For Congress, Party Affiliation is the Only Thing that Matters

I think that, in a couple of days or weeks or months, many of the Dems who voted for Scott Brown tonight are going to be kicking themselves. Don't get me wrong, Martha Coakley was an abysmal candidate, she had a ton of gaffes, didn't try very hard, and clearly condescended to the electorate. From what I've read, Brown was smart, energetic, compassionate, and reasonable. It was also a terrible idea for anybody who cares about progressive policy to vote for him.

Congressional elections (particularly for the House) in this hyperpartisan age are becoming increasingly like parliamentary elections. In the UK, you may be voting for MP from Pole-otter on Teacozyshire, but really you're voting for whether you want Gordon Brown or David Cameron to be Prime Minister. Same thing applies in the US House of Reps. Party discipline is so strong that even "moderates" in the House vote with their party 80-90% of the time - and they always vote with their party on the all-important questions of which party gets the majority (and thus the committee chairmanships and the ability to introduce or totally block legislation). It may be tempting to cross party lines to vote for a moderate, reasonable, not-at-all-like-Sarah-Palin guy like Scott Brown, but you have to remember that a vote for Scott Brown is a vote for wacko Mitch McConnell for Majority Leader. Charlie Rangel is my current Congressman. In my opinion he's crooked and half-senile, but in a close race between him and a reincarnated Teddy Roosevelt I'd vote for Rangel if TR was going to caucus with John Boehner and Eric Cantor.

I'm sure this will appall my independent readers, but party affiliation is essentially the only thing that matters in races for Congress. If you truly care about passing legislation (particularly domestic legislation) favored by your party but not the other, you basically do not have the luxury of caring about whether the candidate of your party is competent, nice, qualified, attractive, or even honest. Your congressman can be boiled down to a vote for Pelosi or a vote for Boehner; a vote for health care reform or a vote against it; a vote for going to war in Iraq or a vote against. Everything else - constituent services, bringing pork to the district, whether he or she shows up at your ethnic group's parade, whether he or she knows something about the local team, even not sounding like a fool when asked a basic question, is just a sideshow.