If Only Blue Dogs and RINOs Could Breed!
By Steve_in_KC on September 23, 2009 at 8:30 AM in Current Affairs
This is not a news piece. This is just my opinion. I do not speak for the staff of No Quarter, nor the majority of readers, because this blog is not of one mind. A recent discussion among the writers revealed that there are few things on which we universally agree! The one thing we do agree about is our mutual admiration for each other. And nobody seems to like Obama.
Other than those things, we all pretty much have our own axes to grind, our own gored oxen, and our own hopes for the future. Everybody’s different (except me).
I’ve always been a left-leaning Indy, but mostly voted Democratic until very recently. Most of the Republicans I like are considered RINOS (Republicans In Name Only), like John McCain and Olympia Snowe, who are more liberal than mainstream Republicans. The Democrats I like most right now are the Blue Dog Democrats, who tend to be socially liberal and fiscally conservative. I also consider conservative Democrats to be allies in the cause of unseating the Obama faction of the party.
I’ve often commented in my posts here at NQ that I support the idea of a new political party for centrists, even favoring the name “Centrist Party.” In the spirit of “truth in advertising,” I think it’s appropriate that the current major parties change their names to the Conservative Party and the Progressive Party. It’s so completely rational and reasonable a concept, it’s probably doomed from the get-go.
The reason this will likely never happen? The Centrist Party would draw all the intelligent (moderate) politicos from the other two parties, making it undefeatable!
You know the primary reason I so admire the Blue Dogs and the RINOs? They have more guts than any politicians I can think of. They have the bravery to go against the party bosses. They have the principles to stand up for what they believe is right, regardless of pressure from their peers. And they have the temerity to represent their constituents instead of caving to the browbeating of their parties’ binary group-think. They are the voices of moderation and bipartisanship, qualities woefully lacking in today’s polarized politics.
Ideologically, the Blue Dogs would seem to be right up my alley, almost enough to make me reconsider being a Democrat. Almost. If they became the majority in their party, I’d probably join. I just don’t see it happening, so I can make that statement without fear of being held to it!
The phrase Blue Dog Democrat is sometimes tossed around as a common epithet or label for everyday people. The phrase can be taken to include those who agree with these Congressional rebels, but as a matter of definition, they are a distinct group of people in Congress.
According to Wikipedia:
The Democratic Blue Dog Coalition is a group of currently 52 moderate and conservative Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives…
The Blue Dog Coalition was formed in 1994 during the 104th Congress to give more conservative members from the Democratic party a unified voice after the Democrats’ loss of Congress in 1994…
In the summer of 2009, The Economist magazine said “[t]he debate over health care… may be the pinnacle of the group’s power so far” and quoted Charlie Stenholm, a founding Blue Dog, as saying that “this is the first year for the new kennel in which their votes are really going to make a difference.”
The biggest single source of finance for the Blue Dog Political Action Committee is the health care industry. They donated $1.2 million dollars in the 2009-10 election cycle. In July 2009, Blue Dog members who were committee members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee successfully delayed the House vote on the Health Insurance Reform Bill (HR32)) until after the Summer Recess.
And here’s the main reason I support the Blue Dogs, from the same Widipedia article:
The Blue Dog Coalition is often involved in finding a compromise between liberal and conservative positions. The Blue Dogs are viewed by some as a continuation of the socially conservative wing of the Democratic party prominent during the presidency of Harry S Truman. However, the only stated policy position of the Blue Dogs is fiscal conservatism.
Despite the Blue Dogs’ differing degrees of economic and social conservatism, they generally work to promote positions within the House of Representatives that bridge the gap between center-right and left-wing politics. Blue Dogs are an important swing vote on spending bills and as a result have gained influence in Congress out of proportion to their numbers. They are frequently sought after to broker compromises between the Democratic and Republican leadership, generally lending a more centrist character to US politics.
As for the RINO’s, that phrase is generally used as a negative epithet, and no Republicans are known to apply that label to themselves. There are, however, several groups within the Republican Party who are not in the Conservative mold of most Republicans. The group that most resembles and is often compared to the Blue Dog Democrats is called the Republican Main Street Partnership, or RMSP.
They are political moderates in the Republican Party, and are often likely to vote with the Democrats on liberal issues.
According to Wikipedia (again):
The Republican Main Street Partnership was formed following the 1994 House elections, in which conservative Republicans were swept into power. An informal discussion group formed by Representatives Nancy Johnson, Steve Gunderson, and Fred Upton later became somewhat of an organized bloc with the intent on representing the moderate wing of the Republican Party. The partnership is currently composed of moderates such as Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe; some members would fit most of the criteria of a conservative, such as Thad McCotter, Dean Heller, and Brian Bilbray. Members of the group are often labeled as RINO‘s by conservatives and are often challenged in Republican primaries by the Club for Growth.
The Republican Main Street Partnership has allied with other moderate Republican groups, including Christine Todd Whitman’s It’s My Party Too, Ann Stone’s Republicans for Choice, the Log Cabin Republicans, the Republican Majority For Choice, The Wish List, Republicans for Environmental Protection, and the Kansas Traditional Republican Majority.
In May 2005, the Republican Main Street Partnership helped pass the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act in the House Of Representatives; 50 Republicans voted in support of the bill, which passed 238-194.
Now if only these RINOs and Blue Dogs would get together and form a Centrist Party, we might once again have a political party that we could get behind, perhaps even join. I know, it’s not likely to happen, but it just makes so much sense!
Of course, that’s exactly why it won’t happen!
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