But it isn't just the Democratic Party that's in the grips of interest groups. So are the Republicans. Here's what I said in the Comments section of Ann Althouse's blog, where the Kos post was referenced:
I just read the piece by Kos and I think that there are at least two problems with it:
(1) He overestimates the extent to which the Republican Party is free of single-interest politics. Whether it's the gun lobby or more radical pro-life groups, the Republican Party is as captive to interests as the Democrats. Winning just makes it appear that the Republicans have more for which they stand and that they stand above the interest group-catering the Democrats do.
Watching Newt Gingrich's appearance before an Iowa group last week, broadcast on CSpan last evening, drove home the point that neither party is talking much about ideas that vault past interest groups' virtual veto power over public debate. Gingrich is talking about ideas and it's refreshing. Yes, I know that there are problems with Gingrich, that he too caters to groups, and that he just wants to ride ideas as vehicles to power. But to advance ideas and not be a political cliche is very rare among politicos of either party. Somehow, Gingrich seems to be content with practicing his politics in this way. (McCain and Hagel stand out examples of such exceptional pols as well.)
(2) Political parties always have knitted together majorities through what I call "coalitions of selfishness." Often, people who end up in a partisan coalition are akin to the lovers in Bob Seger's "Night Moves": "I used her and she used me." [sic] There's no love of party principle, just of advancing one's own agenda.
The game is simple: Tote up enough positions appealing to various interest groups and you get a majority. That's discouraging sometimes and often disgusting. But it's the way things work in a democracy. There have been few exceptions to this usual modus operandi in our history, it seems.
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