Ashwin Madia Turns Towards Lame
Remember Ashwin Madia, the congressional candidate from Minnesota who Dylan Matthews advocated so passionately for?
Well, when he was running in the Democratic primary, he was all sorts of awesome. Back when Iraq was a major concern, who could not be enthusiastic about an ex-Marine Iraq vet who served as a military defense lawyer? Oh, and did I mention that he was down-the-line on all the other important issues. Opposed DADT, Wants to pullout of Iraq, supports cap-and-trade, supports gay marriage, universal health care and the closure of Guantanamo Bay. Of course, he still believes all these things, and having a military veteran who’s a committed opponent of the Iraq war – and a true social liberal – would be awesome. But Eve Fairbanks has followed up on his campaign and found that he has moved sharply to the lame, defecit hawk, balanced budget fetishizing center.
But this time around, even before the bailout, he found that the voters in his district — who’ve eagerly supported Ramstad, a social moderate and fiscal conservative — were nearly singlemindedly obsessed with the economy. So the emphasis got tweaked. Madia’s bio on his website begins with a description of his cash-strapped immigrant parents’ pursuit of the American dream; he concentrates on the economy on the stump; and when I asked him what, if he were elected, he’d like to be remembered for, he didn’t even mention Iraq. “Balancing the budget and paying down the debt,” he answered immediately. “I want them [the epitaph-writers] to say I was a fiscal conservative.”
Considering the economic crisis we’re in, getting the entire Democratic caucus on board with the idea that demand-side stimulus spending (not to mention increased infrastructure and health care spending) is the right thing to do is the most important issue facing the coming Democratic governing majority. And having a smart, charismatic, highly appealing guy like Madia clinging to this Concord Coalition-cum-Hooveristic approach to the economy – even if its mostly a rhetorical affect to win over Republicans in his district – is highly distressing.
