Salon had an interesting pair of articles today about the Democrats dilemma with their blue dogs in congress. These are Democratic congressman who are either conservative, or in the center on many issues. They have given the president many victories in a Democratically controlled congress. FISA and funds for the Iraq War among those.

Here's Greenwald:

If simply voting for more Democrats will achieve nothing in the way of meaningful change, what, if anything, will? At minimum, two steps are required to begin to influence Democratic leaders to change course: 1) Impose a real political price that they must pay when they capitulate to -- or actively embrace -- the right's agenda and ignore the political values of their base, and 2) decrease the power and influence of the conservative "Blue Dog" contingent within the Democratic caucus, who have proved excessively willing to accommodate the excesses of the Bush administration, by selecting their members for defeat and removing them from office. And that means running progressive challengers against them in primaries, or targeting them with critical ads, even if doing so, in isolated cases, risks the loss of a Democratic seat in Congress.

Oh sure, by all means, run a more progressive candidate against Zack Space in OH, who lucked out in a +R district by running against indicted Bob Ney who had to drop out at the last minute. Or knock out Heath Shuler in North Carolina and give the district back to the Republicans pronto. Both of these guys voted for FISA, and need to stay somewhat conservative or they lose their seats. it's really that simple.

Ed Kilgore has a more level-headed approach:

But even if I'm wrong about everything I've said until now, the biggest and most obvious problem with a vengeful effort to discipline Democrats deemed to have failed to stand up to Bush is that this whole measurement is about to become moot, particularly if Barack Obama wins in November. In an Obama administration, all the arguments about which tactic or strategy congressional Democrats should have used to win or "take a stand" on this or that issue in the Bush era will be relevant only in terms of which Bush policies can be reversed, since we'll have a president and a Democratic congressional majority that's -- for the first time, perhaps, since 1965 -- basically pulling in the same direction.

Well, actually it would be the first time since 1992, but I don't blame Ed for wanting to forget about the lost chances and missed opportunities (for Democrats) of that era, which ended when the door slammed shut with a thud for them in 1994. But his point is correct. The point of having the majority in a legislature is the ability to set the agenda, not a guaranteed pass for whatever you want. And in order to get the ability to set the agenda, you must have a broad coalition that includes conservatives and centrists, or liberals and centrists if you are a Republican. And then, if the stars are aligned, and you can make the case to the American people, you might actually get some game-changing legislation passed. If you have the majority and a president willing to sign it.

Which should remind us that in the American system of government it is very, very hard to pass legislation that doesn't have a broad consensus. And that's the whole point.

The Weekly Standard highlights the reception (or lack thereof) that John McCain has been getting in his own party. It seems that conservative Republicans are not at all excited about voting for the man who wanted to be a John Kerry's VP.

Can you blame them? From the Standard:

A Washington Post/ABC News poll last month found that nearly half of the liberals surveyed are enthusiastic about supporting Barack Obama, while only 13 percent of conservatives are enthusiastic about McCain. (who are these people -ed) More generally, 91 percent of self-identified Obama supporters are "enthusiastic" about their candidate; 54 percent say they are "very enthusiastic." Seventy-three percent of such McCain supporters say they are "enthusiastic" about his candidacy, but only 17 percent say they are "very enthusiastic."

A USA Today/Gallup poll reported similar findings last week. That survey shows that while 67 percent of Barack Obama's supporters are "more excited than usual about voting" for their candidate, only 31 percent of John McCain's supporters can say the same thing. More troubling for the McCain campaign is that more than half of those who identified themselves as McCain backers--54 percent--say they are "less excited than usual" about their candidate.

These numbers should improve after the convention. And if they don't? McCain needs a gut chuck, does he really believe he can win independent voters away from Obama. Polls are either mixed or they are saying "no". And yet so far, the McCain strategy seems to be taking the conservatives for granted and going after the independents. Note that this was not the Bush strategy, which was to raise the conservative excitement level and turnout to unprecedented levels.

It seems to me that the McCain strategy is depending on an Obama flameout, or that there is a well of mainstream voters out there that is just not ready to take a chance on Obama. Which would be 1968 and 1972 all over again. Nixon was not exactly charming and charismatic, but he was trusted by the mainstream, and he won.

From the SF Gate:

These are conservatives who have publicly endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee, dissidents from the brain trust of think tanks, ex-officials and policy magazines that have fueled the Republican Party since the 1960s. Scratch the surface of this elite, and one finds a profound dismay that is far more damaging to the GOP than the usual 10 percent of registered Republicans expected to switch sides during a presidential election.

Wow! That sounds serious and to underline the seriousness of this elite, the SF Gate pings six (yes a whole six!) possible conservatives who are now supporting Obama...

Andrew Sullivan, Armstrong Williams, Larry Hunter, Andrew Bacevich, Susan Eisenhower, David Friedman. Well, that makes seven, but come on, Susan Eisenhower is a conservative because her father was a moderate Republican? Uh, no, but thanks for playing.

Andrew Sullivan and many of the others are not so much pro-Obama as they are definitely anti-Bush, and specifically pro small government. Which is a weird way to come around to supporting Obama and many admit as much. I understand the sentiment... the hope is that the GOP gets slapped around a little and comes to it's senses around embracing small and limited government. And apparently Obama is just the one to do the smacking.

Which is all just another way of saying that McCain is weak with many parts of the GOP base and his assumed strategy of going after independents may mean that the GOP big tent is a lost cause this election cycle.

Let's get to the meat of the controversy around the late great Senator No: Jesse Helms.

It's not because he was a racist bigot in his years as a Southern Democrat. Oh yes, you didn't realize that from Ken's diatribe did you? That when Senator Helms was saying those hateful things, he was a Democrat, as were nearly all of the racist segregationist dixiecrats of the era.

In fact, the person who led the filibuster against the civil rights bill of 1964 and was a full member of the KKK is still a Democrat and a lionized member of the Democratic party. I haven't seen Ken Layne write any screeds against Senator Roberty Byrd or threaten to kick him out of the party lately. So the problem with Jesse Helms can't be his segregationist past, or else the Democrats would be craven hypocrites on this issue.

From the WSJ today:

Indeed, the mainstream media rarely put Helms's career in context the way they did, for example, with Sam Ervin, a Democrat who served with Helms in the Senate from North Carolina before retiring in 1975. Ervin was the leading legal strategist against Civil Rights legislation, and he largely crafted the Southern Manifesto against Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that ruled school segregation unconstitutional. But Ervin was the man who chaired the Watergate hearings that helped bring down Richard Nixon, and his views on civil rights were almost never mentioned. Both Helms and Ervin were courtly, principled conservatives. Only one became a cartoon media villain.

No their real problem and the root of their disgust with Jesse Helms was his success at stopping liberal policies, and even worse, he might just be responsible for giving us the Reagan revolution:

Two events early in his Senate career showcased Helms's unflinching nature and his political skills. In 1975, he engineered a visit to the U.S. by Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn over the objections of the State Department, which forbade its own employees from attending a major Solzhenitsyn speech in Washington. State also blocked a proposed visit to the White House, leading Helms to accuse President Gerald Ford of "cowering timidly for fear of offending Communists."

That incident helped spur Reagan to challenge Ford for the GOP nomination the next year. Reagan lost the first five primaries, and he entered the North Carolina contest broke and under pressure to pull out. But Helms and his chief strategist Tom Ellis refused to give up. They employed Helms's huge, direct-mail list to build a grass-roots army of volunteers and raise money to air 30-minute speeches by Reagan across the state.

Emphasizing the Panama Canal "giveaway" and smaller government, Reagan won an upset victory and was able to battle Ford all the way to the GOP convention. He showed such strength at the convention that Ford invited him to deliver off-the-cuff remarks to the delegates. Reagan was so inspiring that some of Ford's own delegates exclaimed, "We just nominated the wrong candidate." Reagan later acknowledged how Helms's intervention rescued his political career.

We're going to hear a lot of selective outrage about Jesse Helms and his racist past and whatever, but remember this, he was hated because he was a successful conservative warrior who stood up for what he believed in and got things done. He was the bane of liberals from the seventies on and he has not been forgiven for that sin. And even worse: He couldn't have cared less what the national media thought of him.

RIP Senator No.

Hillary Clinton is making nice with the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. No kidding, she had a meeting with Richard Mellon Scaife. You know who he is:

• Scaife was the major backer of The American Spectator, whose Arkansas Project set out to find facts about Clinton and in which Paula Jones' accusations of sexual harassment against Clinton were first widely publicized.
• In a 1999 series of articles on Scaife and foundations that support conservative causes, the Washington Post named a close Scaife associate, Richard Larry, and not Scaife himself as the man who drove the Arkansas Project.

...So involved was Scaife in efforts against Clinton that many Democrats believed Hillary Clinton's statement condemning a "vast right-wing conspiracy" against her husband was a direct reference to Scaife himself. President Clinton later admitted to sexual indiscretions, but the other allegations that came out of the Arkansas Project were never proven.

John McCain's well received victory speech, delivered (as fate would have it) at the Conservative Political Action Conference's Annual Convention in Washington, D.C, should be seen as the first speech of McCain's national campaign for the presidency. Thus, it has an importance beyond the present, and should be viewed as a portend of the campaign to come.

To win the general election, McCain must appeal to conservative voters while continuing to attract moderates and independents. If he is able to do so with success, he may be in a position to sweep the nation in a potential landslide. If he fails, he will be left with only fragments of the GOP base as dissatisfied voters sit out the election in a stinging repudiation.

McCain's courting of the American people (as a whole) began yesterday.

Below is McCain's introduction by Sen. Tom Coburn:

And McCain's full speech is presented here:

The full text transcript of McCain's Speech is provided below:

Merry Christmas! In light of Denise's wonderful contribution to solving our yule-time predicaments, I thought I should share a few ideas of my own. It's extremely difficult to choose the proper gift for a conservative on Christmas - after all, conservatives know the true "reason of the season," and won't be fooled by materialistic substitutes for heart-felt giving. But the secret is, give. Give and give and give a little more. Give 'till it hurts. That's the way to win over your conservative friends! But, in case you're wondering about what to give, exactly, here are a few tips:

Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani is probably the closest example of a "moderate" candidate in the presidential race. The label is difficult to define, and usually applies to an individual with an unorthodox combination of policy positions. That is, if one doesn't fit neatly into the liberal or conservative categories, the only default is "moderate."

However, primaries are decided within the parties, and it is no secret that Democrats provide the liberal party while Republicans stand as the conservatives. Before he can trumpet his moderate, uniting stature before the national electorate, Giuliani must survive the gauntlet of conservative voters in the GOP primaries.

Wisely, Giuliani has not attempted to moderate or obfuscate his pro-choice, pro-gay, anti-gun stances. Conservatives would surely recognize such duplicity and would almost certainly respond with indignation. Rather, Giuliani has chosen a far more difficult path, but one which has a chance of assuaging the concern of his conservative critics.

Yesterday, speaking before the Federalist Society, Giuliani has chosen to trust in conservative intellectualism.

For those in the media and the punditsphere who still don't understand how it is that a pro-choice pro-gay mayor of New York city can be the GOP frontrunner, this recent appearance by Giuliani at a meeting of the Federalist society should help. And we can start by understanding what it is that most worries conservatives about a Giuliani presidency. That worry centers around Giuliani's appointments to the bench.