More Dem infighting

The Hill:

A House fight among Democrats on overhauling the nation’s healthcare system has spread to the Senate, where centrists and liberals are clashing over the direction the legislation should take.

Trouble is brewing now that a bipartisan group of senators — led by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) — has signaled it will exclude a government-run insurance option from the committee’s draft legislation that could be marked up next week.

Leaving it out would be a major step toward attracting Republican support for President Barack Obama’s signature issue. But it also would alienate liberals, who say the effort is wasted without it and are preparing a barrage of amendments for the Finance markup.

The House legislation has divided Democrats in that chamber along similar lines and is built around a public option to be paid for by raising taxes on the wealthy, an idea that has almost no chance of winning GOP votes. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee this month voted along partisan lines to approve legislation with a public option at its core.

Infighting among House Democrats has led to an impasse at the Energy and Commerce Committee that is expected to prevent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from meeting her deadline of completing work before the August recess.

And on Tuesday it prompted Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) to hint that more liberal members of the party should consider challenging centrist Blue Dogs in next year’s primaries.

Back when Arlen Specter switched parties, Sen. DeMint (R-SC) said:

I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of belief.

So here's a straighter Maxine Waters (though she's probably thinking more of the House):

I would rather have 40 Democrats in the Senate who really believe in government-run health insurance, than to have 60 that don't have that beliefs.

That's what would happen over time if you somehow primaried freshmen and sophomore Dems in more conservative districts with True Progressives. Republicans would pick them off in the general. There's nothing they would like more than to run against left-liberals in districts that are not left-liberal (much like Palin turned out to be a very desirable opponent for Dems). Even if the more liberal Dem doesn't win a primary, the incumbent Blue Dog or business-friendly New Dem has to waste time and funds fending off the challenge. And he has to run more to his left for the primary, which leads to some incoherent whiplash as he then runs back to toward the right in seeking to win the general.

Maxine Waters (D) and Jim DeMint (R) are blind partisans. All principle, no pragmatism. It's nice when people have principles, but you can't run a country on ideological rigidity. You have to find ways to further your goals through compromise.

There are plenty of helpful reforms we could enact, which I've discussed previously (like in the post below). And I think insisting on public health insurance is a really dumb hill to die on. But you'd expect me to say that, since I'm opposed to it on principle*. So listen to Ezra, who isn't.

*of course, I've tried to back it up with arguments about price controls and growth.