Note for Senator Mark Udall from Markos Moulitsas at DailyKos

by: Zappatero

Wed Nov 28, 2012 at 12:46:27 PM MST

The Democratic majority in the United States Senate has been significantly fortified with solid progressives like consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren and populist pitbull, anti-filibuster good-guy Sherrod Brown. Blue Dog Conservadems continued their losing tradition (see J. Salazar, B. Markey) and were mostly defeated, even with the endorsement and praise of deficit mongers Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, or replaced with Republicans.

Mark Udall, riding the coattails of Obama's election in 2008 is up for re-election in 2014 and is surely devising a campaign strategy even as I type this post. Here's the view from 2008:

Few states rode Senator Barack Obama's coattails as much as Colorado. Hosts to the Democratic National Convention in August, Coloradoans continued their shift to the left thanks to the growing number of younger and Hispanic voters in the state.

Representative Mark Udall, a Democrat, won the Senate seat left vacant by the retirement of Wayne Allard, a Republican. Mr. Udall beat Bob Schaffer, a Republican, with 52 percent of the vote.

In the contest to choose Mr. Udall's successor in the Second Congressional District Jared Polis captured nearly 60 percent of the vote....

Udall aligned himself with endangered/extinct Blue Dogs and has played to a Fox News, fawning, fiscally "conservative" CNBC-type audience since. And remember this: the Tea Party was born on CNBC, not Fox, and their hosts can be just as radical and ignorant as those on Fox.

Much like 2008, 2012 gave us another mandate and another repudiation of radical Republican policies. Much like 2008, Democrats have a lingering timidity of principle and chronic reliance on beltway conventional wisdom rather than a reliable ear on the ground in the place where their constituents live.

Markos Moulitsas, whose analysis has been correct far more than many inside-the-beltway "experts", has this to say about that:

Democrats can win base elections, and only base elections

The last three elections certainly suggest it-Democrats win when they aggressively court their base (2008 and 2012), and lose when they get mushy (2010).

Wisconsin Senator-elect Tammy Baldwin, too.

Our base groups aren't just larger than theirs, but are growing at a torrid pace like Latinos (obviously), Asians, African Americans, and creative-class regions (Research Triangle in North Carolina, Northern Virginia, Austin, Atlanta, Seattle, etc). Meanwhile, women have remained steadfastly Democratic while outnumbering men at the polls by a crazy six-point margin, 53-47.

...

Indeed, the Democratic Party's Third Way/DLC-driven obsession with independent voters is unambiguously obsolete: Obama lost independents 50-45 and it didn't mean shit. He still won comfortably on the basis of strong base support.

So Udall may please his CNBC hosts, play to non-existent "independents", and happily vote for Bowles-Simpson plan to trash Social Security, then go home satisfied he did his best.

Or he could listen to one of the most astute polical analysts of our time, become a principled fighter for the Middle Class, and be easily re-elected as true Democrat from Colorado who finally lives up to the proud history of his family name.