Election Strategy: Douche Caucus Style

Harry Reid has a plan to make sure the Democrats hold the Senate: Let everyone do and say whatever the fuck they want.

What could go wrong?:

Over the past couple of weeks, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has railed against an increase in the debt limit, slammed his party on the budget and blasted President Barack Obama in a floor speech.

It’s all music to the ears of Democratic leaders.


“I don’t see that as an attack on the president; I think that’s just Joe Manchin,” said Washington Sen. Patty Murray, who as chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is trying to get Manchin reelected.

Manchin’s freelancing is part of what’s driving the Senate these days. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has given politically vulnerable Democrats license to do almost anything they need to survive a grim political environment, even if that means ripping the president, voting against Democratic bills and teaming up with Republicans to appear bipartisan. For Reid, it seems that, at this point in the election cycle, keeping his imperiled majority after 2012 is a far more important goal than preserving party unity on legislation.

. . .

Even on some politically contentious votes, there hasn’t been much effort to whip skittish 2012 senators into line. When the Democrats put forward their budget proposal earlier this month, Reid lost five Democrats and one independent who are expected to run for reelection next year. The defections opened up Democrats to GOP charges of pushing forward a bill that couldn’t even pass muster with the moderate wing of their caucus.

But in reality, it allowed the disloyal Democrats to tout their independence back home.

I realize that not every issue that liberals support will be crazily popular in all states, but with this everyone do what they feel like approach seems to destroy whatever common messages/brand you want to build.

If you don't have common values, you're just a bunch of assholes trying to beat another bunch of assholes in a statewide popularity contest, and that's about as far from a successful get out the vote message as you can get (See Deeds, Creigh).

At their core quite of few of these senators are just buffoons who don't give the slightest shit about policy of any kind (Ben Nelson and Joe Manchin are two of the most obvious, but they're far from the only ones). They want to protect the people who bankrolled their campaigns, see their face on TV so to feel special, but most importantly they need to win the biggest dick waving contest of them all, an election. There are lots of high priced consultants who make a living telling these people that the best way to win elections is through meaningless stunts, and of course these assholes don't actually care about any real policy issues, so they excitedly follow along.

So just to recap, Harry Reid is "freeing up" a lot of these douche bags to do even more pointless political stunts than usual, because everyone seems to agree it will help them get reelected.

Just another day in the US Senate, the living, breathing representation of why Americans hate politics and politicians.