The Democratic Strategist ruminates on The Bush Dog campaign CLICK THIS TEXT TO VISIT THIS BLOG'S CURRENT SITE

You can read "Concerning 'Bush Dogs'" and its comments here.

As someone who has been trying to get her brain wrapped around exactly how the effort fits in with anything I've ever felt as a Democrat, I highly recommend it, especially if, after reading some of the screeds that seem intent on intimidating anyone who doesn't support the effort to commit hari kari, you actually feel like committing hari kari.

I encourage you to read it in its entirety if this effort that began on Open Left interests you. However, here's the conclusion by the piece's author, Ed Kilgore:

Regardless of rationales or underyling beliefs about the ideological implications of electoral strategies, the "Bush Dog" campaign is clearly growing. The key questions are whether this will soon become a netroots-wide crusade, and if so, whether it will signal a fundamental transition from partisanship to ideology in netroots discourse.
In that connection, it's interesting that Markos Moulitsas has yet to personally weigh in, even though Stoller is cross-posting most of his "Bush Dog" stuff at DailyKos, and a variety of other DKos diarists are picking up on it.

That's significant because Markos has long been a key voice in favor of the pure partisanship approach to netroots organizing and advocacy. In the past, he's repeatedly suggested that the only true Sin Against the Holy Ghost for Democrats is to join Bush and his allies in reinforcing Republican attack lines on other Democrats. On the ancillary question of when it's appropriate to sponsor primary challenges to "centrist" Democrats, he's adopted the "Blue State" exception to intra-party comity: when it's clear a given state or district would elect a more left-bent candidate, there's no risk to partisan standing by "primarying" wayward Dems. That was part of the rationale for the Lamont challenge to Lieberman, and also for netroots-adopted challenges to Albert Wynn and Jane Harman (along with the threat to "primary" Ellen Tauscher).

But depending on how fervent it gets, and where it goes in terms of punishing Democratic dissenters, the "Bush Dog" campaign could force a fundamental reassessment of the partisanship approach, and could even, ironically, produce a split in the progressive netroots itself.

Names I recognize (and if I do, no doubt most WLST political blog reader-readers will too) on TDS's advisory board include Chris Bowers, one of the Open Left founders and promoters of the Bush Dog initiative, and these:

Jerome Armstrong
Sidney Blumenthal
Celinda Lake
Joe Lockhart
Mark Mellman
Guy Molyneux
Jonathan Nagler
Paul Waldman