Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority’s cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks.

Top Democrats said Tuesday that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans’ purposely strident tone against health care legislation during this month’s Congressional recess, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current proposals were flawed beyond repair.

The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said of Republican lawmakers, “Only a handful seem interested in the type of comprehensive reform that so many people believe is necessary to ensure the principles and the goals that the president has laid out.”

The last time we had a Democratic president, we and he allowed for truly progressive change to be snuffed out in favor of conservative corporate interests. It was good, but it could have been far better.

I hope we don’t give away the farm this time.

“The Democrats talk of tolerance, but in reality the only tolerance they ever exhibit is for their own intellectual arrogance — and they don’t have tolerance for my culture,” says Mudcat. “They think we’re a bunch of hillbilly heathens who go out and burn crosses and do crazy bullshit. “

The article is accompanied by this picture:

Do you see, perhaps, why some of us may see folks like Saunders as knuckle-dragging dumbass hillbillies? The confederate flag is a flag flown in support of slavery. There’s not really any way around that. You can go on at length about horsepuckey “southern pride” or whatever the b.s. du jour is, but at its core that flag stands for fond memories of keeping black people subhuman and in chains.

And Dave “Mudcat” Saunders sleeps under it. That should tell you pretty much all you need to know about where his stupid heart is.

I’m not privy to the details but Saunders worked on the campaigns of Mark Warner and Jim Webb in Virginia. We continue to live in the era of the big name political consultant who reaps the lion’s share of the credit for victories, and maybe Saunders was the catalyst for those wins. But it may also be likely that demographic trends are what has been turning Virginia into a blue state — and perhaps the wins of Warner and Webb were not confederate-loving Mudcat Saunders’ doing, but the skill of the candidates and demographics. His supposed brilliance sure didn’t seem to deliver for John Edwards in Iowa.

But frankly, Dave Mudcat Saunders could be the greatest political operative since Machiavelli, no Democrat should be working with a guy who sleeps with the confederate flag on his bed.

>> My run-in with Dave “Mudcat” Saunders, the Democrats’ Dixie huckster.

Shorter Matt Stoller: Quit acting like babies. Waaaaaaaaaaaah. The world is ending because Sen. Obama doesn’t personally read every blog and conduct online polls asking the “netroots” what color underwear he should wear.

Do these guys know that a presidential election isn’t all about candidates catering to their personal idiosyncrasies? I don’t think so.

A few months ago I wrote about how I really really want the president of the United States to be someone who is the national leader of the country and not just a party chairman. I feel the need to point this out again in the middle of some of the typical blogosphere whining over Sen. Obama’s appearance Sunday on Fox News.

There are certain things I demand out of a Democratic candidate, but I don’t labor under the pretense that the person is going to check, check, check down the line for the progressive movement. Do I want them to sound like a Republican and echo conservative phrasing? No. But to act as if a deviation from the line will cause the universe to collapse on itself? Come on.

In the case of Sen. Obama I say again: I don’t want a cheerleader for the Democratic party. I want an adult to set this country back on the path of righteousness.

This comment from Matt Stoller’s comment thread does a good job of summing things up:

The job of a candidate for US President is to put together a winning coalition, not to pamper the tender egos or play into the macho fantasies of his/her supporters.

If you are this disappointed by Obama the candidate, you will weep bitterly as Obama the President tacks and weaves just like FDR did and as every politician has to. The question is balance and total direction. What you people have failed to understand is that the problem with Bill Clinton was not that he was expedient, but that his goals were limited to his own personal political success.

Most of us who support Obama are not under the illusion that he is a magical hero or that he is a progressive miracle worker. He’s a smart politician trying an potentially game changing tack that may reconstitute a pro-working-american coalition. So we don’t weep and gnash our teeth and demand constant reassurance or go into hysterics at every imagined slight.

Grow up, children.

I know I’m too cynical, but the sort of utopianism pushed in some corners of the progressive blogosphere are just kind of nutty.

Luckily, we dodged the bullet.

Progressives? Do not respect the anti-choice position.

Really? This is the road we’re going to go down now? I think being pro-choice is a necessity for a Democratic candidate. It’s a showstoper for me, and I couldn’t support a presidential candidate who wasn’t pro choice. I personally believe that a woman’s got a right to choose her own health care.

But I do respect the anti-choice position. I understand that if someone believes that a fetus is a human why they might feel so strongly about abortion. I don’t agree with them in the least and think their opinion is dumb, but I respect it.

Of course, at the same time, I respect those who are more pro-choice than I am. I happen to support parental notification for minors, but understand the reasoning of those who oppose it. I don’t agree with them, but I respect it too.

The conservative movement shows us what its like when idealogical movements abandon all pragmatism and consent to thought-based purges. As does the Democratic party of the ’70s and ’80s.

But then, I guess I’m not a progressive.

The former strategy does its job in saving the Clinton’s hides while damaging the Democratic party, while the latter defends the candidate and changes the progressive/Democrat brand from one of weak-kneed fainting back to its historical strength of moral character.

So thanks, Sen. Clinton, this has all been helpful in clarifying some things and allowing the scales to fall from our eyes.

From a practical matter no matter what the hyperventilating conservatives and their increasingly similar pro-Clinton partisans wish to believe: Sen. Obama is winning, will win the nomination (assuming likely Clinton-initiated fraud will be nipped in the bud) and will likely win the general election. But we play. We play to win the game.

1. End the war in Iraq
2. Free Mumia
3. Make love, not bombs
4. End the capitalist super hiearcrhy
5. End racism

Seriously, folks, can we get back to the real work of spreading the progressive message and end these useless noisefests?