The Crimson Tide Won't Touch Stalwart Progressives But Tennessee Blue Dogs May Soon Be Working As K Street Whores

You may not think it's the big a deal to go from being the guy who's being bribed (a congressman) to the briber (a lobbyist) but it's quite a blow to the ego to be defeated and publicly displayed as a whore skirting lax laws you may have voted on yourself. When scurrilous California Republican Congressman Bill Lowery (a notorious check bouncer and bribe taker) was scared off by the less dishonest Duke Cunningham he headed straight to a K Street whorehouse and became the only path to crooked Appropriations Committee head Jerry Lewis, Congress' most corrupt member. All his wives have divorced him and his personal life is a shambles but he owns LOTS of property and is rolling in cash and has the kind of lifestyle you would probably expect from this kind of Republican criminal. Just down the road another crooked GOP congressman, Brian Bilbray, lost his seat to Susan Davis in 2000 and went into an emotional funk and became a lobbyist. When Cunningham was carted off to the federal pen for taking bribes from lobbyists, Bilbray moved into his House seat.

Now it looks as though some of the corrupt members of Congress from the other side of the aisle will be playing the same game of musical chairs. Corrupt Blue Dogs in Tennessee, for example, have been taking immense sums of money from Insurance and Medical-Industrial Complex special interests and are opposing meaningful health care reform in return. Although our system doesn't provide for prison sentences for their kinds of thinly disguised criminality, it looks like voters in Tennessee will be retiring them. Good examples are Blue Dog slime Bart Gordon, John Tanner and Jim Cooper, all die-hard foes of meaningful reform, all vulnerable to electoral challenge next year.

Gordon and Tanner are especially exposed since both represent districts that have been trending red. Gordon' north-central 6th CD (Murphreesboro) saw a tie between Bush and Gore in 2000, a 60% win for Bush in 2004 and a 62% win by McCain last year. Tanner's west Tennessee (Jackson) 8th CD actually saw a Gore victory in 2000, a close Bush win in 2004 and a comfortable McCain win last year. Neither Gordon nor Tanner even drew an opponent in 2008, the former having won with 67% in 2006 and the latter 73%. But Blue Dog mania may be ending in Tennessee where the folks are ready for real Republicans instead of fake ones.

Both have prospered over the years by projecting images as center-right Democrats even though their heavily conservative districts tend to favor Republican candidates for other major offices. In 2008, Republican presidential nominee John McCain trounced Democrat Barack Obama by 62 percent to 37 percent in Gordon’s mid-Tennessee district, which includes the city of Murfreesboro and some fast-growing Nashville suburbs, and carried the vote by 56 percent to 43 percent in Tanner’s west Tennessee district, which includes Jackson and suburbs of Memphis.

Republicans have long argued they could compete on this turf if they could drum up strong candidates. And they think they finally have solid contenders in Stephen Fincher, a farmer and gospel singer who has signed on to tackle Tanner in the 8th District, and Lou Ann Zelenik, chairwoman of the Rutherford County Republican Party, who is challenging Gordon in the 6th District.

Polling of Blue Dog districts across the nation has shown that incumbents recognized as taking significant campaign contributions from lobbyists and CEOs from the Insurance companies and the Medical-Industrial Complex and then opposing meaningful health care reform will be facing a political death sentence in 2010. Tanner has taken $575,518 in thinly-veiled bribes from the Insurance Industry and Gordon has taken $304,416. The Medical-Industrial Complex have been even more generous to the two sleazy Blue Dogs. Gordon has gobbled up $1,234,646 and Tanner has gotten his paws on $813,212. That's a lot of money and it goes a long way towards explaining why these two fake Democrats are willing to sell out their own constituents on health care reform.

According to the House Energy and Commerce Committee 107,000 of the 129,000 uninsured people represented by Gordon would gain access to high-quality, affordable health insurance if the bill Gordon is opposing were signed into law. And in Tanner's case, 84,000 uninsured constituents out of 104,000 uninsured would gain that benefit.

You might even want to help these two creeps save their own seats. Gordon's office number is 202-225-4231 and Tanner's is 202-225-4714. And you know, it isn't just out and out Blue Dogs who are betraying their constituents. There are a whole gaggle of frightened, principle-less Democrats in the House who would much rather kiss up to lobbyists and corporate interests than look after the needs of their own constituents. Freshman disappointment Suzanne Kosmas (FL) is a perfect example. Today Randi Rhodes was on air talking about how members of Congress go to breakfasts and meetings with sleazy lobbyists before coming to the Capitol to work. Kosmas, who has an even worse ProgressivePunch score this year than arch-Blue Dog Allen Boyd, doesn't just eat breakfasts, lunch and dinner with sleazy lobbyists; she actually skips important committee meetings when lobbyists summon her. Meanwhile, constituents complain that the lobbyist-atuned representative never gives direct answers to where she stands on any controversial issues. "No one knows what she stands for or even if she's an actual Democrat or not. She refused to do a public event in town with Vice President Biden and she avoided being in Miami last week when President Obama was there; she's no better than Charlie Crist. She just seems to vote for whatever lobbyists tell her to," one Democratic activist in Winter Springs told me this morning. "Even her hedge fund registration bill gives them a full year reprieve which is like a license to turn up the shenanigans, the same way the credit card companies did when they were given a reprieve. Look, I voted for Suzanne because she seemed so much better than Feeney. But she's been a huge disappointment. She's on the Financial Services Committee and all she ever does is solicit money from Wall Street lobbyists. According to OpenSecrets she's taken in $361,136 from bankers and brokers and their lobbyists this year. How is she going to make fair assessments on legislative matters if the special interests are financing her re-election efforts. I'd never vote for her again no matter who the Republicans run."

In return for supporting Big Pharma's greed and allowing them to plunder her own constituents, here's the bullshit ad that Pharma ran on Central Florida TV stations for her She's one of them, not one of us.