Over at Newsweek, Ben Adler
makes the case --from a liberal perspective -- for Democrats
stripping Charlie Rangel of his chairmanship. He's worried that
if Democrats circle the wagons to defend Rangel, it will hurt
them badly at the polls, just as the culture of corruption theme
contributed to Republicans losing power:
The Democrats were not elected on a
promise to return to the days of when the minority party had
more power in policymaking, but they were elected on a promise
to clean Congress's dirty laundry. Either Democrats prove that
the days of Duke
Cunningham-like behavior are over, or they will repeat the
mistakes of the Tom DeLay-era Republicans, and voters may
punish them at the polls for their hypocrisy.
I think Adler is right to be concerned. It wasn't just 2006 -- in
1994, Democratic scandals such as the Dan Rostenkowski House post
offfice fiasco helped bring Republicans to power in the first
place. While ideological voters tend to decide who to vote for
based on issues, election outcomes are often determined on
non-ideological grounds by swing voters. This is one reason why
ideological types are often surprised when their team gets to
power and it turns out that the public is not as supportive of
their actual policy goals as they imagined.
