Note: lesson learned: always go by official roll call votes. What was once eight is now four.
Call them the HVT-4. Four Democratic members of Congress have voted against the economic stimulus package, the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill and the Democratic health care reform legislation. They're the low-hanging fruit - or highest value targets - for the National Republican Congressional Committee right now. Some will be harder to dislodge than others. Note that 11 House Dems voted against the House version of the stimulus package; five later voted for the final, conferenced bill. That confused me earlier, so there are several Dems whose names I deleted from this list.
Top Tier Targets
Walt Minnick (D-ID) - he represents one
of the most conservative districts in the West -- and the most GOP
district in the nation currently held by a Dem. The NRCC has a
top-flight challenger in 40-year old Iraq war vet Vaughn Ward, who is
already in the race and running full-time against Minnick. Dems
acknowledge that this seat is tough to hold on to.
Bobby Bright (D-AL),
a freshman, won in a district that voted for Sen. John McCain by 26
points. His challenger is Martha Roby, a Montgomery County City
Councilperson who is well-known in the district, well-funded, and 33
years old. For months, the NRCC has been haranguing Bright to prove
his fidelity to the values of the district, saturating the airwaves
with radio ads and robocalls urging him to criticize Speaker Pelosi for
some reason or another. Note: despite the NRCC's claims to the
contrary, Bright has never supported a public option.
Parker Griffith (D-AL), Griffinth
is the type of Democrat who insists he'd vote differently the next time
leadership elections are held. He's a Democrat because his district
tends to send Democrats to Congress. Its former occupant, Bud Cramer
was the latest in a line of donkeys that stretched back to
reconstruction. Naturally, McCain won the district by a margin of more
than 20 points. How well Griffin will do without Obama Surge turnout
in 2010 is an open question.
Gene Taylor (D-MS) - Start with the numbers: the McCain-Palin ticket won here by 35 percentage points. Taylor faced a nobody opponent, winning by 49 points.
Marc,
Kratovil, Peterson, Shuler and Boyd voted for cap and trade: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll477.xml
So it's the HVT-4?
Let 'em go, Dems. That way, you won't have to expend political capital to get them to vote in a way they're obviously not going to vote.
Not worth it.
Race remains an issue, and there is a line drawn in the sand. Last year it didn't matter because the anti-Republican environment was so strong that all these guys could get the white votes they needed and also enjoy the black surge vote. That won't happen again. And I don't particularly care. family guy season 8 episode 8 | storm chasers season 3 episode 7
Still incorrectly listing Peterson and Shuler . . . .
CT Voter, there's nothing expended for these 4 particular guys. I think Pelosi just asks them if they'll vote for a bill, they say no, and she moves on. That's small time. They write off these guys up front. We have 258 Democrats, we don't have to care about these 4.
Now, I suspect Griffith and Bright could, indeed, be toast anyway next year. They both got clobbered last year and will get clobbered next year by white voters, and both need a lot of black votes to have a chance to win. What do they say or do for black turnout next year after facing black voters with the reality of having gone against the first black President?
I think the Obama years have to be particularly difficult for white Southern Democrats representing majority-white conservative districts. Race remains an issue, and there is a line drawn in the sand. Last year it didn't matter because the anti-Republican environment was so strong that all these guys could get the white votes they needed and also enjoy the black surge vote. That won't happen again. And I don't particularly care. The House Democratic Caucus benefits today from having FEWER members beholden to conservative voters than at any House majority in history. We can afford to lose Bright and Griffith if it comes to that.
Now, guys like Perriello need all the stops pulled to save them. And that's why Obama and his team are planning on nationalizing the midterms to get those 2008 Obama surge voters back to the polls even without Obama on the ballot. Smart move. You gotta try something different in the face of a potentially difficult cycle, and this is a good move given Obama's particular strengths.