Sherrod Brown just pissed off his base today. Big time. The same base that can barely stand him- and let him know it by voting 22% for his primary opponent: a lunatic, anti-gay truck driver named Merrill Kaiser.
I understand Brown's rationale for voting for the infamous torture bill He feared that opposition would alienate him from swing voters, especially as Republicans are putting forth the "Democrats coddle terrorists" meme. The lively discussion at Buckeye State Blog has yielded a few key counterarguments to this strategy 1) Dewine has and will continue to attack Brown regardless of his votes one way or the other 2) The torture issue is not clearly defined for the American people to elicit a truly effective attack from DeWine.
Though the polls will soon clarify the effect this has on the race, my preliminary analysis is that Brown has inflicted way more damage upon the base than he had hoped to reduce amongst swing voters. The torture bill is about the radical dismissal of the core principles of our country. Brown seems silly to think that the base will forgive him so readily. As conservative Andrew Sullivan explains,
"I repeat: this is a huge deal. It really should be a huge deal for conservatives who care about restraining government power. Its vulnerability to abuse is enormous; sanctioned torture, history tells us, never remains hermetically sealed. It always spreads. It eats away at decency and law and civility. If the president sincerely believes that torture is our most potent weapon in this war, and that habeas corpus is a quaint relic from the past, then we are in far greater peril than even the most dire pessimists believe."
So, shame on Sherrod. Not just for participating in an ignominous chapter in our nation's history, but for jeopardizing his already-tenuous Senate chances in the process. In a perfect world, political gain and principle are two sides of the same coin. We don't live in that ideal world. We live in a world constrained by a hostile media and the multifaceted sources behind Republican power, where, in order to get elected, Democratic politicians must posses a delicate balance of both political courage and the ability to compromise for political gain. But Brown has proven that he probably does not have what it takes to successfully navigate through this rotten political world we're stuck with, for he lacks both components of this balance.
That all said, I will continue my plan to vote for Sherrod Brown this November. Again, to quote Sullivan:
"If this Republican party maintains control of all branches of government, the danger to individual liberty is extremely grave. Put aside all your concerns about the Democratic leadership. What matters now is that this juggernaut against individual liberty and constitutional rights be stopped. The court has failed to stop it; the legislature has failed to stop it; only the voters can stop it now. If they don't, they will at least have been warned."
UPDATE:Some of the
names of the Democratic senators who voted for the torture bill frankly shock me.
Bill Nelson? Jay Rockefellar? Frank freakin' Lautenberg?
While these Democrats contributed to the passage of the bill in a much more harmful and significant way than Sherrod Brown did, blame ultimately rests in our leader, Harry Reid and the other prominent Senators of influence (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama) who decided not to organize a filibuster.
There's more...
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