I’ve been pondering this for a while and I don’t know that I have any answers. The Conserva-Dems, people like Utah’s Jim Matheson and other Blue Dogs and people like Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, have been crucial in creating a Democratic majority in Congress. They are problematic, however, because, like a previous generation of Dixiecrats, they are ideologically aligned with non-Democratic and progressive politics. Matheson is a perfect example – his embrace of Bush era policies, tax cuts and rhetoric, his ongoing defense of the status quo in terms of health care reform, and his clear discomfort with progressive policies all mark him as a doctrinaire Conserva-Dem.

Matheson stances on many issues are incoherent in terms of actual ideology. He claims to be a “fiscal conservative” by which he clearly means someone who believes in balanced budgets, but he has long supported actual policies which have led to massive deficits and in fact fiscal insanity. Like the other Conserva-Dems, Matheson is trying desperately to avoid taking specific stances for fear of a voter backlash which will toss him out of office; he’s equally proven unwilling or unable to reshape public debate in his district. The result has been that while the Utah-2 has consistently returned Matheson to office, the district hasn’t actually become a more Democratic district. Matheson, like other Conserva-Dems, seems to fear taking actual actions that might reshape the politics of his district. During the height of astro-turfed anger of the town hall protests, Matheson did everything in his power to hide from the public. The paradox is that for years Matheson avoided taking the kinds of strategic actions that could have prevented the anger from flaring the way it did.

The fundamental problem facing the current Democratic coalition is pretty basic – and its the same problem the New Dealers faced. Democrats needed the Dixiecrats to keep their majority. Dixiecrats, though, were a restless and difficult to please group. Keeping them in the caucus was a difficult task and in fact required the Democratic party to compromise on some key issues. It wasn’t until the larger party insisted on pursuing racial justice that the Dixiecrats became impossible to placate. When the Republican party signaled its willingness to not push racial justice, Southern segregationist began the move toward the Republicans. Joseph Lowndes traces the long term alliance between Northern conservatives and Southern segregationists that created the modern conservative Republican party. Although its more than simply a story of racists abandoning one party for another, that is one crucial aspect of the story.

The current Democratic coalition is unique from the New Deal coalition in that it has been created without Southern, conservative Democrats. But, today’s Democratic coalition has a sizable contingent of conservative Democrats whose politics often demand they pursue policies far more conservative than the rest of the party, and in fact more conservative than most Americans.

Broadly, this is leading me to a reflection on something else – the notion of a transitional presidency. Richard Nixon was elected during the height of the liberal New Deal dominance of American politics. At the time, he was perceived as a wildly conservative president. Yet many of the policies pursued by the Clinton and now Obama administrations are actually to the right of those enacted by Nixon. Nixon was a transitional president.

Some months ago, I blogged that Hillary Clinton represented a Nixonian figure for Democrats. As I reflect, however, it occurs to me that I ascribed that transitional role to a person rather than to the actual historical forces at work. To put it another way, Nixon was as conservative as circumstances would allow him to be. Thus Obama might only be as liberal/progressive as historical circumstances will allow.

The Roosevelt model of a transformative presidency – one that results not only in a massive political realignment but a tremendous number of extensive and lasting policy changes as well – has raised progressive hopes that cannot be fulfilled. To put it different terms, political alignments and realignments are products of their eras. The Democratic party of the New Deal era became a much more liberal party as time passed – a party more strongly committed to racial and economic justice, responsive to the concerns of racial minorities, labor unions, and the poor. Increasingly, uncomfortable with the direction of the party, Dixiecrats grew more and more dissatisfied. Ultimately, the Dixiecrats bolted the party, aligning themselves with the Republicans. Consider that both Utah and Idaho – now safe Republican states – had relatively liberal Democratic senators; Frank Moss is described as a moderate but a 60s moderate would be a very liberal pol today and Frank Church’s liberalism was less equivocal.

The same process can repeat itself today. Conserva-Dems represent constituencies who are not comfortable with today’s Republican party but they aren’t fully prepared to join the actual progressive/liberal side of American politics. Today’s Conserva-Dems are playing the same role their Dixiecrat forebears played – spoilers of progressive reform and allies of the status quo.

The Dixiecrats have a bad reputation – probably worse than they deserve. But what is rarely discussed is if previous generations of liberal and progressive leaders missed opportunities to bring the Dixiecrats fully into the obvious next steps of the New Deal – racial justice, the social safety net created by the Great Society, and ultimately universal health care and economic justice. Not al the conservative Southern voters could have been kept in the Democratic party, and in fact its possible none of them could have, but that doesn’t mean today’s Conserva-Dems must of necessity follow the same path and eventually lead a revolt against the Democratic party and lead to the new rise of a newly invigorated conservative majority.