Sarah Palin Targets Blue Dogs, Right Wing Dems
Yesterday, former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin announced that she has targeted 20 members of the House of Representatives for defeat in the 2010 elections. These targeted members of Congress are listed below, along with their progressive legislative score (out of a potential 100).
Vic Snyder (14)
Ann Kirkpatrick (24)
Harry Mitchell (28) Blue Dog
Gabrielle Giffords (38) Blue Dog
John Salazar (24) Blue Dog
Betsy Markey (24) Blue Dog
Allen Boyd (21) Blue Dog
Suzanne Kosmas (24)
Brad Ellsworth (17) Blue Dog
Baron Hill (21) Blue Dog
Earl Pomeroy (24) Blue Dog
Charlie Wilson (24) Blue Dog
John Boccieri (31)
Kathy Dahlkemper (24) Blue Dog
Chris Carney (21) Blue Dog
John Spratt (28)
Bart Gordon (24) Blue Dog
Tom Perriello (31)
Allan Mollohan (28)
Nick Rahall (31)
Two things are readily obvious upon looking at this list. First, the majority of U.S. Representatives being targeted by Palin are members of the Blue Dog Coalition. Blue Dog Democrats align themselves with Republicans, frequently voting against progressive legislation and in favor of right wing legislation. Second, even the Representatives who aren’t Blue Dogs are clearly on the right wing side of the Democratic Party.
None of these Democrats could plausibly be called liberal. None of them reach even a 40 percent progressive rating for the current session of Congress. Contrast that to liberal Maurice Hinchey, who’s got an 83 percent progressive rating.
The fact that Sarah Palin is targeting these Republican-allied Democrats instead of liberal members of Congress lets us know what her motivation is. Palin isn’t interested in establishing a more right-leaning ideology in Congress. If she were, she’d leave these right wing Democrats alone, and target liberals. Instead, it seems that Palin is interested in strengthening the Republican Party political machine, for the sake of ingratiating herself with Republican power brokers.
To that end, Palin is going after low hanging fruit. She’s chosen to target Democrats that will be easy to defeat, because they don’t have strong support from voters in their own political party. These Democrats have burned bridges by working against the progressive values of their own party’s voters. Republican voters won’t reward them for this anti-progressive stance, though. They’d rather just have a Republican in office.
Even among such easy targets, three of these twenty Democrats aren’t even running for re-election. Palin has set a low bar for success, suggesting that she doesn’t have much confidence in her political power.
Given Palin’s declaration earlier this week…
‘Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!”‘
… your choice of the word “target” is apt.
Mrs Palin is attempting to show her political strength by targeting ” Blue Dog ” Democrats whose major crime is they supported the Obama administration’s Healthcare Reform . Palin is facing the dilemna of exactly when to announce her preisidential campaign ? Her actions and press quotes clearly indicate that she is running to become preisdent in 2012 . With all of the money she has made since her resignation as Alaska governor , she must win the nomination and come up with an ” outiside the box ” , running mate . Lines like ” I will run if no one else does ” , were cockily aimed at potential opponents like Mitt Romney , Tim Pawlenty , Mike Huckabee , and Mike Pence .
It turns out that Sarah Palin drew a map with a gun’s crosshairs pointed at the district of each one of these members of Congress on the map. Today, one of these targets Palin identified, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head and will likely die.
Will more of Sarah Palin’s congressional targets be shot and killed?