OK! Need a list?
This throwaway line in a Hill article (“Dem healthcare infighting intensifies”):
And on Tuesday it prompted Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) to hint that more liberal members of the party should consider challenging centrist Blue Dogs in next year’s primaries.
…eventually led me to this (via The Patriot Room: he also has a related video there) article about what has to be one of the more, ah, creative strategies floated out there this year: taking down ‘conservative’ Democrats in conservative districts by weakening them or replacing them with liberal Democrats.
Wait, what?
Asked if she would recruit more liberal candidates to run against Blue Dogs, Waters said, “That’s normally not done.”
But she added: “There may be people out there listening and observing all of this who may get motivated based on what they’re seeing and throw their hat into the ring.”
She also criticized White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for recruiting many of the House’s more conservative members when he headed the House Democrats’ campaign arm. Now, she said, “The chickens are coming home to roost.”
All right, that last bit is correct; the chickens are coming home to roost. Appropriate choice of metaphor there, too, given that the avians in question are the members of the antiwar movement, who have been quietly fuming for the last two and a half years or so that Democratic Congressional majorities did not translate into immediate surrender and retreat from Iraq and Afghanistan. This healthcare rationing bill is merely the last straw; true, it’s both unpopular and misguided, but progressives were promised this, and they’re tired of being casually lied to. So they may start lashing out a bit. Emphasis on ‘may’: it’ll depend, I think, on whether the Senate hacks away enough on cap-and-trade; Congress kills the worker intimidation bill; and whether the progressives can screw their courage to the sticking place.
But in case they do – and being the sort that’s always happy to be helpful – let me point out this list:
AL-02 Rep. Bobby Bright
AL-05 Rep. Parker Griffith
AR-02 Rep. Vic Snyder
AZ-01 Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick
AZ-05 Rep. Harry Mitchell
AZ-08 Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
CA-11 Rep. Jerry McNerney
CO-03 Rep. John Salazar
CO-04 Rep. Betsy Markey
CO-07 Rep. Ed Perlmutter
FL-02 Rep. Allen Boyd
FL-08 Rep. Alan Grayson
FL-24 Rep. Suzanne Kosmas
GA-08 Rep. Jim Marshall
GA-12 Rep. John Barrow
IA-03 Rep. Leonard Boswell
ID-01 Rep. Walt Minnick
IL-11 Rep. Debbie Halvorson
KS-03 Rep. Dennis Moore
KY-06 Rep. Ben Chandler
MD-01 Rep. Frank Kratovil
MI-01 Rep. Bart Stupak
MI-07 Rep. Mark Schauer
MN-01 Rep. Tim Walz
MN-07 Rep. Collin Peterson
MS-01 Rep. Travis Childers
MS-04 Rep. Gene Taylor
NC-07 Rep. Mike McIntyre
NC-08 Rep. Larry Kissell
NC-11 Rep. Heath Shuler
ND-AL Rep. Earl Pomeroy
NH-01 Rep. Carol Shea-Porter
NM-01 Rep. Martin Heinrich
NM-02 Rep. Harry Teague
NV-03 Rep. Dina Titus
NY-25 Rep. Dan Maffei
NY-29 Rep. Eric Massa
OH-01 Rep. Steve Driehaus
OH-06 Rep. Charlie Wilson
OH-15 Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy
OH-16 Rep. John Boccieri
OH-18 Rep. Zack Space
OK-02 Rep. Dan Boren
OR-04 Rep. Peter DeFazio
OR-05 Rep. Kurt Schrader
PA-03 Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper
PA-04 Rep. Jason Altmire
PA-10 Rep. Chris Carney
PA-11 Rep. Paul Kanjorski
SD-AL Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin
TN-04 Rep. Lincoln Davis
TN-06 Rep. Bart Gordon
TN-08 Rep. John Tanner
TX-17 Rep. Chet Edwards
UT-02 Rep. Jim Matheson
VA-02 Rep. Glenn Nye
VA-05 Rep. Tom Perriello
VA-09 Rep. Rick Boucher
WA-03 Rep. Brian Baird
WI-08 Rep. Steve Kagen
There’s your List of Traitors, Rep. Waters. So go primary them.
Primary them most grievously.
Moe Lane
PS: Yes, the NRCC has plans for the Democrats on that list, too. In fact, they’ve just announced that state Senator Alan Nunnelee will go up against Childers in MS-01. Fancy that.
Crossposted to RedState.
This almost makes me think we should get out of the way while they get their circular firing squad together. I don’t have enough confidence in the Evil Party that they’ll get it right, though.
Though he may not be an “official” Blue Dog, you should add Mike McMahon (NY-13) to the list. The only reason he’s in the House was Vito Fossella’s implosion; he is not gonna vote in a way that will tick off a vast majority of his Staten Island constituents. NY-13 had been wholly owned by Republicans since “Travelin’ Jack” Murphy went down for his involvement in Abscam.
If he looks like he’s acting as Pelosi’s lapdog, the local GOP will chew him up and he’ll be back to his law practice in 2010… and Mikey damn well knows it.
I’m getting some entertainingly bitter hate mail about this, too. As if it’s my fault that Maxine Waters is running around hinting about going after conservative Democrats.
These folks always act like they are your lover, then the hit you with a “middle eastern mudslide.”
Jane Harman may not be on that list…But I plan to give everything I’ve got to support her challenger, Marcy Winograd.