Another Democrat Purge

You’d think that political parties would do anything to keep their supporters. But no. Politicos love to purge.

Just to keep the score Bruce Bartlett reviews the number of occasions in the last 70 years since the high water mark of 1936 when the Democrats decided to expel some of their own.

It started in 1938 when FDR tried to purge the Southern Democrats in the off-year election. It didn’t work.

As a result of the failed purge, Roosevelt found his power in Congress substantially diminished after 1938. Southern Democrats were increasingly willing to oppose him, even joining with Republicans to do so.

In 1964, after the Civil Rights Acts, the South voted for Goldwater for president but still stayed in the Democratic column for Congress.

Then Democrats drove the cold-war warriors out of the party in the early 1970s.

The Democrats finally succeeded in purging the Southern Democrats in the years after 1974.

After winning huge majorities in Congress in 1974 and 1976, they mounted a purge of Southern Democrats, removing many from committee chairmanships. The Southerners had nothing to gain by being Democrats.

So Republicans put money and talent into the South in the 1980s and began moving the South into the Republican column.

From this history, it is clear past Democratic purges have only aided the Republican Party. I suspect the purge of Mr. Lieberman may have the same effect, possibly turning what might have been solid gains by the Democrats in this fall's elections into modest gains.

Or maybe not. The Republicans have had their splits too. Teddy Roosevelt split the party in 1912, and the conservatives defeated the Rockefeller Republicans in the bitter battles for the soul of the party prior to the sunny Reagan years. Now Republicans complain about RINOs, Republicans In Name Only.

The difference between the Democrats purging Lieberman and the Republican efforts to purge Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island is that Lieberman is a Democrat who votes like a Democrat except on Iraq. But Chafee is a Republican who votes like a Democrat.