The biggest losers: ConservaDems Most Vulnerable If Health Reform Fails

By GottaLaff

Yes, it's likely that losing the Blue Dogs to Republicans would be worse than what we have now. That said, they get what they deserve:

The influential conservative Democrats who are combating their own party's efforts to overhaul health care could ironically wind up being among the biggest losers if the effort to pass comprehensive legislation founders too badly.

Health care reform is so central to the Democratic agenda that its collapse could gravely damage the party's stature in 2010.

The self-styled fiscal conservatives who call themselves Blue Dogs in the House fear the effects of being labeled as liberals in their predominantly right-leaning districts. But history suggests that they should be more afraid of fueling a Republican electoral resurgence. [...]

Meanwhile, Michael Tomasky writes in the Guardian that most of the Blue Dogs shouldn't be so fearful, period.

"To hear them talk sometimes, you'd think if they depart one iota from a basically conservative agenda, the voters will toss them out," he writes.

But Tomasky's elaborate analysis of the 2008 election results suggests that very few of them are really in danger of being voted out of office for being too liberal.

"Yes, some Democrats have to be very careful and not be seen as casting a liberal vote. But they're a comparatively small number," he concludes. "A very clear majority of these people have won by large enough margins that it sure seems to me they could survive one controversial vote if they [put] some backbone into it."

Wouldn't that be novel? A Democrat with backbone, I mean.

H/t: Ellen