Dems Fuming As Retiring Rep. Backs Republican Incumbent

You’d think Jared Golden had walked into the caucus meeting and set fire to the podium, the way some Democrats are carrying on. Their sin? The congressman from Maine’s Second District looked at the actual political landscape in his state and decided to endorse a Republican for a state office. That’s it. No policy betrayal. No double-cross. He just acknowledged that the other guy might be the better fit for the job and said so out loud.

The fury is instructive. For the modern Democratic Party, loyalty to the party line is the only virtue that matters, and deviation is treated as a personal betrayal. They don’t want members who think; they want members who fall in line. Golden, a Blue Dog who has never fit the progressive mold, just reminded everyone that he represents a district in rural Maine, not a precinct in Portland. He has to answer to loggers and lobstermen, not just the DCCC’s donor class. Putting your constituents ahead of your party’s purity test is apparently a career-ending move. Maybe in their world, it is.

We’d call it something else: honesty. It’s the kind of common-sense independence that used to be the hallmark of American politics before everything became a national litmus test. If a Democrat looks at his own state and decides the Republican is the better candidate, that’s not a scandal. It’s a data point about how narrow the left’s coalition has become. The GOP should take note. There’s a real opportunity to win over independents and even some Democrats who are tired of being told who they’re allowed to support.

The Democrats’ freakout is their problem. They can keep shrinking their tent by demanding total ideological conformity, but they shouldn’t be shocked when more of their members start finding the exits. Golden didn’t switch parties; he just refused to lie about his judgment. For that, he’s getting hammered. We’d say that says more about them than him.