WIPEOUT – AT 9:48 A.M. ET:  One of the saddest spectacles in American politics over the last generation has been the transition of the Democratic Party from the once great seat of Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy to the shadow that it is today.

Essentially, the transition has seen the return of the fringe left, dramatically cast aside by Harry Truman in 1948, and the decline of the "traditional" Democrats, like Joe Lieberman, who's essentially been expelled from his party.  The Democratic Party today is Barack Obama, not Jack Kennedy.  It's John Kerry, not the great Henry "Scoop" Jackson, one of the great national-defense Democrats.

The traditional party is represented in Congress by the so-called "blue dog" Democrats.  They are the only hope for the party to get back to sanity and sound values.  But the blue dogs are in danger of being wiped out, as The Politico reports:

Just when the Blue Dogs thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.

Two years after the 2010 midterm elections decimated their ranks, the coalition of conservative Democrats is poised to get pummeled again in November — moving the Blue Dogs dangerously close to extinction.

Of the 24 remaining Blue Dogs, five are not seeking reelection. More than a half-dozen others are facing treacherous contests in which their reelection hopes are in jeopardy.

It’s a rough time to occupy the right wing of the Democratic Party.

“It’s a tough environment out there,” said former Alabama Rep. Bud Cramer, a longtime member of the House Blue Dog Coalition. “Their numbers are down. Redistricting has not been kind to them.”

Cramer nailed it: Redistricting is at the root of the Blue Dog problem. The once-in-a-decade line-drawing has forced some of them to compete for seats that have become even less friendly to Democrats — and those seats weren’t very friendly to begin with. Utah Rep. Jim Matheson, Georgia Rep. John Barrow and North Carolina Rep. Mike McIntyre are among those who have been thrust into deeply Republican territory after being targeted in GOP-led redistricting efforts in their home states.

COMMENT:  It's sad, because our electoral system depends on two strong parties.  I have always said that I want both parties to put up their best candidates.  Who benefits from mediocrity or rigidity?  In recent years, though, each party has become increasingly ideological, whereas, historically, the strength of our system derived in part from a belief in practicality.  The country would tilt somewhat to the left, then somewhat to the right, always capable of getting back to the middle.  We are center left or center right.

Franklin Roosevelt took some ideas from the socialist movement, but never invited its leaders into his tent.

Ronald Reagan took some ideas from the pro-life movement, but kept a careful distance.

The wiping out of the blue dogs would turn the Democratic Party completely over to the California dreamin' crowd, the believers in George McGovern and Jesse Jackson, the worshippers of sixties values.  The Republicans, although they've moved somewhat to the right, still have a greater sense of American practicality, in part because conservatism tends toward the practical.

But we are in danger if our parties become, like European parties, ideological icebergs.  We wish the blue dogs well.

April 17, 2012