The Kaus Pretence

For years, Slate's Mickey Kaus has blogged as a Republican pretending to be a Democrat. That's also Kaus' approach now that he's challenging Barbara Boxer for the Democratic nomination to the Senate.

I have no special beef with the incumbent, Senator Boxer. She is a state-of-the-art Democrat. But . . . "State of the art" means the incumbent has learned to please the party's interest groups, often at the expense of the needs of average individuals and the party's own ideals. It means the incumbent supports a "card check" bill that would effectively take away the secret ballot from workers in order to give more power to the big unions-- including public employee unions--whose influence over our great industries and our government has led to disaster . . . This isn't the Democratic party I signed up for. It's not the party many common sense Democratic voters signed up for.

Yeah, Mickey. You're right and everybody who thinks the Democrats have been supporting labor unions since the 1930's is wrong. Pretty soon, you'll be able to convince everyone that the Democrats never supported civil rights, women's rights, or gay rights. When you and Joe Lieberman signed up as Democrats, "everyone in their own closet" was the party motto. How exactly did the party get so darned "liberal."

Back in the real world . . .