blanche lincoln

If there is any silver lining to the Democrats losing the House last night, it is this:

In a fell swoop, the once-powerful Blue Dog caucus of conservative House Democrats was reduced from 54 members to 26 in Tuesday’s midterm election.

The caucus lost two members to retirement and two others who ran for higher office, and out of the remaining 50 members, 24 Blue Dogs lost.

There were still a few Blue Dogs in tight races that had yet to be called early on Wednesday morning. There is the potential for more losses, though most of them look likely to hold on.

Add to that the fact that we are now rid of Evan Byah and Blanche Lincoln in the Senate, we are left with something we can better work with. It’s time for us to start focusing on more progressive candidates for these lost Blue Dog seats and work towards 2012.

Thinking about the results of yesterday’s elections, one thing sticks out to me. America isn’t really anti-incumbent, but rather anti-old school politics.

Let’s start in Kentucky. Rand Paul beat Secretary of State Trey Grayson, making him the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate. Rand Paul doesn’t have a political career like his opponent, but he did have the Tea Party behind him. But I believe there was an equal force behind Paul’s victory. Grayson got a couple kisses of death, one from minority leader Mitch McConnell and a bigger one from Dick Cheney, who is now 0-3 on endorsements.

Then we have the Democratic Senate primary between Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak. Unlike Specter and his 30 years in Senate, Sestak is a relatively new comer to the political stage, only in his third year in Congress. Pennsylvania has always been pretty much a toss-up state, they did give us Rick Santorum after all. But the interesting thing is that Sestak, a rather liberal candidate, has consistently polled much better against his Republican challenger than Specter, to the tune of about 10 points.

Bob brings up an excellent point today:

The retirement of Byron Dorgan is a solid example of why, in many cases, legislation is at the mercy of conservative-leaning states, and nothing the president can- or should do will change it.

With Dorgan out, it's very likely that a Republican will win that seat. If Ben Nelson were to resign, he'd probably be replaced by a Republican. Blanche Lincoln is likely to be replaced by a Republican. It goes without saying that those Republicans won't be very receptive to robust public options or passing the Obama agenda.

Progressive groups would be helped to remember one of the greatest quotes given by Tipp O’Neil, “all politics is local”. Let’s go with the example of Blanche Lincoln and Arkansas.

GovTrack ranks Lincoln as a moderate Democrat, something we all know. In 2008 Arkansas went for McCain by +7, so Arkansas is a red state. That pretty much means that Lincoln and Pryor are the most liberal we will get out of Arkansas, unless the state makes a dramatic shift to the left.

This brings us to the point of primaries. A lot of national organizations will be focusing on unseating Lincoln in the primary, a very possible feat, but at what costs? If we end up replacing Lincoln with a more liberal/progressive candidate, will they hold up against the general electorate, which is much more right leaning? Most likely not.

So where does this leave us?

Well Lincoln is out as the Democratic candidate and replaced with someone far more progressive, then we will lose a Senator that votes with the Democrats somewhere along the lines of 30-40% of the time. That will be replaced by a Republican who will vote with Democrats 0-10% of the time. In the long run we will lose.

Apparently John McCain decided to use campaign money to put out a robo-call urging passage of his healthcare amendment. Here is the script:

On Monday I introduced the first Republican amendment to the massive health care bill, which would send the bill back to the Senate Finance Committee and stop the Democrats from cutting vital Medicare coverage for our seniors. I need Sen. Blanche Lincoln to join me in this effort. If you agree with me, please go to our website at www.healthcaretaskforce.org and sign a petition to Sen. Lincoln urging her to join my effort to fight a Washington DC government takeover of your health care.

CREW points out that using campaign money for official Senate business is a big no-no and has filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee over it:

CREW’s complaint alleges Sen. McCain violated Senate Rule 38, which prohibits senators from maintaining “unofficial office accounts,” meaning they cannot use private donations to support official senate activities and expenses. By urging voters to call their senators to urge them to support his motion, Sen. McCain was engaged in grassroots lobbying. This activity clearly was related to Sen. McCain's official duties. By using an outside entity’s funds -- those of the NRSC -- to pay for expenses related to his official duties, Sen. McCain violated Senate rules.

Melanie Sloan points out that if McCain wanted to send this message out then he should have used his own money. Apparently McCain either doesn’t believe in the ethics enough, or he didn’t really care about his amendment since he decided to break the rules when he has more than enough money to pay for the calls himself.

The health clinic held in Arkansans Saturday saw 1,500 uninsured Arkansans come through to receive care on the very same day Blanche Lincoln was toying with the idea of killing healthcare reform. Here is a video from the event:

But somehow Bill Clinton has totally lost the message on this great endeavor, lead by Keith Olbermann:

Bill Clinton told FDL’s Eve Gittelson that it would be problematic for him to attend a free medical clinic being held in Little Rock, Arkansas tomorrow because MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann had “politicized” the event.” He indicated that some were turning the event into a primary kickoff against Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln.

I guess Clinton has missed the entire healthcare debate, considering it has been nothing but politics. Two-thirds of Arkansans support the public option, yet their senator Blanche Lincoln is dead set against it, totally ignoring the will of the people she was elected to represent. That right there is fodder to turn the event into a anti-Blanche event.