The Blue Dog dilemma

While nothing is ever cast in stone within the Beltway, a deal struck between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a group of fiscally conservative Democrats billing themselves as Blue Dogs put off a critical House vote on health care reform until after Congress takes its summer recess.

But much as many conservative Republicans chafed at some of the big-government excess proposed by President Bush during his eight years in office, the opening months of President Obama’s term have created some anxiety among a crop of Democrats who came into office promising fiscal conservatism and railing against a Republican “culture of corruption”. Now these Democrats endure an August break where many faced an angry constituency seething about an economy which has worsened under total control of Washington by the Democratic party and the upcoming possibility of radical changes to the nation’s health care industry.

One case in point is Rep. Frank Kratovil, a freshman from Maryland. Kratovil squeaked into office last year with only 49 percent of the vote in a three-way race, barely defeating Republican Andy Harris. Harris, a Maryland state senator, had won the nod over longtime incumbent Rep. Wayne Gilchrest in a vicious Republican primary and the race turned in Kratovil’s favor when Gilchrest crossed party lines to endorse the Democrat just weeks before the election.

But Kratovil has done little to change the perception by naysayers in his district, which begins on the eastern outskirts of Baltimore, wraps around the northern end of Chesapeake Bay and encompasses the entire Eastern Shore, that he would be little more than a “lapdog” from Pelosi and the Democrat leadership. The first among several offensive votes to Kratovil’s electorate were the Congressman originally voting against the House version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act only to switch sides for the final version, allowing the House-Senate consensus ARRA package to win passage. Kratovil also informed callers to his office in the runup to the vote on cap-and-trade that he was “leaning against” the original Waxman-Markey legislation but ended up voting for the package after securing $1 billion for agricultural interests via one of many late-night amendments added to the bill on the eve of the final House vote.

Perhaps the mood of the electorate in Maryland’s First District was summed up in a recent health care protest at Kratovil’s district office in Salisbury, where one participant carried an effigy of Kratovil hung with a noose. This sort of behavior led other Democrats to reconsider having large gatherings with their constituents during the month-long August recess.

Congressman Tim Bishop of New York, a Democrat who is not a Blue Dog member, nonetheless opted to cancel his slate of meetings during the recess, stating after a recent incident where he needed a police escort to return to his car that the meetings would be “pointless…if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation.” Similar scenes have ensued at other meetings held by fellow Democrats, including one held by Blue Dog member Rep. Allen Boyd of Florida.

While leftists have derided the TEA Party movement as “tea baggers” and establishment Republicans have largely avoided throwing their support behind these spontaneous grassroots gatherings which sprang up as a protest against high taxation and government growth, much of the impetus behind this new attitude by activist voters stemmed from those April protests and their impact continues to be felt this summer, with another large national-scale protest planned for September 12 in Washington, D.C.

The Blue Dogs are among those being blamed in a summer of discontent stemming from a moribund economy and a raft of changes already enacted through a push from Democratic leadership and President Obama, including the aforementioned stimulus package, a bailout of the financial industry, and the federal takeover of Chrysler and General Motors. Having ran as fiscal conservatives, the Blue Dogs are facing the worst of both worlds – they dare not oppose the overall liberal Obama agenda lest they upset Democratic party leadership but the conservative voters in their districts who elected them despise and are enraged by the push toward bigger government.

The delay in considering health care reform may mean a long, hot August recess for the forty Blue Dogs who signed a letter in July vowing to vote against health care reform unless their concerns were met. But it will be up to conservative activists both inside and outside of Blue Dog districts to make sure Obamacare delayed is Obamacare denied.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

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