I put this in the comments over at the Daily Kos but I suppose I'll post it here too, regarding the LA Senate runoff.
The issue isn't Landrieu's purity as a Democrat. The question is whether the political calculation she's made - court "moderates" in her state, and in doing so alienate black voters - is a winning campaign.
If she loses, there are two possibilities - 1) There was nothing she could do to win. Or 2) The strategy she chose of fellating Bush and causing "the base" to stay home actually cost her the election.
I don't know whether if it'd be 1) or 2). BUt, for those of us who suspect that maybe, just maybe 2) would be the answer I hope the right lessons are learned. Even, or maybe especially, in the South you can't win as a Democrat by running as a Republican. Maybe you can't win as a Democrat either, but at least you can lose and stand for something.
