Milbank: Purity politics, Democrat-style
Here comes the tea party of the left.
On a rainy Monday morning, 50 sodden liberal activists stood on the muddy front lawn of the Capitol Hill home of Sen. Mary Landrieu, advocating for the Louisiana Democrats defeat.
This house is high and dry, but the coastlines of Louisiana are sinking, very much like Senator Landrieus career! Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, shouted into a microphone.
The activists behind him, who had inflated a model of an oil pipeline on the senators lawn using a generator and a window fan, erupted in cheers of Woo-hoo! and Yeah!
And shes hooking her political career on the passage of the Keystone XL pipeline, continued Pica, referring to Landrieus effort to force a Senate vote on the project in an effort to boost her prospects in next months runoff election.
You would rather allow Big Oil to dictate the politics of this country and your reelection at the expense of ... this country and the world, just to get reelected, Pica charged. Shame on you!
I pulled aside Pica, water dripping from his nose, to ask whether he really believed that it would be better for the environmentalist cause if Republican House member Bill Cassidy who says he isnt even sure climate change exists wins the runoff against Landrieu, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee.
Yeah, I think it would be good thing, the activist said. Even if its a freshman junior senator from Louisiana whos a Republican, it ends up being better for our issues because you dont have a leader in the Senate on energy issues fighting for more oil pipelines.
In fact, Pica wasnt troubled that so many moderate Democrats with wishy-washy positions on oil and gas lost their seats this month. He said a smaller group of uniformly liberal Democrats would help his cause, particularly as the president is trying to push through executive orders. Having a more united Democratic caucus helps.
Ive heard this argument before, coming from tea party activists who said that they would rather have a smaller but reliably conservative caucus than a large majority full of RINOs Republicans in Name Only who arent reliable votes. The emerging purists on the left arent nearly as strong as the tea party was (and they wont be, as long as theres a Democrat in the White House), but its noteworthy that Democrats are becoming more willing to purge those who arent ideologically pure.
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Milbank: Purity politics, Democrat-style