Beltway Democrats Still Fond Of Their Blue Dogs, Despite Severe Warnings From The Rank-And-File

Last week, watching Blue Dog Kate Marshall's favorability among Democrats sinking in the NV-2 race, we predicted, correctly, that she would badly lose the special election Tuesday. It was an easy prediction in a pretty red-leaning district (although, keep in mind that in 2008, it was a 49-49% draw between a progressive sounding Obama and McCain). A more important prediction was that rank-and-file Democrats would show their displeasure with Democratic Party bosses-- who shoved the Blue Dog down their throats by avoiding a primary-- by staying home, the way they did last November. Now that prediction was a super-grand slam!

Democratic voting performance in NV-2:

2006 (a midterm with an enthusiastic and strongly motivated Democratic base)- 103,572
2008 (a presidential year)- 136,548
2010 (a midterm with disappointed Democrats staying home)- 87,421

Yikes! How could Democrats do worse than that! Oh, easy... that's their specialty. After Democratic voters signaled clearly last year that they do NOT want to be represented by conservative and reactionary Blue Dogs-- defeated more than half the Blue Dog incumbents and every single Blue Dog challenger-- Nevada party bosses, at the urging of the DCCC, decided to follow the Republican Party bosses and cancel the primary. And, of course, pick the Blue Dog as the party candidate.

PPP data released just before the election showed exactly what anyone in their right mind would have expected. Democratic voters were rejecting Marshall. That doesn't mean they rush out to vote for the even more horrible Republican. It means they stay home. Remember that awful 2010 Democratic turnout (87,421) mentioned above)? It sank Tuesday... really sank. Marshall got only 46,669 votes. Her polling consistently fell for the last 3 weeks of the campaign, particularly among Democrats and especially after people found out she's not actually a Democrat but a Blue Dog.

The only path to victory for a Democrat in NV-2 is to win big in Washoe County (Reno), the district's population base. Obama won 55% of the vote there in 2008-- 99,671 voters. Harry Reid won his hard-fought Senate reelection battle last year partly because he rolled up a 7,000 vote margin in Washoe County over crackpot Sharron Angle. How many of those 99,671 Washoe County Obama voters came out for the Blue Dog Tuesday? 29,362. She took 42% of the votes cast in a county where-- to have a chance at a districtwide victory, she would have needed to be close to 60%. A 70,000 vote fall-off from 2008 is no way to begin.

The Blue Dogs are a cancer inside the Democratic caucus. Yesterday, while progressives were pushing fair New Deal solutions to the country's economic problems, Blue Dogs were banding together with their Republican allies to signal their disdain for even Obama's modest efforts at a jobs bill.

Blue Dog Democrats are pushing members of the joint deficit Super Committee to reduce the deficit significantly more than they've been tasked with. But they don't want to talk about President Obama's jobs plan. And beneath the surface its clear that there are major differences between the White House and conservative members of his party.

Leaders of the Blue Dog caucus held a press conference in the Capitol Visitor's Center Wednesday to push the Super Committee to "go big." But thanks to an explicit efforts by Democrats and the administration the deficit panel's work has become linked to the idea of job creation, and Obama's jobs bill. But the Blue Dogs didn't really want to talk about it.

There's no more pernicious and toxic Blue Dog than North Carolina opponent of working families Heath Shuler. Even with the CBO explaining that GOP plans to reduce corporate taxes and cut spending would tank the economy further, Shuler was as happy as a Republican pushing exactly that agenda. "I would definitely be at odds with his comment on that-- I mean we've got to get our fiscal house in order," Shuler said. "We're at 15 percent of GDP in revenue and 24 and a half percent of expenditures. You want to take that 15 percent to 13 percent and increase spending to 27 percent... I've ran a business, that doesn't go good on my balance sheet. I'm in the red when that happens." Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR), John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA) and Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN), none of whom is likely to be in Congress after the next elections, all backed Shuler up. The only Blue Dog incumbent Blue America has endorsed so far this cycle is Asheville's crusading populist city councilman, Cecil Bothwell. I want to encourage you to help his campaign at the Blue America Bad Dogs page.

Thank God Marshall will not be adding another reactionary voice to the Democratic House caucus next year. But former Blue Dog and current head of the DCCC, Steve Israel, is continuing Rahm Emanuel policy of recruiting Blue Dogs and proto-Blue Dog candidates to run against progressives and union members. He and his cronies are always looking for conservatives calling themselves Democrats to oppose the legitimate aspirations of working families, like the bill Raúl Grijalva, Barbara Lee and John Conyers introduced this week, the Prioritize Emergency Job Creation Act, which would accomplish exactly what Obama has been talking about-- but for real.

“Progressives have been saying all year that our number one priority has to be job creation, and this common-sense bill makes sure Congress can make that happen without delay,” Grijalva said. “For too long the House majority has talked about cuts, austerity, pain and what we can’t accomplish. They’ve overlooked the best way to address the deficit: putting 14 million Americans back to work. A true economic recovery means creating desperately needed jobs to fuel demand. We need to get rid of artificial job creation restrictions at a time of historic unemployment, and that’s what this bill is about.”
 
Sounds clear, right? It is NOT what Steve Israel wants to hear Democratic candidates talking about, which has a lot to do with why the DCCC works hand-in-glove, and they just did in NV-2, with the Blue Dogs. And it is exactly why the Democratic Party is such a mess. Maybe Pelosi should have though of that before appointing someone like Israel to the DCCC position. Barbara Lee (D-CA): “Our job crisis is a national emergency and requires an immediate and bold response. There is a level of despair and struggle that I have never seen before. Leaders in Washington have spent too much time and energy focused on deficit reduction and playing political games, and now is the time to create jobs. We should end the wars and cut back on bloated Pentagon spending-- and invest that savings in a robust jobs plans to get our nation back to work.”

Help end the Blue Dog plague here.