Blue Dog Democrats Face Up-Hill Battles

We’ve all heard of the Blue Dog Democrats, they’re the Democratic candidates that ran on relatively conservative platforms in 2006 and unseated Republican members of Congress. In a large part they’re responsible for the current Democratic control of Congress. Although they gave the Democrats the majority, they sure haven’t been very excited about forcing their party to recognize the fact that they come from conservative districts were San Francisco style policy proposals are not welcomed.

With conventional wisdom saying that 2008 would be a year for the Democrats, it was to be expected that if the Blue Dogs did a fairly good job, most of them would win re-election. Fortunately for conservatives, the Blue Dog’s have not done anywhere near a good job holding to their campaign promises. This means that instead of facing a weak Republican opposition, they may have a really tough battle on their hands this fall.

Read more below the fold.
The NRCC blog just put up a piece scheduled for release in next Monday’s edition of the Weekly Standard and it had this to say:

On almost every issue, the freshman Blue Dogs have failed to advance their campaign agendas, which were carefully tailored to their moderate constituencies. From the war on terror, to taxes and the budget, to immigration and free trade, the Blue Dogs may talk tough, but they’re more Yorkie than German Shepherd when confronted with Pelosi’s iron grip.

And it concludes with these hopeful words:

In just four short months, the Blue Dogs have helped kill a key national security program, as well as a free trade agreement that’s been in the works for over two years; welcomed the largest tax increase in history; and left immigration reform to languish indefinitely. House Republicans will still have an uphill election battle, but if the Blue Dogs keep up this pace, the hill won’t be as steep.

Take the time to read the entire article (it’s not that long) here.