Pete Sessions-- A Useful Idiot Against Blue Dogs Like Loretta Sanchez?

The Sanchez Sisters; the good one (Linda) is on the right

Though the Blue Dogs are threatening to join the Republicans in obstructing final passage of President Obama's Stimulus package-- arch-reactionary Blue Dog leaders Jim Cooper (TN), Gene Taylor (MS), Collin Peterson (MN) and Heath Shuler (NC) were behind the 11 backstabbers who crossed the aisle on the first House vote on the Stimulus Package and Cooper has been plotting with Hoyer about how to use the difficult situation to undermine Speaker Pelosi-- I have no doubt that Obama will forgive and forget when this is all over. But will grassroots Democrats?

Grassroots organizations like Blue America, Accountability Now, and even (or especially) the SEIU are threatening to get tough with treacherous Democrats who habitually cross the aisle on core Democratic issues and vote with Republicans. In the House there are currently 11 right-wing Democrats who vote more frequently with the GOP than with the Democrats on substantive matters that divide the parties. From bad to worse:

Gabby Giffords (AZ- 49.32)
Zack Space (OH- 47.51)
Gene Taylor (MS- 47.37)
Harry Mitchell (AZ- 46.15)
Dan Boren (OK- 45.47)
Chris Carney (PA- 40.72)
Jason Altmire (PA- 38.46)
Heath Shuler (NC- 38.46)
Travis Childers (MS- 36.11)
Brad Ellsworth (IN- 35.75)
Joe Donnelly (IN- 33.94)

This past November we encouraged an independent run by Democratic legislator Michael Jackson in Baton Rouge, which split the vote and caused the defeat of the most reactionary Democrat in the House, Don Cazayoux, who had gotten into office pledging to be a champion of working families and immediately took his seat and voted with the Republicans on everything. Jackson, a respected African American community leader siphoned off 12% of the general election vote and enabled Bill Cassidy to edge out Cazayoux by 8%. In the 2010 cycle there will be plenty of primaries against far right Democrats and other strategies to hold them accountable for participating in the right's jihad against working families. Now it looks like state Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson will challenge slimy Blue Dog Allen Boyd next year.

While it may be harder to primary Blue Dogs in hard core Republican districts, Blue Dogs in Democratic districts are much easier targets, as Jane Harman and John Barrow learned in recent cycles. This year Obama took 60% of the vote in increasingly Democratic CA-47, an Orange County stronghold that used to elect wingnuts (think B-1 Bob Dornan) and is now represented by Blue Dog Loretta Sanchez. (Northeast of her OC district is CA-39, which is represented by her uber-progressive sister Linda, basically tied with Barbara Lee and Hilda Solis as the best members of Congress from the Golden State.)

If you've heard anything about lame Texas wingnut Pete Sessions, new head of the dysfunctional NRCC, it's how he compared House Republicans to the Taliban, the fanatic religious extremists in Afghanistan allied with al-Qaeda. But that isn't the only nonsense Sessions is talking-- even above and beyond his role as a hard core obstructionist. He's talking about retaking the majority in the House and going after Democratic incumbents in Blue districts. (In the last two cycles, Republicans have been swept out of blue districts and purple districts and are fighting frequently unsuccessful last stands in red districts.) Except in the case of the fluke election in New Orleans where everyone just wanted to get rid of corrupt congressman William Jefferson and an ex-Democrat/now Republican, Anh Cao nosed in (for what is likely to be one term), the Republicans haven't flipped a Democratic seat since 2002-- while the Democrats flipped 46 red seats, even winning in ID-01 (R+19) at the same time McCain was winning against Obama there 62-36.

According to today's CongressDaily the clueless Sessions thinks he has a shot of displacing Sanchez with a state Assemblyman, Van Tran. Maybe they'll run Vietnamese-Americans all over the country, since it's the only thing that's worked for them! Meanwhile, as we pointed out last week, new polling data shows that even though Americans disapprove of Congress, they approve of congressional Democrats by 49% (while only 26% approve of the Republicans). And that's before the party embarked on its current orgy of obstructionism.

Progressives, however, are watching Sanchez closely to see how much she conspires with congressional Republicans against President Obama's programs. If she steps over the line-- or across the aisle-- too much and betrays working families on a regular basis Assemblyman Tran's challenge could get added weight from a popular Hispanic officeholder willing to help displace her. Sanchez is one of two dozen reactionary Democrats being closely watched by progressive groups and activists.

Below is a video montage of irresponsible Senate Republicans saying "let's slow down," "there is no hurry" and "take a time out" as unemployment skyrockets (Republican policies these guys all voted for have given us the worst employment stats in 34 years) and the economy gets pushed closer and closer to the precipice. The Obstructionist Caucus leaders in the video could just as easily have been Blue Dog "Democrats" like Heath Shuler (NC), Gene Taylor (MS), and Jim Cooper (TN). These people really are the conscious enemies of this nation.