Begala: 'I can't stand' socialists

Paul Begala saying he "can't stand" socialists isn't some brave heterodox moment. It's a Clinton-era operative watching his party's steering wheel get grabbed by people who think he's the problem, not the solution. The interesting part isn't that he said it. It's that he felt he had to.

For years the line from Democratic leadership was that the socialist wing was just an enthusiastic subset of the coalition, a few loud voices who'd fall in line come November. Begala's comment gives away the game. When your own strategists are publicly distancing themselves from the people winning your primaries, that's not a fringe problem anymore, that's a takeover in progress. Abdul's narrow win with a narrow coalition is exactly the kind of thing that terrifies people like Begala, because it means the socialists don't need a majority of Democrats. They just need to out-organize everyone else in a low-turnout primary, and then the rest of the party has to salute.

We'd take Begala's honesty over the usual Democratic two-step, where officials nod along with the socialist agenda in public and grumble about it in private. But let's not pretend this is some principled stand. It's panic. He can see what happens when a party stops policing its own left flank and starts apologizing for the people who used to be considered too radical to run citywide, let alone nationally.

The bigger story here is what it says about the Democratic coalition itself. A party that can't say no to its socialist wing without a strategist griping about it on camera doesn't have a governing philosophy anymore, it has a truce that keeps breaking down. Voters notice that. So does Begala, apparently.