Bowers titles his piece "Electability As Corruption." Seriously, that is his title. I have a quick question for Chris - why didn't he back Dennis Kucinich for President? Was that a corrupt act on his part? Or did those candidates he did support come closer to his views than Kucinich? J'Accuse! Bowers. Corruption in the blogs!
Bowers writes:
One of the major problems here is the corruption associated with the concept of "electability" itself. . . . [T]he lack of intra-party democracy and top-down elitism of our political process is also to blame. None of these problems would have occurred if we had simply held an election, and engaged in the radical experiment of letting the people decide.
Concepts like "electability" are part of a broader corrupting system. Selling Senate seats for cash may be obviously corrupt and illegal, but using political leverage to clear primary fields and rule out entire groups of people from holding office isn't much better.
The glass you hear shattering is the rock flying through the roof of Bowers' glass house.
But I think the more interesting point here is why is Reid's concern with electability in an APPOINTMENT decision the breaking point for Bowers on this? Will he now pledge to forever more forego "electability" as part of his discussion of politics? Because otherwise, what is his point? I mean if even the pristine Chris Bowers can not forego considering "electability," how in Gawd's Name can you ask the Senate Majority Leader, a professional politician after all, to forego it? Here's my suggestion to Bowers, when he can honestly say he and his allies are not playing party jersey politics on the issues and how he covers them (this is going to be a critical issue during the Obama Administration), then he can decry politicians acting politically. When even the "activists" think politics first, how can you expect the politicians to do otherwise?
Or to put it another way, you want politicians to forego "electability" in their actions? Make foregoing "electability" an "electability" issue. Of course, this is circular. Because Bowers is arguing for taking the politics out of the politics - a fool's approach.
The better way is to understand that you can never take politics out of politics and that what you need to do is make the smart political thing to do be whatever you want the politicians to do.
Tut-tutting that there is "politics going on" in politics is well, not smart.
Speaking for me only
