Filibust Post Mortem
Deborah Orin dissects the Democrats' failed filibuster attempt in today's New York Post:
Republicans loved 2004 loser Kerry's flop of a filibuster against Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito because it had Democrats tearing each other's eyes out — over a fight they couldn't win.[P]lenty of Democrats who did vote for the filibuster — like New York's Sen. Chuck Schumer — left little doubt that they were livid at Kerry's stunt, since it turned into a dream come true for Bush political guru Rove.
Senate Democrats had already huddled and agreed that a filibuster would be dumb: They lacked the votes — and Americans backed Alito by 2-1, so it could alienate the desperately needed swing voters.
But then Kerry, hobnobbing with hotshots in posh Davos, Switzerland, got his marching orders from The New York Times and the left-wing blog Daily Kos (which can be hard to tell apart these days). Presto: Insta-filibuster, like it or not.
Orin links the Democrats' filibuster flub to their recent fundraising failures (alliteration alert!) as consequences of the party's capitulation to the angry left:
It's the second warning for Democrats over the past few weeks about tilting too far to the angry left — the other being Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean's stunning failure at fund-raising.Dean's team has just $5.5 million cash on hand, according to the latest reports, while the Republican National Committee has $34 million — a $29 million advantage for Bush's team. Anger doesn't seem to fill the coffers.
Here, I'm not so optimistic. Whatever the numbers may be at the moment, the Democrats have turned themselves into the party of the super-rich, and for the foreseeable future, they'll have a financial edge over the Republicans, even though that advantage will be manifested in soft money, which can be given to "independent" groups like MoveOn.org in infinite quantities.
