The ugly underside of
Pondering the meaning of elections and campaigns and political parties, I can’t shake a certain feeling of dread. Cue, from a Newsweek article on Nancy Pelosi, a bit about candidate Heath Shuler, and pay attention here.
Pelosi’s relative anonymity has made it difficult for Republican candidates, who have attempted, and so far largely failed, to make her into a scary national symbol of the left. It’s hard to spook people with a face no one recognizes. Of course, that hasn’t stopped them from trying. Some of the ads are unintentionally funny. In North Carolina, GOP Rep. Charles Taylor is in a tough re-election fight against former NFL quarterback Heath Shuler. In the past, Taylor has won by portraying his Democratic opponents as weak-kneed liberals. But Shuler is so conservative that the Republicans once tried to recruit him as a candidate. The Heisman Trophy runner-up is anti-abortion, anti-immigration and pro-gun. He even supports the war in Iraq. You wouldn’t know it watching Taylor’s TV ads, which accuse Shuler of “following the playbook of San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi.” With the sound of a football crowd in the background, the narrator sums it up: “The Pelosi game plan: elect Heath Shuler and others like him and take over Congress with the votes of illegal immigrants.”
The key line is “the Republicans once tried to recruit him as a candidate”, and you can also add “even supports the Iraq War”, which is a major rationalization to rid lingering doubts on Virginia Senate candidate Jim Webb. But for an aggressive recruiting from Rahm Emanuel, Heath Shuler would be a Republican — and probably not a terribly independent one at that. Your two-party duopoly at work!  It appears to be the type of Democrats that the powerbrokers of this party want.
A large number of the upcoming supposed Democratic Revival is going to be simply a re-emergence of a sort of Boll Weevil that was largely wiped out in 1994, not moderate Democrats but — indeed – conservatives. It makes for a difficult balance. “Electibility” in an area where you cannot elect a Democrat proper. A party cannot afford to be a regional party, and needs to plant a tent somehow. The South is decidedly troublesome, because the Dixiecrats of old linger on the voter-rolls as “D”s, apart from the party as a whole. But what good is it to win with ideological opponents (of the rank and file national Democrat, naturally. The party election machine coffers are happy to churn over whoever however).
Personally, I hope Heath Shuler loses. Hold out hope that some better candidate can fill the niche in the south, and in the meantime find that extra Democrat elsewhere.