ARE BLUE DOGS AND OTHER CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATS PULLING THE PARTY DANGEROUSLY RIGHTWARD?

In this morning's NY Times Carl Hulse's story, Gaining Seats, Democrats Find Their House Ideologically Divided, makes a significant point... but not that well. His first mistake is in his first sentence; the Democrats are not winning too many seats. When the House has 88 Republicans left-- the way it did in 1936-- then we'll talk about too many Democrats. But the actual point Hulse's story should be making-- that conservative Democrats are pulling the party rightward-- is true... and it is a very dangerous situation for the Democrat Party as a voter-perceived engine of change.

This week, brand new Democratic congressmen Bill Foster (IL) and Don Cazayoux (LA), voted on Iraq. And they voted exactly how their Republican predecessors, Denny Hastert and Richard Baker, would have voted, and exactly how the 2 Republican schlubs they beat, Jim Oberweis and Woody KKK-pecker, would have voted. In other words, they voted to keep the war going by agreeing to fund it. A bare majority of Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi though not warmongers Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel, voted against the funding bill.

With Pelosi off in Iraq, Hulse's story looks like it originated in Emanuel's office-- from the loopy-looking photo of Pelosi to the convenient comparison of "right-of-center to pretty far left-of-center," lumping her in, rather inaccurately and quite Emanuelly, with the "far" bunch. If Hulse has taken on the role of Emanuel shill he needs to hire a better research assistant. In discussing the failure to give Bush a further $162.5 billion to prolong a war the vast majority of Americans want over NOW, Hulse frets-- ingenuously-- that the Democratic majority didn't have the votes to pass the bill. Hulse has always been utterly clueless about this war-- his abysmal reporting helped Bush bring it on-- but it doesn't take much to figure out that the majority of Democrats voted "no" to war funding because they are against war funding. Hulse/Emanuel claim the bill "is essential to protecting the party’s image on national security as well as members from conservative districts who cannot afford to be seen as failing to support troops in the field. Most of those lawmakers, including many freshmen, backed the war funds." Most of what lawmakers? Certainly not freshmen. And Emanuel's tripe about "failing to support troops in the field" is GOP slander he's apparently willing to use against the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

The most credible freshman on the Iraq war, the only one to have served in it, is Patrick Murphy, a right-of-center moderate from Pennsylvania. Murphy voted against Emanuel, Hoyer, Bush, McCain and Cheney. He voted against the prolongation of the war Emanuel, Hoyer, Bush, McCain and Cheney are so adamant to keep going. Patrick was joined by Democratic freshmen Mike Arcuri (NY), Bruce Braley (IA), Kathy Castor (FL), Yvette Clarke (NY), Steve Cohen (TN), Joe Courtney (CT), Keith Ellison (MN), John Hall (NY), Phil Hare (IL), Mazie Hirono (HI), Paul Hodes (NH), Hank Johnson (GA), Steve Kagen (WI), Ron Klein (FL), Dave Loebsack (IA), Jerry McNerney (CA), Chris Murphy (CT), Ed Perlmutter (CO), Carol Shea-Porter (NH), Albio Sires (NJ), Jackie Speier (CA), Niki Tsongas (MA), Peter Welch (VT) and John Yarmuth (KY). The Democratic freshmen-- of all ideological stripes-- voted in greater proportions against the war than the Democratic caucus as a whole did. Emanuel fed Hulse bad information and, lazy hack that he is, Hulse just ate it up and farted it out, as he always does.

Almost the only Democratic freshmen-- along with newcomers Cazayoux and Foster-- who voted to prolong the war were the ones who routinely rubber stamp Bush and frequently vote with the GOP minority: Jason Altmire (PA), Nancy Boyda (KS), Chris Carney (PA), Joe Donnelly (IN), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Gabby Giffords (AZ), Baron Hill (IN), Nick Lampson (TX), Tim Mahoney (FL), Harry Mitchell (AZ), Ciro Rodriguez (TX), Joe Sestak (PA), Heath Shuler (NC), Zach Space (OH), Tim Walz (MN) and Charlie Wilson (OH).

This intramural ideological divide is not a new problem for Congressional Democrats. Back in the days before the 1994 Republican revolution, Congressional Democrats were always split between the traditional liberal big-city wing of the party and Southern boll weevil Democrats who never met a military project they didn’t like or a social reform initiative they did.

But Democrats were able to hold power for four decades because of their imposing majorities in Congress, often outnumbering Republicans by 100 or more. That cushion meant party leaders could allow dozens of Democrats to take a walk on contentious bills, protecting their voting records while the majority prevailed regardless.

Today, even with this month’s Democratic gains, the partisan spread is 236 to 199, a growing but still relatively small margin for disagreement.

But Democrats figure if they can keep winning, they can enlarge their majority to a point where it does not matter if lawmakers on the ideological edges stray.