What is going on in healthcare illustrates the real difference between the Democratic and Republican Caucus.
The Republican Caucus is more homogeneous. There may be individual members with particular opinions or agendas but as a rule it is easier to hold together. They are united by a common set of basic values. That doesn’t mean they won’t violate them easily (as has been amply demonstrated) but the A smaller majority of republicans are can act is a single direction because they generally look in a single direction.
The Democratic Caucus is actually a conglomeration of many different groups, based on race, sexual preference, and others, quite a few of the anti-anti’s other groups from environmentalists, feminists, to pacifists, to socialists et /al.
The problem here is that some of these groups are by nature diametrically opposite of one other, For example the democrats for reasons I still can’t explain tend to get 90% of the black vote, but that same community is highly religious and mostly protestant. To expect that they were going to support Gay Marriage in California was very funny, but of course the left KNEW this but didn’t dare attack a member of the grand coalition so instead the Mormons and little old ladies with crosses were the target.
As the Hispanic (do the descendants of the former Spanish colonies of South America actually call themselves “Hispanic” or is that another term made up by us?) community increases democrats hope to gain votes, but these are also VERY Catholic people, a lot of them are better Catholics then what we have here now. They also come from a society that still celebrates the Macho. (have you every actually WATCHED Spanish language TV? Feminists would be marching in the streets over it if that was the fare on ABC, NBC, CBS et/al. It’s spike TV on steroids!)
Given this situation it is no wonder that democrats can’t get a bill out on their own. The various caucus have different beliefs, different agendas and most importantly different voting bases.
The actual fact is that the people in the safest districts are the biggest advocates of health care “reform” so they have the least to lose except in a primary. The problem is the leadership knows that a primary challenge in those districts will likely not hurt democratic prospects there.
They DO know that in the blue dog districts those seats ARE at risk, particularly in 2010 since the easiest time to unseat an incumbent is in their first bid for re-election.
Do you think the leadership is going to risk their Chairmanships in the house over this? I think not.
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