Today David Broder weeps for Charlie Stenholm, another conservative Democrat who has gone down to defeat. The declining number of moderates in Congress is certainly cause for concern, but this is getting carried away:
Bigger names are leaving Congress -- notably former Democratic leaders Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt -- but no one will be missed more on both sides of the aisle than Charlie Stenholm, the cotton farmer from Texas who has been in the House for 26 years.
No one will be missed more on both sides of the aisle? Stenholm has a lifetime rating of 70 from the American Conservative Union, which makes him essentially a moderate Republican, so I doubt the Democrats will be missing him as much as, say, Daschle or Gephardt. And the Republicans explicitly redistricted Stenholm out of a seat. I doubt most of them are too upset either.
I also can't resist making fun of this passage, which perfectly expresses Broder's metaphysical belief that the best path always lies in compromise between the parties:
[Stenholm] also believes that both parties will eventually have to come to grips with the unsustainability of Social Security in its current form. With a laugh, Stenholm recounted his amazement at hearing "my conservative Republican opponent make the same promise as the Massachusetts liberal [John Kerry] -- 'I will not cut your benefits, or raise your taxes or increase the retirement age.' "
"When both extremes are talking nonsense," said this defeated but unrepentant middle-roader, "there must be some way of getting them together that makes sense."
If only we worked out our disagreements, everything would be a-ok!
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