Looks Like Bredesen Has Avoided Drinking the Kool-Aid

Strong in the DLC, Blue Dog mold, Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen has demonstrated that Obama's not the only one who can do the pragmatism two-step. Today, he all but admitted "it hurts me much more than it hurts you, Barry" and likely slammed the door on any risky Obama posturing this fall:

"If it seemed to me that Obama were competitive, then I would feel, as an American citizen, I would like to work really hard to bring Tennessee into his column," Bredesen said in an interview from a Democratic Leadership Council meeting in Chicago.

"If he was not competitive, not campaigning in Tennessee, I probably would put my attention on the other races," Bredesen said, adding that campaigns for state legislative seats "have a direct meaning to me."

"I don't tilt at windmills. I find things I can actually do and then put leverage behind them," he said. "I'm not going to waste my time where nobody else is doing it."

Against the fading backdrop of the mid-2000's success and potential DLC-ers and conservative Dems like Harold Ford Jr., Mark Warner, and Phil Bredesen had seen, this naked political cynicism makes sense--and demonstrates just why Bredesen has been successful in Tennessee. Obama's progressivism will hold no sway in Tennessee and the last thing Bredesen wants when he tries to steal Lamar Alexander or Bob Corker's Senate seat away is the taint of being tied to closely with institutional liberalism, or worse, a failed presidency. [Link via Post Politics]