Wag the dog

Not, in this case, the 1997 movie starring DeNiro and Hoffman, but the current state of the Democratic Party,which is clearly under the thumb of their far Left wing, having canceled their arrangements with Fox News to moderate the Democratic debates in Nevada. The editors at the Las Vegas Review-Journal were not pleased, to say the least:

...liberals' aversion to Fox News has finally gone over the top. The Nevada Democratic Party had agreed to let the right-tilting network co-sponsor, of all things, an August debate in Reno between Democratic presidential candidates. Party officials were serious about drawing national attention to the state's January presidential caucus, the country's second in the 2008 nominating process. What better way for the party to reach conservative and "values" voters who might consider changing allegiances?

But the socialist, Web-addicted wing of the Democratic Party was apoplectic. The prospect of having to watch Fox News to see their own candidates would have been torture in itself. So they set the blogosphere aflame with efforts to kill the broadcast arrangement, or at least have all the candidates pull out of the event. Before Friday, the opportunistic John Edwards was the only candidate to jump on that bandwagon.

The question to ask is why state and national leaders of the Democratic Party are so craven before the true believers of the Left? Simple: As I've pointed out before, the answer is money and organization. Internet-based left-wing groups first made their influence felt late in the Clinton Administration, when MoveOn.org organized to oppose Bill Clinton's impeachment. They and other groups hit the big time in the 2004 campaign, when Howard Dean's campaign came out of nowhere thanks to the fundraising and "get out the vote" efforts of the self-proclaimed "netroots." These groups, along with other "527 groups," can raise a lot more money than the Democratic Party can directly, thanks to the McCain-Feingold Act. They can funnel this money to candidates supporting their views, or, as in the case of Senator Joe Lieberman, use it to try to destroy those who oppose them on the war -- even if they are otherwise staunch liberals. This gives them extensive influence over Democratic policy, and thus the Democrats caved when popular left-wing sites such as the Daily Kos screamed bloody murder over the arrangements with Fox to moderate the debates. 

The danger in this for the Democrats is that kowtowing to the netroots will drag them into a Far Left corner, which will get them killed in the 2008 elections. The war in Iraq, for example, is not popular with the American public, but time and again the public has made it clear it does not like the anti-war Left's preferred strategy: cut and run. Democratic candidates running on what is essentially a platform of defeat will lose (except in far-Left enclaves like the San Francisco Bay Area). The public outcry made this quite clear when senile anti-war Congressman Jack Murtha revealed that cut-and-run was exactly what his "slow bleed" strategy to end the war meant. The Democratic leadership was forced to back off, for fear of being labeled defeatists. 

It must be frustrating for Democratic leaders, who basically agree with the netroots' anti-war positions, but are caught between the Scylla of what the American electorate will tolerate and the Charybdis of their base's demands for ideological purity. In fact, I know it frustrates them, as anti-war Congressman David Obey's outburst at a moonbat "activist" shows. 

Obey later apologized, but I suspect his videotaped rants reflects more truly how he feels. I also suspect it reflects the feelings of a lot of the Democratic leadership, who have to wonder if they've lost control of their Party and its message. 

LINKS: More at Michelle Malkin and Captain's Quarters.