Bob Cusack and Jessica Taylor of The Hill newspaper have an excellent piece today documenting a feud between current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and a predecessor of his, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). The contentious argument between the two is apparently over how Reid refuses to be a party loyalist and endorse the South Dakota Democratic Party's nominee for U.S. Senate, citing poll numbers showing the Democrat has virtually no chance of securing victory this November.
In addition to noted the Reid-Daschle feud, Cusack and Taylor highlighted the tensions between state-level Democratic leaders and folks in the Democratic establishment in faraway Washington, D.C. (emphasis mine):
Lincoln County Democratic Party Chairman Ryan Casey, who led the unsuccessful “Draft Brendan Johnson” movement to recruit the retiring senator’s son into the race, was brushed back by national Democrats who wanted the Blue Dog Herseth Sandlin to run.
“It’s understandable why the national Democratic Party needs to pick their horses to run with, but on the other hand, they sit in their ivory tower in Washington, D.C., and they don’t always appreciate the sentiment of active Democrats in the state and what they believe and want in candidates to represent them.”
“In my opinion,” said Casey, “it’s been frankly an unprofessional approach — and kind of pouting, for lack of a better word.”
To be sure, this is to some extent an inside baseball story of little import to most folks. That being said, it does highlight how out of touch and imperious national-level Democrats can be, particularly when dealing with Democrats in red states. Indeed, it's quite like how national Democrats applied intense pressure on Democrat Chad Taylor -- who was democratically nominated by Kansas Democrats in a party primary for the Senate contest -- to bow out of that race so as to maximize the chances for wealthy Republican-turned-independent Greg Orman to upset incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts this November.
Of course, in the case of the Kansas Senate race, the liberal media has giddily glommed on to how the race is now considered a toss-up, without much if any consideration for how rank-and-filed Democrats are being disenfranchised because the top leadership of their party is pulling out all the stops to ensure Democrats hold the Senate -- even, or rather especially if it means throwing some red-state Democrats under the bus.
Don't expect any attention to this story from ABC, CBS, or NBC, although one should expect that political-junkie programs like MSNBC's Hardball would give it some attention. Unfortunately, given Chris Matthews's rooting interest for Democrats to hold the Senate, I expect his partisanship to outweigh his interest in juicy stories of intra-party feuding.
You can read the full story here.
