Henry Cuellar, Bush Dog and Partial Success

by: David Kowalski

Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 13:12

Henry Cuellar may seem like a familiar name to many blog readers. He should. Cuellar was the early, less successful challenge a la Joe Lieberman. In his case, the net roots were energized not by "The Kiss" but by a similar W gesture at the 2006 State of the Union address: W squeezing Cuellar's cheeks.

Cuellar, of course, has a bad history with George W. Bush. He endorsed him fpr President in 2000. At the time, Cuellar was only thinking about running for the House. But that was before Tom DeLay's redistricting. In fact, Cuellar ran with the active support of neighboring congressman Ciro Rodriguez but lost to Republican Henry Bonilla in 2002.

Following the DeLay redistricting, Cuellar found his home town of Laredo (yes, that Laredo) in the district of his sponsor Ciro Rodriguez. In a highly controversial move, Cuellar ran against Ciro and defeated him in the primary and then cruised to an easy 59%-39% victory in the 2004 general election.

David Kowalski :: Henry Cuellar, Bush Dog and Partial Success

Cuellar is a smart man. He went from the streets of Laredo to a degree in the foreign relations and diplomacy school at Georgetown and then added multiple degrees at the University of Texas (Austin) including a PhD and a Law degree. Henry Cuellar claims on his congressional web site to have five graduate degrees, more than any other member of Congress.

Cuellar's smarts told him to make peace with Bush, appease him, in fact. This was a partisan Democratic district but Bush carried it 52.5% to 47.5% over Kerry. Running as a Democrat but working with the power brokers and W seemed like the smart move. And if this doesn't remind you of Sal in The Godfather (and Godfather II) I'd be surprised.

Well, Henry Cuellar went to Washington and played his game. He became sort of the unofficial Bush Democrat. In the portrait of Ciro it is stated that Henry Cuellar's Loyalty Score during his first term was an abysmal 44%.
Henry's House mates noticed. They actually backed Ciro to reclaim his old seat. Yes, that failed but it was a close thing. And the smart Henry Cuellar learned.

Cuellar has a terrible Progressive Punch score of 70.18. He also ha doubled his Loyalty Score from 44% to 90.3%. What this means is that Cuellar has gone from being always bad to being merely below average. He knows that he will not be challenged from the right. In fact, The Club For Growth contributed $15,448 making them his fourth largest donor. He also knows that he barely survived a challenge from the left. So swing left, concentrate on pork for his needy districts and continue to vote with the rich boys when it comes to taxes.

Ideally, we would remove Cuellar via a primary. His district will vote reliably Democratic at the House level and Cuellar is certainly too cagey and self-centered to be reliable. At the least, the very least, we need to pressure him.

I suspect that without the Texan Bush on the ticket, this district will vote for the Democrat for President over the elitist Mormon Romney or the NY City boy, Rudy Giuliani. As long as Democrats rule the roost, Cuellar will continue in his improved version but will continue to sabotage Democrats on tax issues and economic matters as well as some key issues along the way.

Given that, the next best thing would be to continue to pressure Henry Cuellar. And win national elections. Without those two elements. it is back to the 44% Loyalty score and a Progressive Punch score in the low 60s.

Oh, the voting record. He ranks 230 out of 431 on corporate subsidies. Voted for all the bad stuff in his first term including the Military Commissions Act (torture Ok), the Electronic Surveillance Modernization Act and the extension of Bush's tax cuts.

So, Henry Cuellar is proof that the Bush Dog strategy works. But my estimation is, he's also someone who needs to be kept in line by continued primaries (or threats) and continued lobbying.

For those interested, the map of Henry Cuellar's district is interesting. It includes the mexican border counties of Zapata and (to the north and west) Webb before flowing north to include part of San Antonio and the towns of Seguin and San Marcos. San Marcos is a college town where LBJ went to school (then San Marcos State Teachers College now Southwest Texas State). It is Hispanic and much of it is quite pretty.

Funny thing. Ciro remained more "true" and went on to beat Henry Bonilla, the Republican Henry Cuellar could not defeat. He probably has a safer seat because the threat of a primary is a lot less. The true path turned out, perhaps, to be smarter (although bumpier) than the smart path.