THE Nation's Ari Berman wrote last weekend that Democrats would do well to kick their more right-leaning members out of the coalition. (This is apparently the thesis of his new book "Herding Donkeys".) One interesting question is whether that's likely to happen automatically as part of the upcoming election. On the one hand, Democrats are likely to lose 12 seats in the South . Four Southern Democrats currently trailing by double digits, John Spratt (South Carolina), Allen Boyd (Florida), Chet Edwards (Texas) and Jim Marshall (Georgia), are respectively the 204th-, 233rd-, 217th-, and 250th-most partisan Democrats in the House, according to Jeff Lewis and Keith Poole's rankings . The third-least-partisan Democrat in the House, Travis Childers of Mississippi, is currently down five points to his Republican challenger in The Hill's polling. The exit of these Democrats from Congress will likely produce a more ideologically coherent caucus. Along the same lines, organised labour has been using its funds in this election to support House Democrats who voted for its priorities, health-care reform and card-check legislation, and has abandoned the Blue Dog Democrats who opposed those bills. That has left the Blue Dogs vulnerable to corporate-fueled independent campaign groups that overwhelmingly support their Republican opponents.

On the other hand, another set of Democrats who often vote against their party's priorities has been doing pretty well. Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, the 245th-most partisan Democrat in the House, is up 12 points over his GOP challenger, even though his district voted for John McCain in 2008. Melissa Bean, the 231st-most partisan Democrat, is expected to beat her Republican opponent in Illinois's eighth congressional district, which voted for George Bush by solid margins in 2000 and 2004. (It went for Barack Obama in 2008, but he was an Illinois favourite son.) Of course, Mr Altmire and Ms Bean both have campaign war chests that dwarf those of their opponents, in part because they are among the leadership of the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition, a set of Democrats closely intertwined with corporate lobbyists who moved in the past four years to take over contacts previously monopolised by the Republican K Street Project.

At first blush, the New Democrats seem unlikely heirs to the K Street Project. None of them chairs a committee or holds a prominent position in the House leadership. Most aren't known outside their own districts and tend to vote with their party caucus. Their power, instead, comes from their ability to tip the balance of close votes on the House floor, their numerous seats on key committees where major bills are shaped before the big votes are taken, and their business-friendly policies. Over the past two years, their members have helped biotech companies win lucrative patent extensions during healthcare reform, fought to ensure that banks receiving TARP money didn't have to trim executive bonuses, and helped block a proposal to allow bankruptcy judges to adjust home mortgages—a step many experts believe would have reduced foreclosures. As they gathered for their May retreat, the New Democrats were working on what would become their biggest victory yet: weakening key components of financial-services reform legislation. At a Saturday session at the retreat, [New Democrat leader Rep. Ron] Kind acknowledged what had brought the lobbyists and lawmakers together. In these busy legislative times, he said, the New Democrats had become a "powerful voice in policy making," and the business interests in the room were playing a crucial role in informing that voice. "We're working hard with you to get the policy right," Kind told lobbyists for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and others.

I think Ari Berman has a point that Democrats have at this point become so broad-tented that it's become difficult for them to describe what it is they stand for. But there are at least two different fault lines baffling the party's ability to present a coherent philosophy to voters. One is created by Democrats who represent relatively conservative constituencies, but this kind of fault line is virtually inevitable in any majority party. The other fault line, however, is created by Democrats who have become organisationally linked to specific industry special interests, relying on industry lobbyists to write legislation for them and on industry campaign contributions and independent spending to fuel their campaigns. Democratic lawmakers dependent on pharmaceutical and health-insurance corporations hamstring their party's approach to health-care reform. Democratic lawmakers dependent on financial corporations hamstring their party's approach to financial services reform. The party's most egregious failure in the run-up to the elections was its inability to force a vote on an extension of the Bush tax cuts that excludes income over $250,000 per year. New Democrat Melissa Bean was one reason for that failure; she wants to extend the tax cuts for everyone.

The problem here is that the interests of lobbyists for specific industries tend to run counter to liberal political beliefs and to the interests of natural Democratic constituencies. It's natural Democratic politics to run as the champions of credit-card customers against their banks. But that's not good for Chuck Schumer's campaign contributions, so the Democratic message on financial reform gets watered down and confused. For comparison, imagine that an entire bloc of Republican legislators became dependent on a few key labour unions, whose lobbyists wrote their bills and whose PACs and 401(c)(4)s provided most of their campaign cash. What would such a Republican party look like? What bills could it move? What would it stand for? It's hard to even imagine. The GOP has its problems, but lack of clarity about its attitudes towards unions isn't one of them. A lack of clarity in its attitudes towards Wall Street, health insurers, and tax breaks for the rich, on the other hand, is a very big problem for Democrats. The fact that a lot of New Democrats are going to win re-election is one reason I'm skeptical that Democrats will be able to clarify their identity or their message in the aftermath of the electoral defeats they will face next week.

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