The Lesson of Big Ben

In college, a psyche-major friend experimented on lab rats. Nothing horrid, rather pedestrian, actually. He had a favorite, a huge mutha of a white rat named Big Ben. Ben was placed in a box with a little red light at the top, a lever on one wall and a dispenser next to it. If Ben pressed the lever, the light would burn and a tasty (to lab rats) pellet would plop into the dispenser.

Ben was a slow learner. He'd hit the lever every now and then. Then, he'll find the pellet and enjoy the treat. But he never really associated the pellet with the lever. Until, one day, when it hit him.

As my friend described it, Ben took an interest in the light, which was just out of his reach. Ben hauled his long, pudgy lab rat body up on his hinds, reaching for the light. Lunging and lurching in a doomed to fail attempt to make contact with the thing, Ben lost his balance. Tippling backwards, his head thumped down the lever and, in that position, he was facing the dispenser. He saw the pellet plop out and finally "got it".

Yes, from that eureka moment, Big Ben suddenly learned how to get all the pellets he could stand. Several times an hour, Big Ben would lift his frame up on his hind quarters and throw himself backwards, intentionally smashing his lab rat skull on the lever. He'd then stagger to his feet and wobble over to the dispenser for his reward.

Last evening, on the News Hour, Mark Shields designated Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid as big winners from the Tuesday results:

I guess, beyond that, I'd have to say that the unsung story of this campaign, Rahm Emanuel did a good, terrific job in the House for the Democrats in the campaign committee, but it was really Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate leader, who backed him up every step of the way.

They intruded in primaries, which has never been done before. That's considered bad form, but think about it.

RAY SUAREZ: Anointing preferred winners?

MARK SHIELDS: And backing people, and risking anger.

RAY SUAREZ: "This is the guy we'd rather see as our party's nominee"?

MARK SHIELDS: Best example, Ray, was Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, a pro-life Democrat. Chuck Schumer got 10,000 e-mails, messages and calls from the National Organization of Women and other abortion rights groups, who are just livid that he had anointed and backed Bob Casey. You got Ed Rendell, the Democratic governor, to do the same thing.

They did in Rhode Island with Sheldon Whitehouse. They did it in Ohio, with Sherrod Brown, same thing. Jim Webb in Virginia, they intervened before the primary, who ended up beating George Allen. Harold Ford in Tennessee, and Amy Klobuchar, we mentioned, in Minnesota, and went and chased Claire McCaskill down in London to persuade her. And Harry Reid talked to her husband to tell her that it would be OK.

So, I mean, that was really a first, and they did a terrific job. And they risked making lifetime enemies, and they made some, in the process.

Shields is right -- Schumer interfered in the primaries, that is considered bad form, and he made lifetime enemies in the process. And, of course, the Democrats won. But he is wrong to suggest that the notion of designating the primary winner from without, and running so-called moderate candidates, is what won the day for the Democrats.

Not only is Shields wrong in that conclusion -- believing it will be the beginning of the end of power for the Democrats. (Shields also got some of the facts wrong -- Schumer didn't convince Rendell to back Casey, Rendell convinced Schumer -- it conveniently got Casey off the radar for the Gubernatorial primary.)

Worse than Republicans believing that the 2006 midterms were the result of Democrats running to the center/right, is the Democrats believing it.

While Schumer did, purposefully, select candidates who, on many issues, rejected traditional Democratic positions, those candidates did not run on those issues. Bob Casey only mentioned abortion rights when he was forced to answer a reporter's question (which was rare enough -- Casey ran away from reporters and reporters who did corner him tossed their usual MSM softballs).

Democratic challengers who took back the Senate all ran and, based on the exit polls, won on the same issue -- Republican excesses. They ran against the absurdity of Iraq, they ran against the Imperial President, and against the Republican response to absolute and unchecked power -- corruption.

As quickly as the Republican talking machine had their excuses out, Glenn Greenwald laid out the reality for them:

Democratic candidates won -- in every part of the country and regardless of their ideology -- by committing themselves to one basic platform. They vigorously opposed what have become the defining attributes of the Republican Party and they pledged to put a stop to them: unchecked Presidential power, mindless warmongering, a refusal to accept or acknowledge realities (both in Iraq and generally), and the deep-seated, fundamental corruption fueling the Bush movement and sustaining their power.

Virtually every Democratic winner, from the most conservative to the most liberal, in the reddest and bluest states, have that in common. They all ran on a platform of putting a stop to the radicalism, deceit and corruption that drives the so-called "conservative" political movement.

For the Democrats to take any other lesson from these victories would be dangerous for them. Schumer is throwing his head back against the lever if he believes that interfering with the primary system to install moderate-to-right candidates is what won the day on Tuesday. What won the day was a united opposition to the incompetent and corrupt administration of mindless and shortsighted policy to which these Republicans had become increasingly addicted over the last six years.

It is more than a little sad that all of us dedicated to traditional liberal principles have a tender spot on the back of their heads after the Tuesday elections. It was not necessary to run Bob Casey to defeat Rick Santorum. It was not necessary to run Tester or Webb to win those races.

The Republicans weakened themselves -- enabled the debacle which they have become -- not in small part because of successive, accumulating compromise of their traditional principles in favor of obtaining and maintaining power. They have spent six years thrusting themselves backwards onto the lever and paid the price earlier this week. If the Democrats begin to believe that it was necessary to run Casey or Tester or Webb, it is they who eventually will suffer from the same headaches to the same disastrous results.