MODERATE DEMOCRATS?  REALLY?

Posted at 10:28 a.m. ET

Some good news from Congress?  Let me pinch myself.

The New York Times reports that the new Congress may have a decidedly moderate cast, thanks in large measure to moderates elected as Democrats.  Dennis Kucinich must be taking pills over this:

Building on the 2006 class that gave Democrats a majority, this freshman class serves to broaden a moderate coalition considered more conservative on social issues, particularly in the House. The Democratic leadership almost certainly will be mindful — as it was in the 2008 election — of the members’ individual vulnerabilities, especially since several were elected by extraordinarily narrow margins.

Guess it wasn't the wipeout that the mainstream media was screaming about on election night.

Gary C. Jacobson, an expert on Congress and a professor at the University of California/San Diego, described the cumulative impact of the 2006 and 2008 elections: “I think the effect is to move the Democratic caucus somewhat to the right and if it wants to stay as large as it is now, it has to accommodate these folks.

“You’re not going to see any wild, left-wing policymaking,” he added. “You’re not going to get the Berkeley wish-list out of this crowd.”

Oh goody.  I can sleep well tonight.

A former Nixon aide, Walt Minnick of Idaho, was elected as a moderate Democrat:

Mr. Minnick has already joined the emerging chorus of conservative Democrats, sometimes known as blue-dog Democrats, to sound alarms over the potential for ballooning deficits sure to accompany a stimulus package estimated at $875 billion to a trillion dollars. “I feel very strongly that the federal government needs to live within its means,” Mr. Minnick, a timber executive from Boise, said.

A Democrat said this?  Is he still alive?

Aaron Schock, the 27-year-old Republican from Illinois, was even more insistent that taxpayers have grown increasingly impatient with bailout after bailout. “There’s a level of frustration from people saying enough taking care of fat cats, the executives, the stockholders,” he said.

And that's good, coming from a Republican.

So the old adage applies:  Be careful what you wish for.  You may get it.  The Democrats increased their majority, but the liberal left in the party may actually have been weakened by the last election.  We await the first call from Manhattanites and San Franciscans to secede, and maintain their ideological purity.  It will come.

January 6, 2008.