Who Let The Dogs In?

Quite a few of the Donk freshman elected last week ran and won by pretending to be "conservative" Democrats, aka "blue dogs." I'm sure that's what Crazy Speaker Nancy was thinking, and it was one of my rare-as-hen's-labia points of agreement with the Gloria Swanson clone.

However, the rebuke of her hand-picked candidate for House Majority Leader, Jack "Haw-Haw" Murtha, revealed the NeoBolshevik bag lady to be in possession of not as much clout as she apparently thought she had. And that miscalculation may also be extending to the new "blue dogs," who might yet have more bite than bark:

They helped propel the Democrats to victory in last week's election, and now the "Blue Dogs" want their reward: a decidedly conservative fiscal policy that begins with a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget.

The coalition of moderate and conservative House Democrats on Wednesday introduced nine members who were newly elected to Congress, bringing its numerical strength to forty-four. That's more than enough, if all forty-four join with the Republican minority in January, to block the initiatives of the more liberal House leadership headed by Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco). ....

Blue Dog Co-Chairman Jim Matheson of Utah said neither party could take the support of the coalition for granted. "Blue Dogs believe in partnership and not partisanship," he said.

Mike Ross of Arkansas, another Blue Dog leader, said the Democratic Party owed its success in the midterm election to the conservative Democrats who won many seats formerly held by Republicans. "Republicans did not lose their seats to liberal Democrats," Ross said. "Republicans lost their seats to Blue Dog Democrats, to conservative Democrats."

As you probably already guessed, I’m not really buying any of this. Particularly Representative Matheson’s "partnership, not partisanship" canard. Crazy Nancy may have alienated these people for the time being, but they’ll come to their lack of senses sooner or later – by hook or by crook. Her whip (and I don’t mean Steny Hoyer) will see to that. Unlike ideologically laissaiz faire Republicans, Democrats play hardball with their "moderates" (or did when they actually had any – maybe the two are related…), and there’s no way, no how that House Donks will let these faux mutts stand in the way of their long-lusted after orgy of policy extremism and partisan revenge.

Still, even if this was on the level it would be mixed blessing. In the short term you’d have a working "ideological majority" approximating the actual House majority that the GOP lost, though that would not extend to, for example, preserving the Bush tax cuts. But beyond this biennium how many of these teal yappers, assuming any of them are genuine, would not get spayed and/or neutered into "growing in office’? And in the mean time, they’d still be sold as "moderates," undermining the case for replacing them with fresh, new ‘Pubbies. That was the case for years pre-1994, if you’ll recall, and it took a political "earthquake" to finally eject them. And such temblors don’t come along very often. Even mini-shocks aren’t an every-election occurance.

I think that the "blue dogs" will very shortly be given "an offer they can’t refuse". Either that or a quid pro quo to buy them off and get them to fall into line and go along with the tax-raising, budget-busting, pork-proliferating, war-quitting, Bush/Cheney-impeaching program. That’s probably what they’re really after, anyway. After all, they know better than anybody that they hold the key to cementing the new Donk majority – and, therefore, Crazy Nancy’s withered, shriveled ovaries in the palm of their collective hand.