In a post on Open Left, my colleague from the Dodd campaign, Tim Tagaris, writes about the coming FISA fight in the Senate. Tim points out the structural opposition Senator Dodd will face from Democrats within the caucus that do not agree with his opposition to FISA and do not want to see him standing up on this critically important issue. Tim wrote:

Harry Reid did a fine job in round one of the FISA fight. Maybe even a perfect job, if you consider that his job as Majority Leader is to make his “constituents” happy — in this case, those constituents are a weak-kneed caucus afraid to protect the Constitution for fear they will see their vote in a 30 second advertisement.

Via Glenn Greenwald, we learn that The Politico thinks that Dems should be scared of what Karl Rove will think of their actions on FISA. It syncs well with the quote from Wellstone I’ve included below. You can be sure that Clinton and Obama’s top strategists are having this conversation, as are Harry Reid’s, Chuck Schumer’s, Dick Durbin’s, and every other Election Before Principle Democrat. It is why we lose legislative fights. It is why we lose elections. And it is why Dan Froomkin can make a convincing case that the US Congress has not existed during the Bush years.

Both Tim’s comments and The Politico story made me think of a passage from Paul Wellstone’s The Conscience of a Liberal:

In the Senate, we come to “the well” to call out our votes, “yea” or “nay.” I could write another book about the conversations that take place in the well. One frequent topic is television attack ads. Senators are acutely aware that communications technology has become the main weapon in electoral conflict. A typical refrain is “Can you imagine what the attack ad would look like on this vote?” Quite often, this is another way of saying, “I hate voting this way, but I have no choice if I don’t want to lose my next election.” [pg. 132]

One of the things that I hope the Dodd campaign, particularly our efforts on FISA and using the Congressional power of the purse to end the war in Iraq, impressed upon people is that leadership means not worrying what the other side will say about how our Senators vote. The Republicans will always attack Democrats. They will always call us weak on defense and allies to terrorists. They will always question our patriotism. And they will always be wrong. There is no way around it.

For Democrats to worry about the next election’s attack ads is to surrender their principles now. It is to fail to do their job.

We may not have succeeded in getting Chris Dodd elected President, Tim, but I think he helped show our Party what leadership looks like – doing your job and standing up for one’s progressive principles. That should continue during next week’s expected FISA fight

Disclosure: While I was proud to work for Chris Dodd’s presidential campaign, I currently have no ties to Senator Dodd.