Dear liberals . . .

One of the great things about the Obama-Clinton fight is that some of you liberals are learning a valuable lesson about how the Democratic Party operates:

With the clock running down on a long-fought primary, NARAL Pro-Choice America leaders sent state affiliates reeling this week by endorsing Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. It was seen as a gratuitous slap in the face to a longtime ally, and it sparked a fear even closer to home: that the move will alienate donors loyal to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
Many on this week's conference call were stunned on learning the news, making urgent pleas for the group to remain neutral until after the June 3 Democratic primaries. "It's created a firestorm," said NARAL Pro-Choice New York President Kelli Conlin, who was on the conference call. "Everyone was mystified ... saying, 'What is the upside for the organization? And, frankly, [there was] a lot of concern about the donor base. ... There was real concern there would be a backlash."
There was a backlash, and it was swift, starting with NARAL's own website. At last count, there were more than 3,300 comments in an electronic chat about the endorsement, the overwhelming majority of them negative. "Shame shame shame!" read one, with many correspondents threatening never to support NARAL financially again. "No more donations from me!!!" wrote another.

See? For years, NARAL has been collecting money from liberals who were under the impression that the organization was devoted to advancing the cause of "women's rights." In fact, NARAL is just a front group, a special interest lobby, a faction within the Democratic Party. NARAL's leaders and operatives are no different than the leaders and operatives of the AFL-CIO. Ed Morrisey's explanation:

NARAL wants to show some muscle in the party’s operations, and doesn’t mind throwing Hillary under the bus to do so.

Sorry, Ed. Not cynical enough. You should spend some time in Washington and learn how these things really work.

Howard Dean and the bigshots at the DNC are trying to finish up the job they've done on Hillary, so they called in some favors, worked some connections, made some promises or made some threats, and -- voila! -- NARAL endorses Obama.

What? You liberals don't believe me? You think I'm just a right-winger giving you spin from the "noise machine"? Look, here's an explanation from a couple of old-time liberals who know a thing or two about how these things work:

Two former members of Congress (and Clinton supporters) — Geraldine Ferraro and Pat Schroeder — jabbed at NARAL for endorsing before the general election. "Looks like some higher ups at NARAL are trying to get jobs in the new administration ... nothing else makes sense to us," they wrote in a joint letter.

Ferraro and Schroeder are old enough to know that things like this don't just happen by magic. The honchos at NARAL weren't motivated by idealism. Somebody got something in return for that endorsement.

Politics is a big-money business. Did you know that, in the month of February, the Obama campaign was spending at the rate of $1.5 million a day? Or that, by the end of March, the Obama campaign had more than $40 million cash on hand, while the DNC had $5.3 million cash on hand?

There is nothing in political life more certain than that an organized group of idealistic true believers will eventually attract the interest of greedy, self-serving power junkies. The true believers will get ripped off and screwed over, and the power junkies will walk away rich.

Did I say . . . rich?

Or did I say . . . rich?

The folks who run NARAL's DC headquarters aren't volunteers, they're career political operatives, which means that they're in it for the money. If the Obama/Dean/DNC axis wanted to buy an endorsement from NARAL, the only question was the price.

UPDATE: BDBlue at Corrente may be a liberal, but she's not completely naive:

I feel so much better knowing that they are so committed to supporting my rights that they essentially sold their endorsement to Obama. And it wasn’t just a chance to raise money, it was also a chance to tell long time supporters to go f--- themselves. . . .
NARAL does a lousy job defending choice, loses its donor base and then decides to remedy the situation by further p---ing off its donor base. . . .
[NARAL honcho Nancy Keenan] has hooked NARAL up to the Obama cash machine. Of course, I fully expect the Obama donors to get the same level of service (read: pathetic) the old donors got.

BDBlue, let me give you a hint: Beach house. Generally speaking, when people start throwing around big money in Washington, the smart folks end up with beach houses in Delaware or on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Either that, or they buy McMansions out in horse country.

On the other hand, maybe Nancy Keenan is too stupid to work herself a deal like that.

UPDATE II: Feminist blogger: "Follow the money."