Will Centrist Dems Defect Giving Bush a Congressional Majority?
by Jonathan Singer, Tue Dec 12, 2006 at 10:54:29 AM EST
Back during the first two years of the Reagan administration when the President enjoyed rather strong approval numbers, a significant core of Democrats in Congress -- the old conservative Southern bulls, mainly -- joined with Republicans in the House to effectively give the GOP (or at least conservatives) control over the trifect in Washington. With George W. Bush having lost his congressional majorities last month, many pundits are talking about the possibility that this President will be able to replicate the successes of his predecessor in crafting a governing coalition in Congress even without a Republican majority in either chamber. To this end, the President has made at least some efforts to reach out to the New Democrats and Blue Dogs within the House Democratic caucus to see if he cannot garner the requisite support to push his agenda. Yet as Edward Epstein reports today for the San Francisco Chronicle, Bush may be hitting some road blocks.
But the president's effort is running up against a major obstacle. The Democrats he has targeted for cooperation are the same lawmakers who are most critical of the huge budget deficits and increased national debt that have been amassed during Bush's six years in the presidency. They also want major changes in Bush's Iraq policy and have pledged their support for Democratic Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi's "six for '06'' platform of major legislative items that she will push in the early days of the new Congress.Bush met with leaders of the 44-member Blue Dog Coalition and the 62-member New Democrat Coalition at the White House last Friday, at his invitation, and all pledged to try to cooperate in the new Congress. But beneath the surface, the tension and the Democrats' pique at being ignored by the Bush White House until now were obvious.
Make no mistake, the centrists among House Democrats today are a far cry from the true conservatives that once ruled the roost in the party. True, a number of these self-professed moderates have been all-too-willing to defect on key legislative items, from the Iraq War to Bankruptcy Reform. But in other areas they have largely stuck with their caucus, most notably on the President's plan to partially privatize Social Security. And they have good reason to. As Alan K. Ota notes in CQ Weekly (no link available), President Bush and his political apparatus have a history of going after their one-time allies within the Democratic Party.
During their time in the majority, the Republicans wooed the Blue Dogs mainly by trying to persuade them to switch parties -- and several did, including Nathan Deal of Georgia, Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, and Texans Greg Laughlin and Ralph M. Hall. When the target list for such switches was exhausted, the GOP worked to defeat some conservative Democrats, most famously Blue Dog founder Charles W. Stenholm, who was a victim of the Texas redistricting that Tom DeLay engineered in 2003. [emphasis added]
Others who faced the wrath of the White House even after welcoming its entreaties include Mary Landrieu and a number of other Democrats who supported the President's tax proposals and general legislative agenda during the 107th Congress.
Given George W. Bush's record of stabbing Democrats in the back and his woefully low approval rating, there's little reason to for any Democrat to sell out his party over the next two years. Yes, newly-elected House Dems from tough districts, like Brad Ellsworth from Indiana and Nick Lampson from Texas, are going to have to think long and hard about balancing their views with the political realities of their districts. But any Democrat that falls prey to the same old trick from the White House and takes a bite out of the forbidden fruit of false bipartisanship deserves to be exiled from the party -- not only for disloyalty but also for a complete and utter misunderstanding of the political system and climate.
Tags: Bipartisanship, Blue Dogs, House Caucuses, house democrats, New Democrats (all tags)
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