This is an entertaining article on Chuck Schumer by Dan Henninger, but this sentence makes me raise an eyebrow: “With [his speech indicating that Democrats should not have concentrated on Obamacare], Chuck Schumer was sending an audible signal to state and local party bosses around the country and to peeved donors—aghast at the midterm results—that not everyone in Washington has lost his mind to the party’s Occupy-and-windmill wing.” …Only, the Democrats in Washington have collectively lost their minds.  Because talk is cheap.

No, seriously, we have heard this song and dance before. In 2006 and 2008 the Democrats ran a lot of candidates who talked a great game about dealing with American pocketbook issues and finding solutions and whatnot. And the American people elected those candidates… who then turned right around and looted the Treasury for the benefit of their pet causes (called the ‘stimulus’), followed closely by howlingly incompetent, and rapidly-approaching-disastrous*, social-economic engineering (‘Obamacare’).  Chuck Schumer was in on that.  The man has the morals of a cat – which is to say, he has none, but he’s legitimately affectionate towards anyone who feeds him regularly – so it doesn’t surprise me that Schumer now wants off of the Carousel.

But exactly why should American voters trust that the Democrats have learned their lesson?  Or indeed, any lesson at all? – Yes, I know that it’s a partisan Republican political hack who is asking that question, but it’s still a legitimate one.  There is a long-term problem in the Democratic party right now: which is that it’s being run by urban coastal liberals.  I don’t really subscribe to the arguments found in American Nations (short version: there are about eleven different and distinct countries that make up the United States of America, and the author of that book apparently has a problem with the one that’s in the South) – but you can’t help but notice that the Democratic party is powerful only on the West Coast and the Boston-NYC axis – and is fighting a losing war in the Great Lakes area, while being stalemated in the Tidewater region.  This is not compatible with being a functioning national party.

Of course, the Democrats could reverse this any time that they wanted.  But in order for them to want to, they need to have a party structure where they can tell a bunch of urban technocrats ‘No’ and make it stick.  I cannot see that happening any time soon.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Right now it’s just alarming and frustrating.  It’s when the Obama administration runs out of road on which to kick that can that things will become disastrous.