Not A Healthy Marriage Right Now

Over at Polipundit they're discussing a schism in the Dems, between the Old Guard faction who favor the Michael Moore approach to politics, and a New Guard who want to take over and change course a bit. As USA Today reports:

"This generation is looking for ways to participate because we're tired of losing," says Jamal Simmons, 33, a consultant who has worked for presidential hopeful Wesley Clark and several other Southern candidates.

Simmons and his fellow "Young Turks" worry about the Democratic Party's dependence on interest groups, their relations with minority groups, the stereotypes that they are weak on defense and values, the Republican appropriation of the "reformer" label and the swaths of America that Democrats seem to have written off.

Young Democrats believe that the party is dominated by people who came of age politically in the 1960s, and it's time for them to make room for new ideas and new voices. Theirs.

The New Guard won't win, though, and they'll have to form a new party eventually, because:

• There's no way the Old Guard would ever leave first; their policies have extremely limited appeal and they simply can't afford to give up the vote-by-rote traditional Dem support.


• The New Guard who want to moderate their party's positions will get beaten up in the MSM just as badly as the Republicans, making it extremely tough for them to take over; the MSM is Old Guard itself.

This conflict will continue until the New Guard throws up its hands in frustration and starts a new party, probably in partnership with a few prominent center-left Republicans.

The danger at that point will be that the Old Guard (which, shorn of its moderates will be harder and lefter than ever) can sneak up the middle in a 3-way vote split. As Perot & Nader have each demonstrated, it doesn't take much to tip the balance.