Based on the Bush Dog vital statistics chart that I produced yesterday, which I think can serve as an important reference point for the upcoming campaign against the Bush Dogs, over the last 24 hours I have discovered some more useful information about this caucus:
Of the thirty-eight members listed in the Bush Dog chart I produced yesterday, twenty-seven of the them were in the 109th Congress. Twenty-two of those twenty-seven voted in favor of the 2006 Military Commissions Act, and only ten other Democrats voted in favor of destroying habeas corpus. Cooper, Costa, Lipinski, Melancon, and Snyder actually showed some decency on that vote. Now, of those five, three come from solidly blue districts (Cooper, Costa and Lipinski), one come from a swing district (Snyder) and one comes from a red district (Melancon).
In 2005, looking at those same twenty-seven members, only Gordon, Matheson, Peterson, Salazar, Snyder, and Tanner voted against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. In this case, none of them are from blue districts, but some of them are from swinging districts.
Looking further back, only seventeen of these thirty-eight members were in Congress in 2002, during the vote to authorize the use of military force in Iraq. Every single one of them, except Rep. Snyder, voted in favor of the use of military force.
Considering that his name keeps appearing on these lists, I am starting to think that there is real hope for Representative Vic Snyder. It is always possible to stop being a Bush Dog. It also makes me wonder if there is any hope at all for the older members who never appeared as exceptions to any of these votes: Boswell, Boyd, Cramer, Edwards, Etheridge, McIntyre, Pomeroy, Ross and Tanner. They just appear to be neo-cons. Considering that Leonard Boswell's district is both in Iowa and lean Democratic, that might be a nice high visibility location to run a primary challenge. It wouldn't even be a waste of money, either, considering that the DCCC is constantly forced to spends money to defend Boswell, who appears to be a weak candidate, in that district. Rather than giving money to the DCCC to defend a Democratic neocon, let's defeat Boswell in a primary, and then give money to the DCCC so they can support someone else as the Democratic nominee. That way, the money the DCCC spends in the districts won't be such a waste.
Disturbingly, fully twenty-one of the Bush Dogs have entered Congress since 2002. while that still makes them only about 25-30% of the new Democratic members since that time, that also means they have a larger presence among newer members than they have of older members, where they are only about 10% of the Democratic House population. This makes me wonder just how anti-progressive Democratic House recruiting practices were from 2001-2006. To a very real extent, Democrats seem to have brought this working conservative majority on themselves. DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen can complain about the Bush Dog campaign all he wants, but until he demonstrates improved recruiting practices on behalf of the DCCC, I am not budging.
36 of the 38 Bush Dogs are men, with only Melissa Bean and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin representing women. By way of contrast, 48 of the 194 Democrats in Congress who are not Bush Dogs are women. Overall, that is a difference of 5.3% to 27.4% female representation. Being a Bush Dog, and supporting neo-conservative foreign policy despite being a Democrat, seems to be a male habit. In fact, I think there is a much more direct correlation to Bush Dogs being male Blue Dogs, than there is to them being Blue Dogs from red districts. It is a dude thing.
All food for thought. You can sign up for email alerts on our Bush Dog campaign in the upper right hand corner of Open Left. Also, you can read the entire Open Left Bush Dog archive here. The more we learn about these problem Democrats, the better our campaign against them will become. Keep digging.
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