Open Left

Tooting your own horn...

Once again, don't count on it. Matt and I were the people who got blogs fundraising for him in the first place.

Apparently this post was more of an opportunity to issue a self-congratulations than to actually criticize Massa. Or perhaps it was both.

If you don't raise for Massa, others will. I'm not one to let one vote or one issue stand in my way. This vote doesn't make him a Blue Dog. This vote doesn't make him any less progressive. We need people like Massa in Congress. I know I will be fundraising for him in 2010.

And if everyone in Congress voted on the same reasoning Massa uses here, then only people from high foreclosure districts would have voted for the bill. They didn't--not even close. Most of the highest foreclosure districts were in Republican areas, in fact.

If everyone voted on the same reasoning Massa utilizes, they would be doing their jobs: Representing the best interests of their district. That is why districts elect them. These aren't statewide elected officials like U.S. senators. These are representatives of individual districts.

While the last sentence of your comment is true, the same can be said of Democratic districts. Here in New York, the top five foreclosure districts are all blue. The foreclosure crisis doesn't discriminate. There were only seven Republicans that voted for the housing bill. I find that to be a bigger crime than what Massa did.

Massa's argument against the bill was, like it or not, a sound one. What can the Republicans offer? That they voted against the housing bill because it was sponsored by a Democrat?  

There's no such thing as illegal immigration. But there are illegal wars...

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by: robert.harding @ Mon Mar 09, 2009 at 08:14:28 AM CDT