On Party Politics
This is important stuff, and may represent the most essential conversation coming out of last night's election and Joe's decision to take on the Democratic Party. I wish I had read it before my ramble below. Well-meaning, smart, thoughtful, independent-minded, usually ultra-liberal people (like me) give me grief all the time for having allegiance to the Democratic Party. The two pieces below express pretty well why I do have that allegiance. First read Simon Rosenberg, who was (emphasis on was) a Lieberman supporter and is a big-time netroots organizer.

In this new era, partisanship is a virtue. The conservatives rise to power, and their utter failure to govern responsibly or effectively, requires a new progressive politics of confrontation, not accommodation. This new politics may be uncomfortable to those used to an America governed by Democrats and progressive values, but for our politics and values to triumph progressives must and are learning how to resist “cutting deals,” working to “get things done” on terms set by an irresponsible governing majority.

Then read Jerome Armstrong, who started MyDD, which gave birth to DailyKos.

We are becoming strong enough in primary numbers to defeat the politics of old in the Democratic Party. But we cannot defeat the conservative ideological movement if they are united, and we are not; if they are modern and we are stuck in the methods of the past. In a nutshell, I argued that to win elections and transform the landscape enough to enact a broader environmental policy initiative that addresses issues such as global warming, every progressive individual, group, and organization must work together in the same vehicle. Sure the Democratic Party has been busted and broken in the past, but lets rebuild it and ride it to get there.

Finally, slightly unrelated, read Josh Marshall who puts this final touch on his Lieberman post-mortem.

It's all about him and stabbing his own party in the back while he disingenuously pleads that he's trying to save it. He can't admit or realize or get his head around the idea that his denial about Iraq and his obliviousness to his own constituents got him into this mess.

In the end, he just won't come clean. Forget about being a Democrat. Just be a man. It's time.