March 19, 2009 12:53 AM UTC

Udall, Bennet Join Moderate Caucus Thingy

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

Democratic Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet announced today in a joint press release that they are now officially part of a moderate working group/coalition/thingy called “The Moderate Dems Working Group.” According to the announcement:

The Moderate Dems Working Group will meet every other Tuesday before the Democratic Caucus lunch to discuss legislative strategies and ideas. The Moderate Dems held their second meeting Tuesday to focus on the upcoming budget negotiations and the importance of passing a fiscally responsible spending plan in the Senate.

Leading the new group are Democratic Senators Evan Bayh of Indiana, Tom Carper of Delaware and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas…

…Others joining the group are Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado, Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Mark Warner of Virginia.

Perhaps predictably, this announcement led to much pooping of pants among die-hard liberal bloggers throwing around words like “traitors.” We don’t consider the word “moderate” to be either scary or dirty, so we’re willing to give Udall and Bennet the benefit of the doubt for awhile on this. But at the same time, we’re a little puzzled by the reasoning behind this maneuver by Udall and Bennet.

First off, Udall is looking more and more like he’s trying to be Ken Salazar, who began his freshman session as a Senator by joining the “Gang of 14” and doing a bunch of other moderate stuff. That worked well for Salazar, because as we pointed out repeatedly, it wasn’t all that different from the type of person that Salazar always was. Salazar was always a moderate, he ran for election to the Senate as a moderate, and he began his term in a much different political climate for Democrats.

Now Udall is a lot of things, but he’s not Ken Salazar, and he never will be. Udall was never a moderate as a congressman, but now he seems to be bending over backwards to remake himself into something he quite clearly is not. We’ve heard rumors, in fact, that Udall has generally avoided in-person meetings with many of the environmental folks that helped make him a Congressman and a Senator…and all so that he can make people think he’s a moderate.

So why is this so puzzling? Because Udall just won an election by double freaking-digits by being Mark Udall — not by being this new pretend moderate guy. Democrats won sweeping victories in 2008 with a clear progressive mandate from voters, but now Udall wants to remake himself into something different? What the hell for?

As for Bennet, he has more reason to try to define himself as a moderate – since he’s never even been elected yet – but before he does that he needs to take some time to define himself as a Democrat, lest he get himself a difficult primary fight. He would be wise to polish up the ol’ Democratic credentials before making himself into ‘Moderate Guy.’

Bennet may very well turn out to be Captain Moderate, but that won’t be worth two rusty nickels in a Democratic primary. And if he’s worried about “the business community” in a general election, well, Udall’s election showed us last fall that this scary wives-tale has already been debunked.

So while we don’t understand Udall and Bennet’s attempts to re-classify themselves, we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt until the important votes come down. Because at the end of the day, all of this moderate coalition nonsense won’t protect them if they make the wrong decisions on important Democratic votes like health care reform, Employee Free Choice and climate change. Hiding yourself in the “moderate caucus” in order to cast votes against your Democratic constituency isn’t going to fool anyone.