Blue Dog Primary List

By Fester:

Michael Tomasky at the Guardian is asking a good set of questions and follows them up with some interesting data on Blue Dog political situations. Progressive activists should use this data to build a Blue Dog Primary Taxonomy and targeting list. 

So what I'm trying to get at here is: how vulnerable, really, are some of these Blue Dogs? To hear them talk sometimes, you'd think if they depart one iota from a basically conservative agenda, the voters will toss them out. I'm not insensitive to that prospect. As we will see, some Blue Dogs have very legitimate concerns...

I matched result 2 against result 3 to get something I call the MVM -- the Margin Versus McCain. For example, if Democrat Ms. Byron beat Republican Mr. Shelley by 10 points, and McCain won that district by 20 points, Ms. Byron's MVM is -10. If Democrat Mr. Jagger beat Republican Mr. Richards by 25 points, and McCain won that district by 10 points, Mr. Jagger's MVM is +15...

If I represent a district that I won handily and McCain squeaked by, that's a very different thing from my squeaking by in a district McCain won handily, and it dictates different voting behavior by me once I'm in Congress, if I want to stay in office...

Number whose MVM is plus 15 or better: 25 (51%)
Whose MVM is plus 10 or better: 30 (61%)
Number who won by 25-plus points: 23 (47%)

In the Margin v. McCain statistic, positive is better for the Democratic incumbent as that shows their draw above the recent generic Republican vote in the district.  One would imagine that most Blue Dogs would be in districts where they are just hanging on to be re-elected or elected.  There is a caucus of Democrats who are in deep red districts and there is no ideological opportunity cost.  However, as the MVM numbers show, about half of the Blue Dogs are firmly entrenched in swing-ish districts or better.  These are opportunity costs that progressives are paying.  Let's look at the top few MVM Democrats:

 1.Tennessee, 8: John Tanner, 100-0; McCain, 56-43; MVM, +87
2.West Virginia, 1: Alan Mollohan, 100-0; McCain, 57-42; MVM, +85
3.Arkansas, 1: Marion Barry, 100-0; McCain, 59-38; MVM, +79
4.Virginia, 9: Rick Boucher, 97-0; McCain, 59-40; MVM, +79
5.Louisiana, 3: Charlie Melancon, 100-0; McCain, 61-37; MVM, +76
6.Arkansas, 2: Vic Snyder, 77-0; McCain, 54-44; MVM, +67
7.Arkansas, 4: Mike Ross, 86-0; McCain, 58-39; MVM, +67
8.Tennessee, 6: Bart Gordon, 74-0; McCain, 62-37; MVM,+49
9.Minnesota, 7: Collin Peterson, 72-28; McCain, 50-47; MVM, +41

Pressure from the left could safely impose pain in the ass costs to these nine Representatives without endangering the seats.  Imposing costs or providing rewards is the most reliable method of changing political behavior.  Campaigning, for most individuals, sucks as it sucks up time, energy and effort that could be better spent fishing, or preening in front of the cameras and local editorial boards.  Right now there is no cost of being an entrenched and fairly safe Blue Dog from the left, so primarying two or three targets with a known minimal chance of success of defeating the incumbent will create a new set of cost calculations.