Blue Dogs vs. Bull Moose: The Future of the Democratic Party

Tuesday night's blue wave, as Joe Scarborough said, appeared to make the northeastern Congressional Republican as endangered a species as the Southern Congressional Democrat. But who was voted into Congress in place of many of these Republicans? The cadre of Democrats voted in this year, I would imagine, is decidedly more conservative than the cadre voted out in 1994.

Look at some of the big names of the 2006 midterms. Bob Casey, who felled Rick Santorum, is a very conservative Democrat, whose vote on social issues is likely to be no help to progressive politics. Jim Webb, who just barely made it into the Senate, tapped into the traditionally Republican side of issues such as gun control or immigration. Harold Ford almost became the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction, and he did it by staying to the right of standard Democratic positions. Though his picture can still be found in the dictionary next to the word "insipid," David Brooks actually had the rare, well, point today, when he said that Tuesday was a great day for the center. America, I think, has not moved farther left. The whole party system has moved farther right, leaving the average American in the "blue" column.

Until he announced he wasn't running, Mark Warner was a popular name being floated for the 2008 Democratic nomination. Evan Bayh - a conservative Democrat from Indiana who, in 2004, managed to receive more votes than President Bush - is still a name that conservative Democrats are talking about.

Is this the future of the Democratic Party? Is the successful Democrat of 2008 going to be the socially conservative, Midwestern or mid-Southern, worker-friendly, protectionist type? While Hillary Clinton is currently the frontrunner in the polls for the Democratic nomination, will the 2006 midterms lead people to look to a more conservative Democrat? And If this represents most Americans and will get a majority of votes, is there really a problem with the party going this way?

Yes.

Brooks, to quote The West Wing, "is like the French radical watching the crowd run by and saying, 'There go my people, I must find out where they are going so I can lead them.'"

Americans are still in this Reagan-induced haze that it's still "Morning in America." Meanwhile, schools are becoming more segregated, the wealth gap is increasing, and poverty has long since won the War on Poverty. Reagan convinced us we didn't need the Great Society anymore, and since his presidency, morning has quickly turned to a very dismal afternoon. Most people just haven't noticed yet. The person we need as our presidential nominee in 2008 is the person who can wake us up and remind us what it truly means to be Democrats.