Why Blue Dogs would destroy the Democratic Party. Again.

The Week ^ | July 21, 2017 | Ryan Cooper

[2ndDivisionVet]

With a seriously unpopular Republican president and congressional Republicans desperately attempting to pass an even more unpopular health-care bill only to fall flat on their faces, Democrats are anticipating big pickups in the 2018 midterms. And to increase their odds, they're trying to revive a group once left for dead: The conservative Blue Dog Democrats. Nearly wiped out in the 2010 and 2014 Republican victories, the few remaining members of this caucus are working closely with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to recruit and fundraise for 2018 candidates.

These people are the absolute last ones the Democrats need. Not only have the tectonic plates of politics fundamentally shifted from 2008, when the Blue Dogs peaked, the caucus' ideology is bad and political poison.

First and most importantly, Blue Dogism — essentially, being Republican Lite — is an odious ideology. The caucus has its roots in the South, where its members are descended from the last few Dixiecrats who did not eventually switch parties in outrage over Democratic President Lyndon Johnson passing civil rights legislation. Today they are generally focused on austerity, a social conservatism more mild than what Republicans espouse, and a fetish for bipartisanship for its own sake. Witness this 2014 ad for John Barrow, where he boasts about voting with Republicans most of the time and for $100 billion in spending cuts:

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)

Blue Dogs and their ideological fellow travelers were a major force behind monstrous (and deeply racist) welfare reform in 1996, financial deregulation, the war on drugs and crime, and sundry other neoliberal disasters. More recently, they successfully demanded ObamaCare be whittled down into a worse and more unpopular form, and most importantly, helped keep the Obama economic stimulus package far smaller than it should have been.

This leads to the second problem: Blue Dogism is a tremendous strategic liability for the Democrats. It may still be possible to win a race or two with a Blue Dog candidate. But their knee-jerk fiscal conservatism during a huge recession was politically catastrophic for the party as a whole (in addition to being stunningly economically illiterate). With Democrats in power during an election when unemployment was 10 percent, they were wiped out en masse in the 2010 midterms — and the Blue Dogs were most of the victims.

Losing half their caucus at a stroke — obviously because of the economic crisis — did not dent Blue Dog enthusiasm for more austerity in the slightest. In September 2011, with unemployment at 9 percent, Blue Dog Rep. Heath Shuler was still demanding more austerity, citing his business experience, right up until he lost his seat the next year. Barrow lost his in 2014.

All those losses are representative of a general political trend: the ideological sorting of the parties, and the collapse of their cross-ideological wings. There used to be many liberal Republicans, and many conservative Democrats, but they have mostly vanished as parliamentary-style discipline has taken hold. This has gone much further among Republicans, but conservative Democrats are also swimming against a strong current. These days, most conservatives just vote Republican, and most liberals just vote Democrat. As Jon Ossoff's loss in Georgia shows, it's dramatically harder than it was 10 years ago to win as a bland conservative-lite Democrat.

Finally, there's the issue of persuasion. The DCCC believes that winning seats is "more important than any Democratic purity test for potential candidates," Bloomberg reports. Given the extreme headwinds any attempt to revive Blue Dogism will face, this rhetoric is cover for the fact that the Wall Street and medical industry lickspittles in key positions at the DCCC would like lots of Blue Dogs in Congress, both to keep out leftist candidates and to provide cover for failing to pass policy that base voters actually want — like Medicare for all. A Gallup poll finds that 58 percent of Americans and 73 percent of Democratic voters favor replacing ObamaCare with a federal program to provide universal health insurance. A poll from Pew asking specifically about Medicare for all finds that support among Democrats has grown from 33 percent to 52 percent in just three years.

In other words, people's attitudes about policy are not cast in stone — the activist campaign for single-payer is paying off. Given the manifest failure of Blue Dogism in every realm of policy, it's easily possible that a sustained argument for things like Medicare for all could change enough minds to make it actually happen and finally get everyone covered, including the 28 million people left uninsured by ObamaCare. Indeed, it may actually be easier to win upper-middle class voters with such an agenda.

But to do so, Democrats will have to stop trying to copy-paste the past and start reckoning with how they lost control of virtually every level of government.

Blue Dogs are not the answer.

[Does so]

“The Democratic Party left me...”

[Rurudyne]

By all means, the DNC needs to be as ideologically pure as still being Muslim Brotherhood friendly can still be. It is a winning strategy for them and I’m shaking in my boots that they’ve hit on the idea.

[PAR35]

There is no room for southern white males in the democrat party. They tried a white male carpetbagger that didn’t even live in the district, but that didn’t work out for them either.

[yarddog]

My Father and Grandfather were “yellow dog democrats”. I had never heard the phrase “blue dog democrats” until maybe 10 years ago. Now it seems to be the preferred one.

Jimmy Carter did the impossible. He got my Father to vote for a republican. He voted for Reagan and never looked back.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

I agree! Keep the Identity politics and love for Islam going Dems!

[Texas Fossil]

There are no blue dog dems. They are extinct. ComDems ended them.

[cba123]

I think the opposite.

If the GOP doesn’t stop wasting its time on a counterproductive effort on healthcare, and start actually doing the things Trump was elected by Americans for, he is going to squander his edict, and leave a severely damaged GOP which will once again begin it’s downward slope of globalism, which had been completely destroying it for years.

Just my opinion.

[Texas Fossil]

The Blue Dog Coalition was formed in 1995

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition

2016 Election

Brad Ashford (NE-2) - Defeated
Gwen Graham (FL-2) - Retired
Loretta Sanchez (CA-46) - Ran for Senate & was defeated

[DLfromthedesert]

Heath Shuler retired after 3 terms. Not defeated.

[Vendome]

Idiot author. Dems are looking for huge pickup in numbers for 2018?

How fookin stewpet are you?

Here are some real math numbers, yuh retard.

So, my response:

1st. 2018 is not going to end well for them. They have 25 seats up, with 11 vulnerable. Compare that to the Republicans who have only seats up with merely 2 vulnerable.

Let’s just say losing 30% cor the Dems would be a friggin disaster but, not as bad as 2020....more later.

2nd. SCOTUS...3 more turns at bat over the next 8 years.

3rd. Federal Judges. Over the next 7.5 years we will realign more than 1/2 or more than 700 Federal Judges and may even break up pesky courts like the 9th.

Hell, we could replace a few annoying judges in Hawaii.

4th. The Wall.

5th. Obamacare will be repealed.

6th. Lower Capital gains tax and offer enticing tax advantages to repatriate some of the $3 Trillion offshore and put that capital to work investing in factories and new business ideas.

This will invigorate the economy.

7th. 2020. Dems have 11 Senate seats up, compared to 22 for Republicans.

We probably have a net gain of 3 for the Senate.

All 435 seats in Congress are up but, if we can get the issues of healthcare coverage, The economy and the wall in progress as well at least SCOTUS we will probably have an increase in the house as well(I am still studying that batlefield and don’t have numbers yet)

So why all the fighting from the Dems and these charges which are no more than vapor?

Well, their product sucks. Its a stew of hate, Socialism/Marxist utopian ideals and more segregation of society by invented classes of aggrieved people.

But, the real kicker is this about Reapportionment. Can you say Entropy?

8. Yeah that’s right. With more wins under the belt of the Republicans we will have a larger swath of land to carve up because the census will take place, which the predicate for redistricting and guess who wins that fight no matter what?

Republicans and we get an increase in key states we will continue to win. Alabama, Georgia and Florida will gain 1 more representative in the house, who will likely be a Republican

However, Texas will gain 3 or 4 representatives locking up the south for Republicans over the next decade.

So, in 2020 we will gain further majorities in the house and senate, redistrict in our favor, we will be in the middle of an economy that out performs all other nations, 2 SCOTUS or more will be seated in our favor, 300-400 Federal judges are seated Obamacare/Check, Tax Policy/Check, The Wall/Check, Fair Trade/Check, ISIS Dead/Check, Russia petitions for statehood (jus kee dean), Trump Re-elected / Yuge Check.

And the dems wander the wilderness for 10 years because they stand zero chance of doing anything significant after 2020.

And the DNC is not only running an insane $3.5 million dollars in debt but, their fundraising is at the lowest in 14 years.

And they have no candidate for 2020 as yet but, their current financial or intellectual leadership.

Oh, and that Trump meme “ He’s going to step down!” Uhmmm...Boo Chit.

He’s already fundraising for his 2020 PAC with $12,000,000 cash on hand.

That’s right. After disbursements he’s got $12 million.

That’s debt free money.

Oh, and the RNC is cash flow positive with $44,000,000 in the bank.

I ask you, at this point, who is going to win?

Conclusion:
Democrats are so broke they can’t pay attention and have zero money to support any war but.

Cheap azz Chinese knockoff of an intellect.

So, get use to Donald Trump being president for 8 years.

[frnewsjunkie]

*seriously unpopular Republican president*

I beg to disagree with that statement. Trump may be unpopular with the haters, but a substantial majority elected him... so it can’t be “seriously”... However, from their viewpoint, there is only one viewpoint and that is theirs! They write like their thoughts and feelings are the only ones on this earth... everyone must think like they do.

Trump is different... and that’s why we voted for him. As for the republicans and the democrats.. they are one and the same.. with a little more commie in the dems, but “dear friends” one and all... plus they are all too good to associate with the man we elected! I hope we can get rid of a lot of them next cycle... Please, God... deliver us from the elite left in both parties!!!!!!

[siberianheat]

Back in the day the Blue Dogs were the examples I used when I’d say something like this: “I’d never vote Democrat, but if I did I’d vote for a Blue Dog.” They were the same level of crazy on the social issues as every other Democrat, but at least they were somewhat coy about opening the coin purse. I remember one woman kept an actual blue dog replica under her desk as a symbol of their fiscal conservatism. One of the biggest points of contention with Obamacare back then was that the Blue Dogs had to be tricked, uh, I mean pursueded, that Ocare was going to save the government money. Ha! Once they realized they’d been lied to and no one cared, they were left behind by the party. It would be smart to put a face to what appears to be fiscal sanity again, but I’m happy to see articles like this one telling them the answer is always to go hard left.

[Vince Ferrer]

Good post. Now all we need are some republicans in congress.

[yarddog]

Thanks.

[Vendome]

And then there’s that...

[yarddog]

I was born and grew up in the Florida Panhandle.

It was so solidly Democrat that very few people even voted in the general election. If you won the primary, you were elected. Once a candidate tried to steal an election by having his people show up in the general election and write in his name.

The primary winner found out just in time and got people to the polls.

Now the area is solidly Republican but not quite to the extent it used to be Democrat.

[Dilbert San Diego]

1st. 2018 is not going to end well for them. They have 25 seats up, with 11 vulnerable. Compare that to the Republicans who have only seats up with merely 2 vulnerable.

---

I knew the Dems. had many more Senate seats up for election in 2018, but didn’t realize so many were vulnerable.

So, for sake of argument, say the Reps and Dems. split the 2 vulnerable Republican seats, and the GOP picks up 6 of the 11 Dem. vulnerable seats. That would be a net gain of 5 for the Republicans in the Senate. Of course, there could be greater gains for the GOP, but hard to see how the Dems. can even hold the line and defend so many seats without some net loss of seats.

And, we should note, that 2018 is an off year election. The Democrats have historically had trouble getting their voters to vote in off year elections.

Poor Dems. are $3 million in debt?? Contributions are way down??? Dem voters aren’t inspired to send money to the Democrats?? Doesn’t Hillary have some left over money she can give them, to prove that she’s a good Democrat, and maybe garner some good will for another expected presidential run of her own in 2020???

[Bonemaker]

Beat me to it,

[Hardastarboard]

HARD LEFT!!! The Democrats need to veer off past Karl Marx. Really, really go left. They need to do that if they’re ever going to win again. I keep screaming it. They need to just do it. Trust me, Dems. You won’t regret it. Ever.