Blue Dog Democrats - Do They Exist?

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann give a list of 'moderate' Democrats in the House of Representatives in their book Catastrophe. They are rated for the percentage of time they voted with the very socialist party leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer. They list 30 Blue Dogs in the 2007 Congress and 53 in the 2008 Congress. All of the listed 2007 members were listed again in 2008. Apparently, the Democrat leadership became much more effective in 2008 than they were in 2007 in getting all Democrats to vote with them. Only 3 of the 30 in both Congresses voted less often with the leadership in 2008 than they had in 2007. Another 3 had the same percentage of agreement and the remaining 24 voted more often with the socialist leadership.

If one grades them with A, B, and C grades, in 2007 only one member had a C and it was a 79. But do not get too excited, since in 2008 he had a 91 or an A minus. In 2007, 19 of these so-called Blue Dogs had an A and 9 had a B. In 2008, there were 48 with an A and 5 with B pluses!

I see no reason to differentiate an A follower of Nancy Pelosi as either a moderate or a Blue Dog. It is even questionable whether the 5 earning B pluses are worth distinguishing from the Rabid Dogs. In many cases, these Democrats pretended to be much more conservative or at least much less socialist than they are when they ran for election. It is clear that no such distinction is meaningful. They were all wolves in sheep's hides.