Tag: Blue Dogs

Thanks to David here at Swing State Project, we now have data on how every congressional district voted for POTUS for the last several elections.  This is a treasure trove for geeks like me.  That list is here.

Today, I look at districts with conservative Democrats as representatives

Perhaps the best way to rate the liberalness of a representative is that taken by Jeff Lewis, Keith Poole, and their associates in the nominate data.  They rank the House, from 1 to 435.  I’ve provided the list of districts, and their ranks (1 is most liberal, 435 most conservative).

The most conservative Democrat is ranked 241.  Here are the 42 most conservative Democrats (from least to most conservative), with the election results for POTUS :



Dist    Rep          Obama %  Kerry %    Gore %

TX 17   EDWARDS       32        30       32

CA 18   CARDOZA       59        49       53

CA 20   COSTA         60        51       55

FL 22   KLEIN         52        52       52  

CO 7    PERLMUTTER    59        51       50

FL 2    BOYD          45        46       47

OH 6    WILSON        48        49       47

CO 3    SALAZAR       47        44       39

MO 4    SKELTON       38        35       40

TN 6    GORDON        37        40       49

AL 5    CRAMER (now Griffith - D)

                     38        39       44        

KY 6    CHANDLER      43        41       42

KS 2    BOYDA      (now Republican)

AR 4    ROSS          39        49       49

MN 7    PETERSON      47        43       40

SD AL   HERSETH       45        38       38

TX 28   CUELLAR       56        46       50

OH 18   SPACE         45        43       41

LA  3   MELANCON      37        41       45

MS  4   TAYLOR        32        31       33

TN  8   TANNER        43        47       51

TN  4   DAVIS         34        41       49

FL 16   MAHONEY       (now Republican)

NC  7   MCINTYRE      47        44       48

NY 20   GILLIBRAND    (to be decided)

                     51        46       44

OK  2   BOREN         34        41       47

IL  8   BEAN          56        44       42

UT  2   MATHESON      39        31       31

IL 14   FOSTER        55        44       43

IN  9   HILL          49        40       42

AZ  5  MITCHELL       47        45       43

AZ  8  GIFFORDS       46        46       46

NC 11  SHULER         47        43       40

IN  8  ELLSWORTH      47        38       42

PA 10  CARNEY         45        40       41

IN  2  DONNELLY       54        43       45

PA  4  ALTMIRE        44        45       46

GA  8  MARSHALL       43        39       42

GA 12  BARROW         54        49       52

MS  1  CHILDERS       38        37       40

LA  6  CAZAYOUX       (now Republican)

TX 22  LAMPSON        (now Republican)

Personally, I am on the left edge of the Democratic party.  I very much like my representative, Jerry Nadler, who, per Nominate data, is the 50th most liberal (I’d have to look to find where he differs from the top few); I also like that NY-08 gave over 70% to all three Democratic POTUS candidates.  But not every district is like mine.

More Democrats; better Democrats.   Not better Democrats, fewer Democrats.  Only a few of the above seem to be in districts that could remotely be called ‘safe’.  Many are in Republican strongholds.  Would you rather have Cazayoux or Cassidy?  Mahoney or Rooney?  And those two didn’t even face primaries.  

If we want to replace blue dogs with red Repubs, we can primary them and put up liberals.  If we want to replace blue dogs with better Democrats, we need to educate the people.  

Are there people to primary?  Yes.  Of this list, I’d say Cardoza, Klein, Costa and Perlmuter are candidates.  Barrow, in GA-12, might be also, but not by a liberal, just by someone more in the middle of the Democratic party.  

• CT-Sen: The new lovefest between Joe Lieberman and the Democratic Party seems to be reaching the point where they need to get a room. In the wake of yesterday’s endorsement of Chris Dodd, Lieberman is today floating the idea of running in 2012 in the Democratic primary, instead of just as an independent. (Of course, unless Connecticut passes a sore loser law in the next few years, what’s the downside? If he loses the Dem primary again, he can just switch back to CfL one more time.)

• NV-Sen, NV-Gov: The GOP is running out of options for a good challenger to Harry Reid. Former state senator Joe Heck (who lost his Las Vegas-area seat last year) has decided to run in the GOP primary against chronically embattled governor Jim Gibbons instead. (Although if Heck is going against Gibbons, what is Rep. Dean Heller planning to do then?) With ex-Rep. Jon Porter taking the K Street route and Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki under indictment, the GOP’s Nevada bench is nearly empty.

• PA-Sen: Joe Torsella won’t have the Democratic primary in the Pennsylvania senate race to himself. State Rep. Josh Shapiro, a 35-year-old reform-minded legislator from the Philadelphia suburbs, is now exploring the race. This may be a tea leaf that Rep. Allyson Schwartz isn’t getting in the primary, as Shapiro (who’s in PA-13) would likely run for Schwartz’s seat instead if it were going to be open.

• CA-32: EMILY’s List has weighed in in the CA-32 primary, and they’re endorsing… believe it or not… the woman in the race: Board of Equalization chair Judy Chu. Chu’s main competition is state senator Gil Cedillo, who comes in with the endorsement of nearby House members like Xavier Becerra, Linda Sanchez, and Grace Napolitano (Hilda Solis, who used to occupy CA-32, hasn’t endorsed). The district is about 65% Hispanic and 20% Asian.

• NH-01, NH-02: We’re looking at a crowded field for Republican opponents to Carol Shea-Porter: John Stephen, who barely lost the primary last time to ex-Rep. Jeb Bradley, is eyeing the race, as is Manchester mayor Frank Guinta. Businessman Jim Wieczorek also plans to run. Meanwhile, next door in the open NH-02, radio host Jennifer Horn says there’s a good chance she’ll run again in 2010.  

• FL-22: State house majority leader Adam Hasner has been launching a series of attacks on Rep. Ron Klein over EFCA… is this a preview of the 2010 race? (It’s a Dem-leaning district, but Klein’s 2008 victory margin wasn’t impressive.)

• Votes: Also on the EFCA front, Campaign Diaries has an impressively thorough chart head-counting the positions staked out by all the Democratic senators (and potential GOP votes).

• Blue Dogs: After lifting their self-imposed 20%-of-the-Dem-caucus cap to expand to 51 members, the Blue Dogs are talking about growing again, to 56 members. No word on who that might be (although the door’s apparently open to Scott Murphy if he wins).

• NRSC: Roll Call is running a story today with the banner headline “McConnell Criticizes GOP for Lack of Diversity.” What’s next? “Sanders Criticizes KFC for Serving Chicken?”

Who’s the most powerful member of the House? If I told you it was Tim Mahoney, you’d probably laugh in my face; after all, he’s a freshman, and a bit of a flake. Well, if you order all members of the House from most liberal to most conservative (using DW-Nominate scores for the 110th Congress), Tim Mahoney is #218 out of 435. He’s smack in the middle of the House, and the whole thing pivots around him, in the same way that Anthony Kennedy holds all the cards on the Supreme Court because he’s #5 out of 9.

There are several things wrong with my proposition, though: first, 435 is a lot larger than 9, and there are a lot of transitory coalitions that form around various topics, so the spectrum isn’t always very clear. You aren’t even going to get aggregators to agree on who goes in what slot (ask National Journal, they’ll tell you that #218 is Mike McIntyre; ask Progressive Punch and they’ll tell it’s Charlie Melancon).

More importantly, just as Matt Stoller mentioned yesterday in regards to 60 as the ‘magic number’ in the Senate, there aren’t very many votes where it actually comes down to the bare minimum. Even controversial things tend to pass by a sizable margin once the initial haggling shakes out (the most recent Iraq Supplemental passed 268-155, and the FISA Amendments passed 293-129); actual 218-217 votes are almost unheard of. As he sagely pointed out, the key is to build the coalitions and implement the infrastructure that allow progressives to control the discursive arena in Congress regardless of actual numbers so that the progressive POV becomes more of an institutional inevitability.

Nevertheless, some of that sense of the ‘possible’ within that discursive arena is directly influenced by the seat count. Think back to the backstory behind the FISA vote last week: a lot of Dems voted with leadership, but leadership’s hand wasn’t forced by a widespread popular uprising, just by the 21 Blue Dogs who signed the January letter of intent to jump on board the Republicans’ discharge petition. We’ll probably never know who those 21 signatories were (although, given the spectrum in the House, one can assume it included Mahoney, McIntyre, and Melancon), but it’s clear they turned the tide on the FISA amendments. Looking at the pivot point, Pelosi could have safely ignored 12 Blue Dogs (233 – 12 = 221), but she couldn’t safely ignore 21 (233 – 21 = 212).

What if, on the other hand, there weren’t fewer Blue Dogs, but rather more Progressives in seats that are currently occupied by moderate (or, in a few possibilities, extreme) Republicans? If there were only 7 more Democrats, all Progressive or New Dem, then Pelosi also could have ignored the 21 Blue Dogs (240 – 21 = 219). Now, of course, this is pure speculation that only 21 Dems would have signed the discharge petition, but my point stands that it would take only a few more net Progressives to move the core Blue Dogs past the pivot point and thus out of the House’s driver’s seat (or at least out of reach of the steering wheel). In shorter words, the goal for the 111th Congress needs to be: Progressives + New Dems > Blue Dogs + Republicans.

More over the flip (including many tables)…

So the question is: how many progressives (they don’t have to be card-carrying members of the Progressive Caucus; non-capitulating New Dems and unaffiliated types work fine too) do we need to add above the pivot point in order to push all of the Blue Dogs down the spectrum, to below the pivot point? Here’s where we get to break out the tables, starting with where we are right now in the current 110th Congress:

Rank	District	110th Rep.	110th Score	Caucus	Bad Votes
215.5	FL-02	Boyd	-0.198	BDC	Iraq, FISA
215.5	TX-28	Cuellar	-0.198	NDC, CHC	Iraq, FISA
217	MO-04	Skelton	-0.193	Unaff.	Iraq, FISA
218	FL-16	Mahoney	-0.186	BDC, NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
219.5	MN-07	C. Peterson	-0.177	BDC	Iraq, FISA
219.5	TN-04	L. Davis	-0.177	BDC	Iraq, FISA
221	TN-06	Gordon	-0.165	BDC	Iraq, FISA
222	UT-02	Matheson	-0.163	BDC	Iraq, FISA
223	TX-22	Lampson	-0.158	BDC, NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
224	AZ-05	Mitchell	-0.148	NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
225	PA-10	Carney	-0.144	BDC, NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
226	GA-08	Marshall	-0.135	BDC	Iraq, FISA
227	PA-04	Altmire	-0.12	NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
228	OK-02	Boren	-0.119	BDC	Iraq, FISA
229	IN-08	Ellsworth	-0.118	BDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
230	AL-05	Cramer	-0.112	BDC	Iraq, FISA
231.5	IN-02	Donnelly	-0.107	BDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
231.5	NC-11	Shuler	-0.107	BDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
233	GA-12	Barrow	-0.080	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA
234.5	CT-04	Shays	0.241	MSP	Iraq, FISA
234.5	NJ-02	LoBiondo	0.241	MSP	Iraq, FISA

As you can see from this table, Pelosi is able to consider legislation without needing to rely on the worst 15 Blue Dogs on the final vote. (Again, though, she’s still affected by what happens in committee and other back-room wrangling.) However, there are a lot more Blue Dogs than that, if you continue on up the totem pole.

One thing worth noting is that 7 of those 15 Blue Dogs below the pivot point are freshmen, indicating that maybe we didn’t come as far in the 2006 elections as we thought we did (many of our pickups were in red districts inhabited by corrupt or incompetent Republicans… 2008 looks to be somewhat different, as a lot of the GOP fruit that outright spoiled has been picked and now the lowest-hanging fruit is mostly in moderate suburban districts, which is what this year’s Red to Blue targeting reflects). Although the pivot point is much better than where it was in the 109th Congress (where #218 was Jim Gerlach, not only giving the Rs control of the House but giving Dennis Hastert license to ignore the 14 Republicans to the left of Gerlach), we swelled the ranks of the Blue Dogs in 2006, so much so that the pivot point is right in the middle of the Blue Dog caucus.

Now let’s look at where we might be after the 2008 elections. I’m going to look at three different scenarios: a pessimistic scenario (where we only pick up 13 seats: the Lean D and Toss-up seats according to Swing State Project), an average scenario (where we also pick up the Lean R seats, giving us 26 seats), and a wildly optimistic scenario (where we also pick up the Likely R seats, giving us 56 new seats). I’m plugging in the new freshmen according to the scores I predicted for them last week. (I also need to fit the three new mid-term guys in there: based on their records so far, I’m assigning Childers and Cazayoux a score of – 0.200 and Foster a score of – 0.300. I also need to give a score to the three new Cuban-American reps, who didn’t fit in my formula; for an easy solution, I’ll just give them each – 0.400.) Let’s start with the pessimistic scenario:

Rank	District	110th Rep.	110th Score	Caucus	Bad Votes
216.5	TN-08	Tanner	-0.230	BDC	Iraq, FISA
216.5	TX-27	Ortiz	-0.230	CHC	Iraq, FISA
218	PA-17	Holden	-0.227	BDC	Iraq, FISA
219	CA-11	McNerney	-0.226	Unaff., Fr.	FISA
220	GA-02	S. Bishop	-0.22	BDC, CBC	Iraq, FISA
221	LA-03	Melancon	-0.218	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA
222	AZ-08	Giffords	-0.215	BDC, NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
223	PA-12	Murtha	-0.21	Unaff.	Iraq, FISA
224	IL-08	Bean	-0.209	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA
225	TN-05	Cooper	-0.208	BDC	Iraq, FISA
226	MS-04	Taylor	-0.207	BDC	Iraq, FISA
227	IN-09	Hill	-0.204	BDC, NDC, Fr.	Iraq
229	LA-06	Cazayoux	-0.200	Unaff., Fr.	Iraq, FISA
229	MS-01	Childers	-0.200	Unaff., Fr.	Iraq, FISA
229	OH-18	Space	-0.200	BDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
231.5	FL-02	Boyd	-0.198	BDC	Iraq, FISA
231.5	TX-28	Cuellar	-0.198	NDC, CHC	Iraq, FISA

Under this scenario, Tim Holden becomes the new pivot point. Although we’re past the point where 21 holdouts can provoke a mutiny, we’re still in the Land of the Blue Dog. We’ve added 13 new Democrats, and the good news is that all of them fall above the pivot point, pushing the list down so that the pivot point is one of the less objectionable Blue Dogs.

Now let’s look at the average scenario (26 pickups, including all of the Lean Rs):

Rank	District	110th Rep.	110th Score	Caucus	Bad Votes
216	WV-01	Mollohan	-0.269	Unaff.	Iraq
217	KY-06	Chandler	-0.264	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA
218	CA-20	Costa	-0.259	BDC, CHC	Iraq, FISA
219	GA-13	D. Scott	-0.257	BDC, NDC,  CBC	Iraq, FISA
220	SD-AL	Herseth	-0.253	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA
221	ND-AL	Pomeroy	-0.247	BDC	Iraq, FISA
222	TX-17	C. Edwards	-0.246	Unaff.	Iraq, FISA
223	KS-02	Boyda	-0.239	Unaff., Fr.	Iraq, FISA
224	AR-04	Ross	-0.235	BDC	Iraq, FISA
225	NC-07	McIntyre	-0.234	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA
226	PA-08	P. Murphy	-0.233	BDC, NDC, Fr.	FISA
227	VA-09	Boucher	-0.231	Unaff.	Iraq, FISA
228.5	TN-08	Tanner	-0.230	BDC	Iraq, FISA
228.5	TX-27	Ortiz	-0.230	CHC	Iraq, FISA

Now we’re getting a little closer to the light at the end of the tunnel. Under this scenario, Jim Costa becomes the pivot point. He’s a Blue Dog, and there are still a few Blue Dogs above him, but we’re starting to reach the bottom of New Dem terrain. Of the 26 Dems we’ve added under this scenario, only one of them is projected to slot in below the pivot point: Paul Carmouche in LA-04 (-0.200).

Now let’s look at the extremely optimistic scenario (56 pickups, including all Likely Rs):

Rank	District	110th Rep.	110th Score	Caucus	Bad Votes
215	WA-09	A. Smith	-0.308	NDC	FISA
216	TX-15	Hinojosa	-0.304	CHC	Iraq, FISA
222	AK-AL	Berkowitz	-0.300	—	—
222	AZ-01	Kirkpatrick	-0.300	—	—
222	FL-13	Jennings	-0.300	—	—
222	IL-14	Foster	-0.300	Unaff.	Iraq
222	IL-18	Callahan	-0.300	—	—
222	MN-06	Tinklenburg	-0.300	—	—
222	MO-06	Barnes	-0.300	—	—
222	MO-09	Baker	-0.300	—	—
222	NC-08	Kissell	-0.300	—	—
222	OH-16	Boccieri	-0.300	—	—
222	WV-02	Barth	-0.300	—	—
228	MD-02	Ruppersburger	-0.292	Unaff.	Iraq, FISA
229	TX-16	Reyes	-0.291	CHC	Iraq, FISA
230	OH-06	C. Wilson	-0.289	BDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
231.5	IA-03	Boswell	-0.288	BDC	FISA
231.5	PA-07	Sestak	-0.288	NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
233	AL-07	A. Davis	-0.286	NDC, CBC	Iraq, FISA
234	FL-22	Klein	-0.278	NDC, Fr.	FISA
235	CO-03	Salazar	-0.275	BDC, CHC	Iraq, FISA
236	NY-20	Gillibrand	-0.272	BDC, NDC, Fr.	Iraq, FISA
237.5	AR-02	Snyder	-0.271	NDC	Iraq, FISA
237.5	CA-18	Cardoza	-0.271	BDC, CHC	FISA
239	WV-01	Mollohan	-0.269	Unaff.	Iraq
240	KY-06	Chandler	-0.264	BDC, NDC	Iraq, FISA

We’re finally starting to make some progress. Under this scenario, #218 is part of an 11-way tie, but #216 is Ruben Hinojosa. We’re pretty much out of Blue Dog territory here, and the pivot point has started to move into the realm of the New Dems. Unfortunately, we’re also starting to reach a point of diminishing returns here: to bring about a 56-seat pickup, this requires sweeping not only all the moderate suburban seats but also a lot of seats that are more rural and conservative, meaning that we’ve added to the ranks of Dems who fall below the pivot point (18 of the new 56 fall at or below the pivot point).

And unfortunately, you can see we’re still at a pivot point where most of the veterans have voted the wrong way on the most recent Iraq Supplemental and FISA bills. For instance, we’re still a little short of pushing down Lipinski, Kanjorski, Etheridge, Dicks, or Dennis Moore.  However, the important thing to remember is that it will be a different playing field: one where, most likely, they’ll be working with President Obama rather than fretting over how best to oppose President Bush. Congress won’t need to act as a brake on out-of-control Iraq policy, and FISA… well… FISA remains a big question mark, but it’s unlikely that Congress would need act as a brake on further attempts to expand the President’s unchecked powers.

Instead, we’ll be needing to worry about whether we have enough votes to overcome any Blue Dog defections from Obama’s agenda. No doubt there will be enough votes to overcome any defections on the relatively uncontroversial stuff (there was only one Dem defection on the SCHIP veto override [Jim Marshall], and only two defections on the Employee Free Choice Act [Boren and Taylor]). But we need enough Progressive votes in the House to push Blue Dog objections to, say, universal health care and more progressive tax brackets, down below the pivot point.

One last Stupid Excel Trick before wrapping it up. This left me thinking of the last time the Democrats had a Congressional majority: the first two years of the Clinton administration, which were a legislative disaster by most anyone’s standards, where conservative Democrats (I suppose they were still ‘Boll Weevils’ back then; the term ‘Blue Dog’ hadn’t really been invented yet) scuttled most attempts to implement anything other than the most incremental change. Let’s take a quick look at where the pivot point was back then:

Rank	District	103rd Rep.	103rd Score
216	WI-01	Barca	-0.169
217	TX-02	C. Wilson	-0.166
218	AR-01	Lincoln	-0.161
219	TX-25	Andrews	-0.154
220	CA-19	Lehman	-0.152
Very very long break…
260	LA-03	Tauzin	0.083
261	NY-23	Boehlert (R)	0.088
262	FL-01	Hutto	0.090
263	ME-02	Snowe (R)	0.098

(This table doesn’t include 3 Republicans who fall in the gap: Morella at 250, Fish at 256, and Gilman at 258, and 1 Democrat who’s off the chart: Ralph Hall at 272).

If there’s any wonder why Clinton got hosed during his first term, this is it. Even though he started office with a gaping 258-176-1 edge in the House (right where we’d be under the average scenario from above, with 26 pickups), look at the DW-Nominate score for his pivot point: Blanche Lincoln (who now has graduated to the Senate): – 0.161. (And yes, right above her is Charlie Wilson, of Charlie Wilson’s War fame.) That’s a significantly lower score than the current pivot point we’re saddled with (Tim Mahoney, at – 0.186). Remember that these are DW-Nominate scores, which are designed for comparing one Congress against another and measure only left-to-right movement, not the distortions caused by the size of the caucus.

Clinton had fully 41 Democratic representatives below the pivot point, and most of them were more conservative than your average Blue Dog today. In fact, 20 of them were more conservative than today’s most conservative Dem (John Barrow)! (Only 3 of those 20 remain today, and only one as a Dem [Gene Taylor], with two party-switchers [Ralph Hall and Nathan Deal]; other delightful rogues from that gallery include Jim Traficant and Gary Condit.) So, by that measure, consider that we may well have a more progressive House right now than Clinton had to work with, despite the showy seat count in the 103rd (thanks to fewer, but more cohesive, Dems). Adding more progressives in the next Congress, on top of what he have now, will only help us more.

Last week, the Blue Dog Coalition of conservative House Democrats offered their endorsement to Travis Childers, who has been running a hard-charging campaign for the R+10 open seat left behind by Roger Wicker.

That was awfully nice of them, but how meaningful is their endorsement? Let’s take a look at Childers’ fundraising so far and see how many Blue Dogs have sent donations to Childers:

District	Member	MS-01 Donation
NY-24	Mike Arcuri	$0
CA-43	Joe Baca	$0
GA-12	John Barrow	$0
IL-08	Melissa Bean	$0
AR-01	Marion Berry	$0
GA-02	Sanford Bishop	$0
OK-02	Dan Boren	$0
IA-03	Leonard Boswell	$0
FL-02	Allen Boyd	$0
CA-18	Dennis Cardoza	$0
PA-10	Chris Carney	$0
KY-06	Ben Chandler	$0
TN-05	Jim Cooper	$0
CA-20	Jim Costa	$0
AL-05	Bud Cramer	$0
TN-04	Lincoln Davis	$0
IN-02	Joe Donnelly	$0
IN-08	Brad Ellsworth	$0
IL-14	Bill Foster	$0
AZ-08	Gabrielle Giffords	$0
NY-20	Kirsten Gillibrand	$0
TN-06	Bart Gordon	$0
CA-36	Jane Harman	$0
IN-09	Baron Hill	$0
PA-17	Tim Holden	$0
NY-02	Steve Israel	$0
TX-22	Nick Lampson	$0
FL-16	Tim Mahoney	$0
UT-02	Jim Matheson	$0
LA-03	Charlie Melancon	$1,000
NC-07	Mike McIntyre	$0
ME-02	Mike Michaud	$0
KS-03	Dennis Moore	$0
PA-08	Patrick Murphy	$0
MN-07	Collin Peterson	$0
ND-AL	Earl Pomeroy	$0
AR-04	Mike Ross	$0
CO-03	John Salazar	$0
CA-47	Loretta Sanchez	$0
SD-AL	Stephanie Herseth Sandlin	$0
CA-29	Adam Schiff	$0
NC-11	Heath Shuler	$0
GA-13	David Scott	$0
OH-18	Zack Space	$0
TN-08	John Tanner	$2,000
MS-04	Gene Taylor	$2,000
CA-01	Mike Thompson	$0
OH-06	Charlie Wilson	$0

And no donations from the Blue Dog PAC, either. With the exceptions of Reps. Melancon, Taylor, and Tanner (the latter of which actually took the time to campaign with Childers), this is a pretty pathetic show of support from the Blue Dogs in an extremely winnable race, especially when you consider just how flush with cash the Blue Dogs are.

When Blue Dogs and their allies keep telling us that Democrats need to compete in the South to succeed as a party, how can we possibly take them seriously if they won’t even put their money where their mouths are? Here we have an extremely viable race with an economically populist, socially conservative candidate in Travis Childers leading the charge. Yet, the Blue Dogs have mostly ignored him. What gives?

Granted, several members of the Blue Dog Coalition are facing tough re-election fights, and I wouldn’t expect them to be parting with any cash-on-hand at this point in time. But the vast majority of these members are not facing daunting re-election campaigns, and I would hope that they would loosen their purse strings and contribute $2000 (the maximum allowable amount from a member’s campaign account) or more if they have a leadership PAC to help Childers replenish his war chest. As he gears up to take on Republican Greg Davis one more time in the face of what will likely be fierce NRCC and 527 opposition, he’s going to need all the help he can get.

Blue Dogs: it’s time to step up to the plate.