Blue Dogs Show Strength
Sunday’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune has an interesting piece on the Blue Dog Democrats.
The group coalesced after voters handed power to Republicans in the House [in 1994] for the first time since 1952. Calling themselves Blue Dogs because they thought their views on deficit-free spending had been choked blue by their party, they adopted their mascot from the Blue Dog paintings of Louisiana artist George Rodrigue.
The Blue Dogs’ recent rise began when 12 of the 13 freshman members of the group — so-called Blue Pups — won congressional seats previously held by Republicans, including Rep. Nick Lampson, who replaced Tom DeLay in Texas; Rep. Tim Mahoney, who replaced Mark Foley in Florida’s District 16 (which contains part of Charlotte County); and Rep. Heath Shuler, who replaced Charles Taylor in western North Carolina.
“We didn’t get this Democratic majority by replacing liberal Democrats with liberal Democrats,” said Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas, one of four Blue Dog leaders. “We did it by replacing Republicans with conservative Democrats.”
Those wins swelled the Blue Dog roster to 47, greater than the 35-seat margin Democrats hold over Republicans in the House.
“Our pulse is taken pretty regularly by leadership,” said Rep. Robert E. “Bud” Cramer of Alabama, one of the founding members.
There is much more, and I easily learned more than I expected about the group. Interesting article, especially as Alabamians in the 5th Congressional District prepare to choose Cramer’s successor.
CQ just ran an article about the Blue Dog’s fundraising clout: http://cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002697923
Comment by ptclearer — April 8, 2008 @ 10:18 am
I consider myself a Blue Dog and I think it’s vitally important that conservative Democrats, especially socially conservative Democrats in states like Alabama, have an organization that represents their views.
Comment by SamfordDem — April 8, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
I guess it’s the Blue Dog’s influence that has let the Democrat Congress to take all the Socially Conservative posistions they have.
Blue Dogs are the Quislings that keep the Socialist Democrats in power. Thanks a lot.
Comment by JD — April 8, 2008 @ 3:41 pm
[…] Retiring Democratic Congressman Bud Cramer, a founding member of the Blue Dogs, had previously said that he could endorse a member of either party as his successor to represent Alabama’s 5th Congressional District. This afternoon he endorsed Democratic state Senator Parker Griffith. […]
Pingback by Cramer Endorses Griffith » Doc’s Political Parlor — April 8, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
>>“We didn’t get this Democratic majority by replacing liberal Democrats with liberal Democrats,” said Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas, one of four Blue Dog leaders. “We did it by replacing Republicans with conservative Democrats.”
These “conservative” Dimocrats replaced Republicans so that Conservative Republican Leaders in Congress could be replaced with Liberal Dimocrats…
Comment by Onelife — April 8, 2008 @ 4:27 pm
>>socially conservative Democrats
I had no idea there was such an animal. Must be a relative scale…
Comment by Onelife — April 8, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
Yeah, right. The Blue Dogs are powerful… yet the Democratic Party still won’t allow anyone who’s pro-life to speak at a convention. These people are kidding themselves.
Comment by Whatalaugh — April 8, 2008 @ 4:31 pm
>>conservative Democrats, especially socially conservative Democrats…
Sorry. I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but I’m interested in this phenomenon.
I’m not a Republican because I have any great affinity for the party itself. I’ll gladly drop it where there is a more effective group of Conservatives to join up with. I’m a Republican because the purpose of a political party is to join with like-minded people to have more political clout that one has alone. So, why would a social conservative join with the party that fights tooth and nail against EVERYTHING socially conservative in the country?
I could understand if joining the party swayed it toward the direction of social conservatism, but the Democrat party is SOOOO far gone on the social issues, the Blue Dogs are but a drop in the bucket. The Blue Dogs serve no purpose other than empowering people who oppose everything the Blue Dogs stand for.
I have my disagreements with the GOP establishment. Unfortunately, for each thing I disagree with the GOP about, the Dem position is far more disagreeable.
Comment by Onelife — April 8, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
I can explain the Blue Dog phenomenon from my own perspective. I’m pretty socially conservative. I believe in a consenting adult’s right to make their own decisions about sex even if I think it’s morally wrong, but I do think states have the right to ban gay marriage. I believe high schoolers should have access to info about contraception, but I still think abistinence until marriage is the best and only morally upright way to go. I think abortion is almost always morally wrong (life and death medical situations are a difficult), but I’ll admit it’s a complicated legal issue until the point at which the child becomes viable outside the womb.
I totally support any ban on partial birth abortion that makes an exception for the life of the mother. I totally support a state’s right to ban gay marriage. I believe Christ is absolutely the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that no man comes to the Father but through Him, but I abosolutely respect your right to think that makes me a blooming idiot. I also believe the Democratic party is the party that best represents my values and interests.
Why is that? It’s because the issues the matter to me have to do with more than what goes on below the belt. Education, healthcare, the environment, economic policy, foreign policy, human rights, labor rights: these are all vital issues that the government has a responsibility to address and, to me, the Democratic party is head and shoulders above the Republican party on those matters.
Free market capitalism is absolutely the best possible economic system, but I, for one, have no desire to remove the safeguards that have kept so many Americans from falling into abject poverty and starvation since the Great Depression. What many fail to realize is that these programs help safeguard our economy as well. Labor unions, unemployment insurance, and social security may be imperfect institutions, but they have kept many hardworking Americans active participants in the economy when they might have otherwise faltered.
I’m sure some of the more diehard Republicans on this forum are already firing up their keyboards to respond with examples of corrupt Democrats with all manner of personal and ethical failings. That’s true, but corruption is a cancer that does not discriminate against members of any party.
Show me Bill Clinton, and I will show you Richard Nixon. Show me Barney Frank, and I will show you Mark Foley, David Vitter, and Larry Craig. Nobody has had their hand deeper in the pork barrel than Ted Stevens. The list could go on and on for both sides. There are plenty of Republicans whom I respect, but I genuiunely disagree with the majority of the positions most of their candidates espouse. I agree with Democrats more often. It’s that simple.
Comment by SamfordDem — April 8, 2008 @ 7:38 pm
>>That’s true, but corruption is a cancer that does not discriminate against members of any party.
You got that right…
Comment by Onelife — April 8, 2008 @ 10:36 pm
SamfordDem,
You sound like the Democrat Party that left Ronald Reagan over 40 years ago.
If your party was anything like what you espouse, I’d have two viable choices.
Best of luck to you in making it that way.
Comment by Onelife — April 8, 2008 @ 10:39 pm
It’s not too hard here in Deep South. The Alabama Democratic party has long taken a pro-life stance. Guys like James Fields, Zeb Little, Bud Cramer, and Bobby Bright are right there with me on all the important issues.
I didn’t get into this in my original post, but another factor in my support for the Democratic party is the hypocrisy of the Republican establishment. I believe that most Republican voters and some Republican politicians genuinely care about issues like abortion, but, for guys like Karl Rove, abortion is nothing more than a carrot on a stick designed to bring out the evangelical vote.
The issues that really matter to the Republican establishment are deregulation, lower taxes for the rich, and an interventionist foreign policy. The neo-conservatism that has taken root in the Republican leadership may be the most intellectually dishonest political ideology to make its way to the US since Communism. No matter what you believe about the Iraq war, it is neither conservative nor prudent to simultaneously cut taxes and conduct a $1 Trillion war.
Look at the way Mike Huckabee got treated by the so-called Republican establishment leaders early in the primaries. No one could look at the record objectively and claim that Romney (or Giuiliani or Thompson) was better than him on social issues. My rationale is, if I don’t trust either party’s leadership on social issues, then I might as well support the party I agree with on nearly everything else.
Comment by SamfordDem — April 9, 2008 @ 10:50 am
>>..simultaneously cut taxes and conduct a $1 Trillion war.
It has been proven time and time again that “cutting tax rates” is a vastly different thing than “cutting taxes”.
There can be no debate that income tax rates dramatically affect incentives to produce wealth.
Tax rates of 0% and 100% (on income) would both produce $0 revenue. Somewhere between the two there is a maximum. That maximum obviously takes several years to achieve after a rate change. This means that an increase in a tax rate could produce increased revenue in the short term, but not in the long run. And vice-versa. A rate cut, can (and often does) produce increased revenue as economic incentive is produced.
I think ideal income tax rates are far closer to 15% than they are to 30%. I think that as we move rates toward the teens, economic output, wealth, personal responsibility and everything else that made this country strong will increase.
Comment by Onelife — April 9, 2008 @ 11:30 am