Does anyone here know their political history? The 'bluedog Democrats" almost all from the South saw President Obama's election as an opportunity to increase their influence and be power brokers- even though they had almost always (and continued) to vote with the Republicans; go back and look at the votes in those first two years and you will find time and again that it was votes from this block that stopped much action or caused many bills to be scaled down (stimulus e.g.). The only thing I fault Obama for was his continuing to believe compromise with moderate Republicans was possible long after that fantasy train had left the station. But this block of blue dogs kept voting with the Republicans time and time again so there never was a real Democratic voting block making up a majority NEVER. Many of them were voted out and replaced with Republicans so on the surface it looks like there was a majority of Dems, but not when it came to voting