Balance of Power

Moderates being moderates, they insist they’re not looking for fights. “The point is that we want to talk about these concerns,” Lincoln said this afternoon, “and make sure that a conversation takes place about those concerns so we can make sure we have more people on board, rather than less.”

Still, the release from Bayh’s office is full of references to “practical” and “sensible” solutions. In case anyone still didn’t get the message, Bayh lays it on the line: “It’s going to take all of us working together in the Senate to get the 60 votes necessary to deliver the change the American people deserve.”

The other members of the group are Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado, Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Mark Warner of Virginia. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut — an independent who’s still sort of a Democrat despite his support of Republican John McCain in the presidential race — is part of the group too.

Liberal groups are already outraged. In a statement, Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, said the various groups of centrist Democrats — which also include the House “Blue Dogs” — provide “more treacherous opposition” to Obama’s agenda than even the Republicans. He hinted that the centrists were making themselves vulnerable to opposition in their next Democratic primaries, noting that “Blue Dog Democrats who support conservative special interests over the voters who elected them should be challenged.”

“Sen. Bayh’s group wants to be called ‘moderate,’ but their complaints about President Obama’s policies are conservative complaints,” Borosage said. “The timing of this announcement makes it obvious that the group’s first priority seems to be to join with conservatives to weaken President Obama’s reforms.”

Whether that threat becomes real, of course, depends on how much trouble the centrists cause Obama in the coming months. But it’s telling that, for most of George W. Bush’s presidency, Democrats and their supporters mostly called a cease-fire between progressives and centrists so they could unite against all the damage they saw being done during those years.

Now that the Democrats are in charge and the Republicans are mostly powerless, the cease-fire seems to be ending.