More on the Nutroots targeting of Blue Dog Democrats

A week ago, I blogged about a plan being cooked up by prominent far lefties in the Nutroots movement to target for ridicule and possible ouster from office moderate Democrats, including the Blue Dog and ‘New’ Democrats who helped form the Democrat majority last year, simply because they don’t toe the ‘progressive’ line on issues like Iraq, FISA, etc.

Cadillac Tight has more on that today, and notes exactly how many of those Blue Dogs are in southern states:

Twenty-six out of thirty-eight (68%) of these targeted Democrats are from Southern or Southwestern regions (with the exception of Stephanie Herseth and Earl Pomeroy, courtesy SeanH in comments), which makes sense, since it’s primarily Blue Dogs we’re talking about here. That makes this another netroots war against regions of the country that elect these Democrats precisely because they are Blue Dogs. It’s obvious when you read netroots diaries that there is a lot of disdain for and rage against Democratic voters who don’t identify with the progressive movement, and efforts like this one by Stoller and Bowers (Northeastern liberals both) only serve to highlight that disdain and rage. Rather than “punishing” the Blue Dogs, the New Democrats, or the voters who elect them, the Democratic party is likely to be punished itself at the polls if this effort becomes associated with the party, rather than the progressives.

Writing off the South has never proven to be a winning strategy for Democrats. Even given the results of last year’s election, it’s unlikely to be one in the future.

Well, as I’ve said before, their symbol isn’t a jackass for nothing.

What I wrote in my last piece on this is worth repeating, I think:

Targeting a politician in and of itself is not the problem. Not being happy that you have a moderate Congressman is not the problem. No diehard R or D cares for moderates. It’s when Democrats at the time ‘cheered’ the moderate to conservative Democrats who were elected because they gave the Dems the majority, who now expect those same moderate to conservative Democrats to change their positions on the issues because they’re not far left enough. Newsflash: These Blue Dog Dems were elected in their states/districts, in part, based on their moderate to conservative positions on the issues. Why the hell should they change them because the Daily Kos, Morons.org, etc don’t like them? Those people weren’t elected by far lefties nationwide: they were elected by the people in their states/districts to represent them, not the far left.

But hey, it’s no skin off my back. As mentioned earlier, Republicans will be more than happy to help Dems ‘target’ those traitorous Democrats to the point a more ‘progressive’ (cough) Democrat will defeat them in a primary, to go on to face a conservative Republican who will have a better shot at winning. So, by all means, do your thing!

I think this targeting would be the first time ever that I’ve rooted for the Nutroots to ‘win’ something