Party favors

Liberal Democrats here and around the country celebrated when their party recaptured control of Congress last November. It didn't seem to matter -- at least it didn't seem to matter then -- that the new Democratic majorities were made possible by the election of Midwestern moderates and conservatives who happened to be Democrats.

Unfortunately, success in politics tends to promote a sense of entitlement for the most partisan of Democrats and Republicans.

Now the Sonoma County Democratic Central Committee and a group called the Progressive Democrats of Sonoma County want to censure Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California because she voted to confirm the nomination of Michael Mukasey as attorney general.

If you want to know why mainstream voters have stopped paying attention to the proclamations of local party organizations, here's a good place to start.

Reportedly, not a single member of the local central committee sided with Feinstein, who is arguably the most respected politician in California.

Mukasey's equivocations about the definition of torture were regrettable, but in terms of intellect and independence, he is a giant alongside his predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, and no one questions the need to restore stability to the Department of Justice.

Still, these liberals apparently believe that if they wait long enough, President Bush will nominate Ralph Nader for attorney general. Good luck with that.

The Republican Bush gets to choose the attorney general, of course, because liberal Democrats in Florida thought it would be cool to vote for Nader for president in 2000. Those Democrats decided that Vice President Al Gore didn't meet their standards for ideological purity.

In a speech that deserved a wider audience, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently warned the state Republican Party Convention that the official party apparatus was being marginalized by its dogmatic approach to issues. To win elections, Schwarzenegger said, the GOP must appeal to moderate voters. "In movie terms, we would say we are dying at the box office. We are not filling the seats."

As it happens, Schwarzenegger is the only Republican to win a high-profile state office in more than a decade, and he won because voters embraced his moderate views.

All this explains why a growing number of voters don't identify with either party, Democrat or Republican, and why -- in the words of Sacramento Bee political columnist Daniel Weintraub -- party organizations are "increasingly irrelevant."