BECAUSE DOWN-BALLOT DEMOCRATS NEED DIVISIVENESS AND BACKSTABBING, TOO

John Kerry is up for reelection this year, and while he's never been my favorite elected official, I struggle to see the urgency of driving him from office. I might have thought his 100 rating from the NAACP, 95 rating from the AFL-CIO, 93 rating from the League of Conservation Voters, and 90 ratings from NARAL and Americans for Democratic Action, just to pick a few choice stats (not to mention his 4 rating from the American Conservative Union and F- from the Gun Owners of America), would have secured his position as a rather progressive member of Congress. Apparently not -- he has a primary challenger named Ed O'Reilly, and O'Reilly has been endorsed by Progressive Democrats of America. (O'Reilly has qualified for the ballot; he's Kerry's first primary challenger in 23 years.)

Oh, and O'Reilly's been endorsed not only by PDA-MA, but by Professor Heidi Li Feldman of Georgetown -- a much-admired PUMA who, when she's not telling CQ Politics that Hillary Clinton could still win a convention vote in Denver (and running full-page newspaper ads urging just such a vote), is actively touting O'Reilly's candidacy and asserting that "he deserves the support of all those who believe in the goal of The Denver Group" ("Denver Group" being one of the billion or so different organizational names used by the PUMAs).

I don't think this is anywhere near enough to defeat Kerry -- but if there are Democratic donors and campaign workers out there and they're giving money and/or time to O'Reilly rather than to some Democrat anywhere in America whose election might represent a genuine change in direction, that's money and time utterly squandered.

I don't know if this is genuine progressive cluelessness or Rovian rat-fucking using an army of extraordinarily cynical Democratic fund-raisers.

All I know is that if Democrats screw up this election year, we should just break up the party and all join the GOP en masse -- obviously our skill at self-sabotage is so great that it can overcome any advantage, so maybe we can put it to some positive use by joining, infiltrating, and, inevitably, destroying the most powerful and dangerous political machine of our time.