THE DEMOCRATIC CIVIL WAR – AT 7:19 A.M. ET:  Its political position more than precarious, the Democrats are turning on each other.  Apparently, Obama did not bring peace on Earth and good will toward men.  From the Washington Examiner:

...the real civil war this year is going on in the Democratic Party -- and it is going largely unreported...

...So in this month's primaries we saw a skirmish between Arkansas Senate incumbent Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who suggested but did not quite promise he'd support the card check bill that would effectively abolish the secret ballot in unionization elections -- and whose campaign received something like $1 million from unions. That race will be decided in the June 8 runoff

Another incumbent challenged on the left was Utah Rep. Jim Matheson, who got only 55 percent in the Democrats' state convention and could lose the June 22 primary to a supporter of the health care bill.

And...

The Democrats' one big victory, in the Pennsylvania 12 special election, was won by a pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-health care bill, anti-cap-and-trade candidate. That platform sounds more Republican than Democratic...

...In Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. reportedly is ready to endorse Republican Senate nominee Mark Kirk over Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, whose family bank gave loans to mob-related individuals and then failed last month. In New York Andrew Cuomo began his gubernatorial bid with a platform that puts him on a collision course with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and differs notably from the record of his father, Mario Cuomo, in his three terms as governor.

What we're seeing here are attempts to scramble out of trouble by members of a party whose big government policies have proved, to their surprise, to be highly unpopular. Some move left, some move right, some just run around.

Finally...

The Democratic Party at its best is a group of disparate constituencies united in support of a common program able to win large majorities around the country, as it did in November 2008. The Democratic Party at its worst is a collection of panicked politicians engaged in civil war. Which one does it look like now?

And the guy at the top seems remarkably uninterested.   After all, he's not on the ballot.

May 26, 2010