(With Stupak-Pitts on the House side and Lincoln iffy on the Senate side (to say nothing of the ideologically flexible Joe Lieberman, who just a few years ago was advocating strongly for a public health insurance option), this is an important issue to discuss. - promoted by Joe Bodell)
Updated
The recent news about the decision by State Senator Steve Dille not to run for reelection because he can't win the GOP endorsement got me thinking about purging elected officials who too often defy their own party, but I'm trying to think more deeply than just schadenfreude over the deterioration of the Republicans. Maybe they're not entirely wrong. If a party stands for some principles, and a given office holder or candidate too frequently opposes those principles, don't party activists have a right to try to replace them? On the Democratic side, I recently suggested trying to defeat incumbents who are doing more harm than good in relation to health care reform, specifically the Stupak-Pitts amendment.
Perhaps the mistake Republicans have fallen into is looking at it as either/or: either you let incumbents do anything as long as they bear your party label, or you purge anyone who strays from the party line at all. I'm suggesting Democrats be a bit more nuanced.
I'm thinking of several cases where a candidate or incumbent faced an intraparty challenge --- cases which happen to come to memory, so unless someone is ready to make up for the loss of my full time job so I can research more thoroughly, understand that I'm almost surely missing some that would be useful --- and I think I can pick out some useful questions to answer before deciding whether to challenge a given blue dog or conservadem. Let these help establish guidelines, with an understanding there are always exceptions, and if we're to be nuanced, then there are many factors involved in any challenge.
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