in different wavelengths. Surely one sign the GOP is getting ready to win again is whether it makes more room for its own Jon Testers, when they cast the votes that mean the difference between survival and obliteration.