THE INFLUENCE GAME: Liberals targeting moderates

AP - By ALAN FRAM

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Get on the health overhaul bandwagon, or don't count on our help in your re-election.

That's the hardball message liberal groups are hurling at moderate Democratic senators in a battle that is dividing their party. Their demands: Support a bill that offers optional government-run health coverage and oppose Republican attempts to derail the legislation.

The groups are unleashing blunt and personal broadcast ads and e-mails at moderates even as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tries to shape a health care bill that can attract the 60 votes it needs to pass. Assuming no Republican support, Reid needs backing from all 58 Democrats and both Democratic-leaning independents -- including about a half-dozen moderates who have drawn liberals' ire.

It's all taking place a year out from elections in which Republicans hope to trim the Democrats' congressional majorities. The intraparty conflict especially threatens moderates facing tough re-election fights in 2010, like Sens. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Reid himself. It could mean less enthusiasm on the part of liberal and labor groups, which supply campaign workers, contributions and votes to Democratic candidates.

But liberal pressure has its limits in the conservative states that many moderate Democratic senators represent. At some point, attacks from progressives can amount to a benefit.

"Criticism from liberals is almost a political endorsement here," said Loree Bykerk, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Moderate Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., is among those targeted.

Even so, the liberal MoveOn.org said that in a survey of its 5 million members, 93 percent said the group should not support Democrats who are on the same side as Republicans when it comes to a health overhaul. "No donations, no volunteering and no help getting out the vote," MoveOn said in an e-mail last week.

The group said Tuesday it was launching radio ads aimed at moderates Lincoln and Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., accusing each of "siding with insurance companies." It was also mailing sharply worded brochures to tens of thousands of households in Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota and even Maine -- home of moderate GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe -- urging recipients to pressure their senators.

Other groups have showered senators with polls showing home-state support for optional government coverage and persuaded more than 125 local Democratic committees in states like Montana and Oregon to urge Congress to include "a robust public option" in its legislation. And then there are TV ads that have the feel of attacks from the opposition party.