The remnants Blue Dog Caucus who's numbers were decimated in the 2010 election as voters chose real Republicans over fake Democrats in district after district reducing their caucus's numbers from 54 to 26 (soon minus Jane Harman) are now trying to become the tail that wags the Federal dog.
Blue Dog leaders seek to team debt-ceiling vote with spending cuts
Reps. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) and Dan Boren (D-Okla.) — the co-chairman and whip, respectively, for the fiscally conservative group of congressional Democrats — said they were trying to bring the left and the right toward the center when it comes to fiscal discipline and that there would be serious consequences if the debt limit were not raised.
"There's got to be a compromise, though, because the bottom line is there's a lot of us that are conservative Democrats that are not going to vote to raise the debt limit," Ross said on "Fox & Friends." "... We've got to pay our bills, but we're not going to do it unless we see significant cuts to the out-of-control spending in Washington."
This comes from the Miami Herald:
Moderate Democratic 'Blue Dogs' hope to bounce back
"We weren't nearly as effective in the majority as I think we'll be in the minority," Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., said Monday.
Cardoza added that "there will be a number of votes" in which Republican leaders may have trouble rallying their own tea party activists, in which case the moderate Democrats can step in to cut a deal. An early test could come when the House must vote on whether to extend the nation's debt ceiling.
"We are the only group that tries on a regular basis ... to find bipartisan solutions," Costa said.
The Miami Herald's title is telling. Obviously the Herald buys into the Blue Dogs' framing that they are "Moderates" and not conservatives. Who but hard line conservatives would resort to using the threat of not extending the nation's debt ceiling to extort their own party into submitting to the extremist proposals from the Republicans. When the Republican Party just demonstrated their contempt for fiscal prudence with huge tax cuts for the nation's top 2%. Tax cuts these Blue Dogs Hypocrites enthusiastically supported in spite of the cuts being extremely fiscally irresponsible. These members of congress aren't moderates by any stretch of thee imagination even if they do like to call themselves Democrats.
These surviving Blue Dogs while they only make up 14% of House Democrats, seem even more viscous than ever as they hungrily eye entitlement cuts. We need to do some animal control in 2012.