> Heavens no, not for that kind of agenda. What is often striking is
> their lack of partisan fervor - the urge to fuck up the other team and
> get your guys in office. I think the explanation is that they lack a
> real ideological passion, unlike the GOP, so they don't have the juice
> for the partisan fights.
But ideological passion should make people willing to *lose*, not determined to always win - like Barry Goldwater in 1964, or the teabaggers in that special election in upstate New York. Karl Rove fought to win - so he therefore passed the Medicare drug benefit, a huge entitlement that drove the real ideologues crazy. Obama's health care plan is the equivalent of that drug benefit - calculated to pass and make Democrats win. (Ha ha.)
I agree the average Democratic hack has a lot less ideological passion than the average GOP hack. But a hack is a hack - it's someone who cares above all about getting their guys in office. It's true, the Dems often don't go for the jugular like Republicans do. But that's because they know the score. Like, take Florida in 2000: Given the balance of power in American society, do you really think street pressure on the election officials and courts led by Jesse Jackson would have been equivalent to street pressure by a bunch of Republican staffers in ties? I bet there were a lot of Dem hacks who (correctly or not) heard about that prospect and thought: Oh my god, Limbaugh is going to convince the exurbs that this is the Black Panthers storming the vote-counting rooms - we can't have that.
SA