Rep. Jim Matheson: Endangered Species

[Recursion]

The congressional career of Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) has often seemed like a decade-long exercise in political survival. Utah Republicans have twice tried to redistrict him out of office, and he presently represents the most solidly GOP district in America held by a Democrat. One of a fast dwindling cadre of conservative "Blue Dogs," Matheson is Utah's lone congressional Democrat—and in November Republicans may finally succeed in their long crusade to pick him off.

Nationally, conservative Democrats like Matheson are an endangered species. In 2010, more than 50 Blue Dogs served in the House. Today there are 24, and four of them are either retiring or running for the Senate. Like many of the remaining 20 House Blue Dogs, Matheson's fate is very much in doubt.


The six-term incumbent is locked in a tough race against upstart Mia Love, the conservative mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, who has overnight become one of the GOP's rising stars and a tea party sensation. Over the summer, Matheson held a double-digit lead over Love. The latest poll shows the race a virtual dead heat, with 14 percent of voters still undecided.

The national GOP has helped close the gap by pouring money into ads, dispatching party luminaries to fundraise for Love, and opening a call center in Salt Lake City. But Love has also benefited from another factor: Gerrymandering.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/jim-matheson-mia-love-utah

We can't keep hemorrhaging conservative districts if we want the House back (and we do). I know Blue Dogs bug us, but we need to think up a way to bring them back.

[PATRICK]

1. An argument against this "need" for DINO's

The real need is for real Dems to stand and deliver on people issues. By going the other way and trying to get those painfully reticent votes in the Congressional Dem bloc it has in fact poisoned and hampered the main need well into the issue of corporate corruption of the entire party which may or may not be separate from "Conservative" Dems for R districts.

When the GOP needs those seats it will take them from weakly GOP DINO's as we are seeing. When they get what they want they will take those seats for their own more radical uses. These twilight zone vulnerable Reps, what good do they do except keep the whole party hostage(albeit willing?) to watered down policy to "win over" GOP voters?

You can only salvage the soul of red districts with good people who will stand and deliver on real people problems, starting with the economy and infrastructure. Do the job. Be heroes.

More good in the entire picture great and small should tackle the huge handicaps the party has embraced like the masochist the whip. Get money out elections. Make them fair. Make the reporting fair. Del;iver on people promises and enough trickle down liberalism which thinks rewarding the super rich is super wisdom. What is wrong will take down the unsteady equivicators every time, if not outright buy them.

The roadkill metaphor is not too good. To win some of these morally mentally poisoned districts we need to do more than drive down the middle of the road. That is usually a deer in the headlights situation. We have to remove the pernicious fraud and the rewarding of bad behavior. We may not ever win all the seats but we will actually stand for and deliver something for the strongest possible argument.

If it is the old chicken and egg thing about getting Dems of any stripe in first, it doesn't look very justifiable or full of great results to me. When we get majorities they are repressed by DINOs.

[Recursion]

2. That's a myth cherished by activists, I know, but a myth all the same

There is absolutely no way, zero, that a representative more progressive than Mattheson will win that seat any time in the near future.

None.

Zero.

Until the party understands that, we won't get the House back.

[LenaBaby61]

3. Mia Love is...

A horrible congressperson. She's very much anti-Immigrant, yet her family came over here from Haiti under "Mysterious" circumstances I read, as per an article from Mother Jones Magazine. She's also one who says she and her family received NO help from anyone and that they pulled themselves up by their boot straps. That doesn't pass the smell test, and neither did Marco Rubio's stories about his parents and how THEM came to the USA from Cuba. He had to scrub HIS personal web page in order to remove the LIES he told about his parents migration from Cuba to the USA. BOTH Love & Rubio more than likely are NOT being honest or truthful when talking about their families stories of HOW they came to the USA. Their families got to COME here, yet they don't want OTHERS to come here or those who are HERE to stay here. I believe Rubio is okay with Cubans coming here. I believe Love is not okay with Haitian refugees coming here. I THINK that's what I read. Love is a severe conservative, A Tea Bagger who has nothing but disdain for the POTUS. I'm aware that Matheson is a Blue Dog and I'm not too fond of Blue Dogs, but I'd much rather have HIM in the Congress than a tea-bagging, yes woman for the GOP whose very anti-immigrant yet she comes FROM an immigrant background herself and under "mysterious" circumstances. SO many of those on the right are supreme HYPOCRITES!