I've never actually understood the political theory behind the Blue Dog Democrats. The need for a congressional coalition of conservative Democrats from heavily contested districts makes sense, but the actual philosophy they've chosen seems basically arbitrary, better suited to garnering praise from David Broder than resonating in the downscale districts most of these Democrats represent. In their own words, the Blue Dogs are "particularly active on fiscal issues, relentlessly pursuing a balanced budget and then protecting that achievement from politically popular 'raids' on the budget." The broader argument here is that this is the philosophy these Democrats need to adopt in order to win their districts. But when did a sort of unthinking fiscal conservatism become the lifeblood of the moderate? Since when has it even been popular? All partisans have tendency to overstate the electorate's sympathy for their position, and I think Glenn Greenwald does a bit of that here (I also think he over-interprets poll data that shows frustration with an gridlocked Congress as showing an aching desire for a far more liberal Congress). For better or worse, if you were a Southern Democrat in a moderate district in 2002, voting for the war had an actual political logic. If you represent a heavily Christian, heavily pro-life district, I can see the political argument for declaring yourself pro-life. But opposing most all investment spending, being almost anxious to cut deals that slash entitlements, being sticklers about procedural rules dealing with appropriations -- this stuff isn't popular anywhere in the country. There may be some popular politicians who espouse those beliefs and have been able to leverage the elite praise they garner into an aura of bipartisan respectability, but that's not the same thing. Which is why Greenwald's basic argument makes perfect sense: Why not test the popularity of the Blue Dog message? They've avoided a lot of challenges because Democrats are afraid of losing those seats, but Democrats have a few seats to spare right now, there's plenty of reason to think that the popularity of fiscal conservatism is something of a fraud perpetuated by editorial pages, and there's no doubt that Democrats would be better able to advance a progressive agenda if Congress had more progressive Democrats/more Blue Dogs afraid of challenges from the left. If the Blue Dogs fend off the challenges and prove their ideology wildly popular, so be it. But if they don't, or if they barely survive and realize their constituents want universal health care and withdrawal from Iraq, that's all for the better, no?
