Looking Ahead, Obama Builds Ties With Congressional 'Blue Dogs'

Looking Ahead, Obama Builds Ties With 'Blue Dogs'
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 14, 2008; Page A04

Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas is not likely to bring Barack Obama many votes on Nov. 4. Neither is Rep. John Tanner of Tennessee or Rep. Allen Boyd, a farmer from the Florida Panhandle. But the three could play a big role in the success or failure of the next president, one reason Obama took a break from campaigning last week to call each of them, among the leaders of the "Blue Dog Coalition," a group of conservative-leaning Democrats who are committed to balancing the federal budget. The group's 49 members already wield significant power in the House, and their ranks are expected to expand in the next Congress.

"He said he planned to be the next president and he wanted to work with us," Ross said in recounting his conversation with Obama before the House approved a $700 billion economic rescue package. "He also recognized that we had the numbers to block or clear" legislation coming from the White House if he is elected.

Obama's outreach to the Democratic centrists is part of a broader effort by his campaign to prepare for a possible transition. A Washington-based team of government veterans, led by John Podesta, who was chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, now holds daily meetings and conference calls to outline what an Obama administration might look like. While Obama's primary focus remains beating Sen. John McCain, senior advisers said the worsening economic crisis has led the candidate to contemplate some of the most immediate challenges that await the next president, many involving Congress.

Upon taking office, the next president will confront a legislative body riven by partisanship, snubbed for years by the Bush administration and chronically undisciplined in handling taxpayer money. Although the Blue Dogs demanded austerity measures in the House when Democrats won control of the chamber in 2006, the Senate more or less ignored such "pay-as-you-go" restraints. Jason Furman, Obama's economic policy adviser, has held his own extensive talks with Blue Dog Democrats and said Obama would seek to establish "a government unified around the concept of fiscal discipline and centered around the pay-go rule. Insisting on paying for things will lead to better economic policy."

While Democrats could well emerge next month with sizable majorities in the House and Senate, the party will remain divided between members who want to restore budget discipline, and more traditional Democrats who yearn for new spending in areas such as health care and education. Republicans are unlikely to help either side. The name "Blue Dogs" comes from a quip from one member that moderate Democrats, traditionally known as "Yellow Dogs," had been "choked blue" on spending by the demands of more liberal party members.

Senior Democrats on Capitol Hill see Obama's early relationship-building as evidence that he is determined to take office with a legislative plan in place....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/13/AR2008101302377_pf.html

because they are eating the chickens and tearing up the vegetable garden....

That still leaves around 350 billion, still more that we need to spend annually,
but enough to try to rebuild a military that can stand guard.
As is we are spending 684 billion$ annually that is just what we KNOW about.
There are numerous black projects that get earmarks and money from other
sectors of our budget such as state department.
PLUS what the wars are costing.
That is still a high enough figure that we can have a standing army/navy/etc
maybe even give the actually people that serve a raise.
Most of that figure goes to outsourced contractors, why should we pay some
blackwater mercenary 1,000$ a day when our soldiers get what 2,000 a month tops?

in all public buildings, and became a Faux News celeb when one of his several mistresses went missing on May 1, 2001. Faux News & brethren went nuts over the case all summer, while the Bushwhacks were ignoring numerous warnings that "Osama bin Laden is determined to strike in the U.S." Some people descried the focus on this sleazy story about Condit and his youngest mistress, Chandra Levy, but I never did. I kept waiting for the press, the FBI, the DC police, somebody, to ask Dick Cheney and his aides about the meeting he had with Gary Condit on the very day--and during the very hours--of Levy's disappearance. But Cheney aides later planted the odd story in Newsweek that nobody ever did.

Two days later, on May 3, 2001, Condit voted for the first Bush-Cheney tax cut for the rich, a very controversial measure that squeaked through with only ten Democratic votes, all "Blue Dogs," led by Gary Condit.

I have ever since smelled rotten corpses when I hear the phrase "Blue Dogs." WaPo is wrong about its origin. It originated from some "old boy" Louisiana congressman--can't recall his name--who had a painting of a blue dog (by a famous Louisiana "blue' painter) on his wall. And it is resonant of the powerful southern bigots who used to run Congress like a fiefdom, before LBJ pushed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts through Congress, in 1964 and 1965, and the white bigots became Republicans. They were all real big on war spending, and fostering a permanent underclass mostly made up of blacks at that time.

I heard the current crop of "Blue Dogs" in a C-span interview days after the 06 elections, introduced by Nancy Pelosi, who thought they were just great. They wanted to cut everything in the budget except war spending.

Just remember: Bushwhack corporations own and control the 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY code, by which all of our votes are now counted, with virtually no audit/recount controls, and these election theft machines are used in both the primaries and the general elections. So they are picking our candidates, as well as who wins the office. Only the caucus states have a primary process that is not counted by Diebold & brethren, and you will recall that's where Obama got his first big campaign jumpstart. Now he faces an all-Diebold & brethren vote count in the general election. So it's no surprise to me that he is kissing the butts of these traitors to the Democratic Party--and to the working people and the poor who comprise the majority of its membership--who call themselves "Blue Dogs" and who stink of Republicanism and Bushwhackism and Reaganism, and Corpo/fascist destruction of everything we hold dear.

Are we going to be forever bouncing between Fascism and Fascism-lite? I hope to God not!