John Cole is angry at the Blue Dogs:
Is there ANYTHING that centrists and moderates will not do to hurt themselves? Anything? The public is livid about jobs, centrists oppose job creation efforts. The public wants the middle class tax cuts extended while the taxes on the rich ended, the centrists oppose that. And on and on and on.
I've wondered this myself; at nearly every turn, Blue Dogs have opposed or altered (usually for the worse) everything proposed by the administration, even when it benefited them politically. The fight over tax cuts is tailor made for a Democratic victory, but centrist Democrats insist on begging Republicans not to hit them. As I wrote earlier this month:
At the beginning of his administration, moderate Senate Democrats and Blue Dogs in the House could have made the decision to stick with the whole of President Obama's agenda; they could have gone for the stimulus as initially proposed by the administration -- fewer tax cuts, more aid to states -- and could have resisted the urge to negotiate away health-care reform as well as the administration's subsequent attempts at stimulus. A more robust stimulus would have kept more people employed and generated more economic growth, and a shorter fight over health-care reform might have kept public support higher than it eventually was.
Democrats were bound to lose seats this fall; the president's party almost always loses seats in a midterm election, and with a large majority, Democrats were bound to lose more than usual. But no one prophesied a GOP House in 2010, and it will happen -- in part -- because Blue Dogs are too cowardly to help themselves.
-- Jamelle Bouie
