Blue Dogs over-analyze an odd year Election for Excuses for their centrist nibbling games
Now, as the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate prepare for next year’s midterm elections, some moderate Democrats are wondering whether they can afford to follow President Obama’s ambitious legislative agenda on such controversial issues as healthcare and climate change. One said the results were a “wake-up call.”
“There are going to be a lot more tensions between the White House and Congress,” predicted Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), a member of the Blue Dog Coalition of fiscally conservative Democrats. “They’ve been under the surface so far — and they’re going to come out in the open.”
The answer is no. I don’t believe Jim Cooper and his select handful of Blue Dog Democrats. To recap the elections of 2009: New Jersey: one unpopular Democratic Governor defeated by an unpopular Republican Incumbent in a state where the Republicans had been knocking on the door for all of Bush’s terms — they were due, and the state no longer had Bush to kick around. Virginia: the Democrat gave Democrats no reason to vote, proclaiming he might just use the opt out provision for the Public Option. If Virginia gives a cautionary lesson, it cautions every which way. Maybe he wouldn’t have won anyway, but it’s also worth pointing out that quite a few voters would rather vote without having it diagnosed in terms of the Obama versus Opposition Party Game — a Governor, not a Message.
And, frankly, had Health Care been passed in the Summer, Corzine probably would have been re-elected.
So, we have either that most rarefied of political altitudes, that swallows crap whole, or we have the search for an excuse from those weird Centrist Nibbling Creatures. The good news is the worst of them, the ones we can absolutely count on not being part of the 218 votes Pelosi is shifting around for right now, will be taken out in the next election in the “Republican Resurgence” (an election year that, unlike their heralded victory of 2009 will likely result in them gaining a handful of Congressional seats instead of losing a seat) — goodbye to Walt Minnick.
The question regarding Virginia: so the Democrats nominated a bad candidate. Were either of his two main primary opponents any better or more appealing? Terry McAuliffe is full of baloney, surely, and imported a false “Clinton versus Obama” contest that was best ignored. Despite his baloney, or maybe because of it, he did have a pulse, though, and probably would have had a pulse in the general. Enough that he would have done better than Deeds.