Edwards Wins

Donna Edwards takes the nomination from Al Wynn. The significance is three-fold. On the one hand, Wynn was a bad rep and now he's gone, which is good. On the other hand, this is a very safe seat for Democrats, so a talented, principled representative like Edwards has the opportunity to use it as a base of operations to be a major progressive leader. It's very desirable to get these seats into the hands of people who'll be more than just reliable votes, but actually go the extra mile to really advance important causes. There's no telling if Edwards will live up to that promise, but she's an extremely impressive individual who certainly has the potential.

Last, the tree of progressive politics must be watered with the metaphorical blood of sellouts ever now and again. Some people seem to me to walk around in their head with a model in which politicians are very principled ideologues who then divert from their default status due to electoral fears. In a more plausible schematic, they have a natural tendency to drift in the direction of utter corruption and only electoral fear keeps them doing their jobs in a somewhat responsible manner. The demonstration effect of even a narrow win is large, and that of a substantial defeat like the one Wynn suffered can be very big indeed. Elected officials across the country are taking note.

Comments

"Progesssive," Matt? I thought you'd taken a firm stand for "liberal."

Posted by Christmas | February 13, 2008 10:49 AM

It's great for Edwards, but I'm saddened by Wayne Gilchrest's loss.

Posted by jbryan | February 13, 2008 10:50 AM

"Last, the tree of progressive politics must be watered with the metaphorical blood of sellouts ever[y] now and again."

A nice bit of poetry from the usually prosaic Yglesias.

It's worth noting that a lot of people (yours truly included) didn't think she could pull it off in a high-turnout election. But they had enough resources, and cleverly spent a lot of effort canvassing precincts they believed to be heavy with new Obama voters. Bravo.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | February 13, 2008 10:51 AM

In a more plausible schematic, they have a natural tendency to drift in the direction of utter corruption and only electoral fear keeps them doing their jobs in a somewhat responsible manner.

Depressing but probably true, and what a damn shame.

Posted by drjimcooper | February 13, 2008 10:53 AM

Ditto everything Matthew said with respect to the excellent win for Harris over the sellout Wayne Gilchrist.

Posted by Al | February 13, 2008 10:54 AM

>>>In a more plausible schematic, they have a natural tendency to drift in the direction of utter corruption and only electoral fear keeps them doing their jobs in a somewhat responsible manner.

What a very un-Obama-like thing to say. Anyway, reads like it could have been written by a member of the Reform Party circa 1992.

Posted by dry_fish | February 13, 2008 10:57 AM

Great post, but saying "the significance is three-fold" should not be followed by an "on the one hand / on the other hand" construction, unless you have three hands.

Posted by pedant | February 13, 2008 11:01 AM

I don't know if Maryland is unusually bad in this respect, but several of the Maryland congressional districts are gerrymandered in an altogether spectacular fashion. Edwards' district, in particular, sprawls from the chunk of PG county adjacent to the eastern edge of DC into the area of northern Montgomery county around Germantown. I have a suspicion that the MoCo voters were a big factor in Edwards' win.

Posted by MattF | February 13, 2008 11:10 AM

Is this evidence of the length of Obama's coattails, if what Nick Beaudrot says is true?

Posted by Trevor J | February 13, 2008 11:14 AM

When's Harry Reid up for re-election?

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | February 13, 2008 11:21 AM

"I have a suspicion that the MoCo voters were a big factor in Edwards' win."

Edwards definitely carried Montgomery by a larger margin, but you can see here that Wynn was soundly beaten in PG County as well.

The bottom line is that Wynn was a lousy Congressman who took his job for granted. He never had the support of the Montgomery voters who were gerrymandered into his district in 2002, and PG voters turned on him as soon as they were given a credible alternative.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | February 13, 2008 11:24 AM

Is this evidence of the length of Obama's coattails, if what Nick Beaudrot says is true?

Why would it be evidence of Obama's coattails when Obama never endorsed Edwards over the other candidate?

Posted by Dan the Man | February 13, 2008 11:25 AM

pedant has been reading his Matt Taibbi.

Trevor, I think there are quite a few sitting Senators who have taken that exact position on the 2008 election (and, in the case of Claire McCaskill, 2012, which displays a remarkable degree of faith in the man).

Posted by jhupp | February 13, 2008 11:25 AM

This proves the Blogosphere rules!

Posted by Gore/Edwards 08 | February 13, 2008 11:27 AM

Its really not something to be regretted, drjimcooper. The self-interest of others is a lot easier to understand and anticipate than is their ideology.

We harness not the virtues of politicians but their vices to the wagon of government. Vanity in particular. Its a far more reliable source of traction. ;)

Posted by Alden | February 13, 2008 11:33 AM

" ...Wynn was soundly beaten in PG County as well."

Interesting. I'm not complaining, btw... I think that having an actual lefty in the delegation will be a good thing. Balance out ol' Roscoe Bartlett, at least.

Posted by MattF | February 13, 2008 11:36 AM

poetry? it's an awful metaphor.

Posted by M | February 13, 2008 11:39 AM

"The significance is three-fold. On the one hand..."

This is Harvard-caliber writing? I don't think so.

Posted by HeavyJ | February 13, 2008 11:45 AM

I hope Pera will run again.

Posted by della Rovere | February 13, 2008 11:49 AM

pedant has been reading his Matt Taibbi.

Who's he?

Posted by pedant | February 13, 2008 11:58 AM

So which one's the superdelegate? Wynn or Edwards?

Posted by nolaboyd | February 13, 2008 12:00 PM

or as Atrios said, perhaps they're not corrupted so much as they really think what they're doing is the right decision, i.e.: they're not corrupt, they're just wrong.

(Of course, corruption exists too. For instance, have you been caught with tens of thousands of dollars in your freezer? Then you may be corrupt... :) )

Posted by lutton | February 13, 2008 12:07 PM

or as Atrios said, perhaps they're not corrupted so much as they really think what they're doing is the right decision, i.e.: they're not corrupt, they're just wrong.

Wynn was corrupt. Others may just be wrong, but there's no two ways about it in this particular case. He had no principles to sell out, he was simply available for sale.

Posted by Antid Oto | February 13, 2008 12:26 PM

Sorry, Taibbi wrote this about Tom Friedman:

Even in remission, genius is genius. How do you get around the natural mathematical limitations of the construction, "On the one hand ... but on the other hand ..."? After all, we humans only have two hands. You or I would never have thought of it, but Friedman knew instinctively -- just add another hand!

His schtick, in fact, is laying waste to Friedman's constant overuse and misuse of metaphors.

Posted by jhupp | February 13, 2008 1:22 PM

I apologize. Closing A tag now .

Posted by jhupp | February 13, 2008 1:34 PM

And of course I fucked up the tag to begin with, so it didn't link anywhere. I'm a failure.

Posted by jhupp | February 13, 2008 1:37 PM

And Mikulski just voted for telecom immunity, just like she voted for Lieberman-Kyl. Time to send her packing just like Wynn.

Posted by SteveH | February 13, 2008 3:32 PM

As one who lives in Wynn's district and is happy to see a progressive now on the way in, I'd mention several things.

Edwards ran a great (but late starting) campaign in 2006 and almost pulled off an upset then (in a two candidate race). It's apparent she worked very hard since (I was a little worried when the ballot had 5 candidates this time and wondered if that was a bit of nefariousness to split the anti- vote).

Wynn's voting record was awful. The corporate larding of his campaign contribution rolls showed exactly why ($500K from oil and energy alone - not surprising considering he chairs an environmental subcommittee).

The one thing he'd paid attention to (at least since getting religion after his near loss two years ago) was a sudden burst of constituent service and town hall meetings. Feeling the electoral fear is one thing, but the reaction didn't seem to be enough (despite his buckets of corporate money and a strong burst of negative campaigning at the end).

I don't think Edward's win has anything to do with Obama, who as pointed out didn't endorse anyone.

For a strongly Democratic state, Maryland has a lot of weakly Democratic reps. Not sure why, but it's good to see some progress on that front.

Though maybe slightly OT I found it interesting that nearly all of the Maryland Democratic establishment came out early and strongly endorsing Hillary, but the voters had other ideas (by a huge margin).

Posted by jhc1 | February 13, 2008 4:09 PM