WHO ELSE BUT KARL ROVE...:

In Dem war vs. Paterson, the GOP wins (Errol Louis, March 26th 2009, NY Daily News)

True to its reputation as a fractured, fratricidal bunch of hotheads, a crowd of left-leaning community activists and union leaders staged an ill-advised protest yesterday against Gov. Paterson, who easily ranks among the most progressive New York Democratic politicians of the past 50 years.

The rally, designed to pressure the governor into supporting a sweeping revocation of the harsh Rockefeller drug laws, was the latest chapter in a reckless, short-sighted organized campaign against the governor by Paterson's former grass-roots allies in the political clubs, neighborhood churches, advocacy organizations and union halls.

One speaker after another - including Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Rev. Calvin Butts of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons - hectored and lectured the governor, emphasizing that Paterson, as a state senator, felt so strongly about reform that he'd voluntarily been arrested on the same site a few years earlier when Republican George Pataki was governor.

...could possibly be responsible for the Democratic Party's sudden decision to identify itself with drug use again? Talk about a wedge issue.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 27, 2009 3:29 PM