| Democrats have just sent several proud progressives to the U.S. Senate: Sherrod Brown was re-elected after a massive million-dollar campaign attack, a true advocate of The People was elected in Elizabeth Warren. She's on the Banking Committee as well. Tammy Baldwin and others have shored up a Democratic Senate that never had the zeal or cohesiveness of its Republican component. (This also proves both sides don't "do it".)
Colorado's own Michael Bennet has now been given the job of solidifying the significant progressive upgrade while doing his day-to-day work in the senate. He's the new chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and wanted to make sure his Republican colleagues wouldn't be upset that he's trying to put them out of a job.
The Denver Post headline highlights the conflict:
Sen. Bennet seeks bipartisan assurances in taking partisan job
Before accepting the traditionally partisan top job at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sen. Michael Bennet got assurances from all over Capitol Hill that he could carry out the duty without being a bridge burner.
Bennet says he took almost a month to decide whether to take on the role because in part he wanted confirmation, from Republicans in particular, that the job would not imperil relationships he has painstakingly built in four years on Capitol Hill.
Or maybe he doesn't want to put them out of a job.
The bipartisan obsession is particularly bad in the senate. We'll just have to wait and see if Bennet can achieve his ideal level of bipartisanship in his day job and give Democrats a more useful majority as DSCC Chair. But the senator who once complained of a broken senate and an intransigent minority has quickly become wrapped in the customs and traditions of a body that needs many of those same customs and traditions - unaccountable presidential commissions, Gangs of Senators roaming the back rooms of the capital, the filibuster and other senate rules - thrown out of that stagnated, anti-democratic body.
I'm not so sure Bennet can handle both jobs when he only recently got elected to - and is still in training on - the first. |
