The shrinking group of moderate House Democrats could get much smaller after the 2012 elections, when half of this once-influential group could be wiped out by energized Republican challengers and a fickle electorate.
The House Democratic Blue Dog Coalition saw its ranks decimated after the wave election of 2010, when voters in swing districts expressed their anger at the Democratic majority and White House by tossing out incumbent Democrats, including Allen Boyd of Florida, Lincoln Davis of Tennessee and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota.
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In all, 28 of the group’s 54 members were defeated or retired last year and many of those who did survive Election Day did so by the slimmest of margins.
Now the 2012 election looms with the economy still sagging and unemployment stuck above 9 percent. Political prognosticators say voters are again poised to vent their anger at the polls on Democrats, the most vulnerable of whom are the remaining Blue Dogs whose districts are often more conservative.
At least a dozen seats held by moderates are in competitive districts and vulnerable to a Republican takeover next year.
In other words, when Congress reconvenes in January 2013, there may be only 13 — or fewer — Blue Dogs left.
“The Democratic Blue Dogs were just walloped in 2010, decimated by the public sending a message about the president,” said political analyst Stuart Rothenberg. “And they are about to be squeezed further.”
Blue Dogs who face the biggest political threat include Reps. Heath Shuler and Mike McIntyre, both of North Carolina; John Barrow of Georgia; Jim Costa of California; and Leonard Boswell of Iowa.
Three Blue Dogs have already announced their retirements, including two of the group’s co-chairmen.
“There really isn’t any incentive for them to stick around,” said David Wasserman, who monitors House races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Wasserman said the Blue Dogs are now doubly marginalized because the Democrats are the minority party and their own caucus is now dominated by liberals. That means the group wields very little influence on the congressional agenda.
Blue Dogs once made up almost 20 percent of the entire House Democratic caucus, and exerted a moderating influence on important legislation by threatening to vote in unison.
During the last Congress, when Democrats were in the majority, the Blue Dogs, led by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, got then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to push through a provision that required any new House spending to be offset by savings elsewhere in the budget. But in exchange, the Blue Dogs agreed to vote to increase the debt ceiling to $14 trillion, blunting any political benefit for the vulnerable group.
Nowadays, the Blue Dogs show their muscle on occasion by banding with Republicans to help pass legislation that lacks enough support from the GOP’s conservative Tea Party faction.
The group helped to pass a critical spending bill earlier this year that kept the government from shutting down. Republicans needed Democratic support to pass the legislation because a faction of 54 conservative Republicans and many liberal Democrats voted against it.
