Arkansas: Gop

Michael Tomasky reports in depth in the New York Review of Books on the Blue Dogs in the House and their impact on health and other legislation. Lots of attention to Rep. Mike Ross.

One question addressed: Do these mostly Southern Democrats really have to vote like Republicans on every tough issue?

Certainly, Blue Dogs and other rural Democrats can't vote like Manhattan's Jerry Nadler. Everyone understands that. But it's also not entirely clear that one or two controversial votes would endanger many of these legislators. The current House includes forty-nine Democrats who won in districts where McCain beat Obama, and thirty-four Republicans who won in districts that Obama carried.

The Nation's David Corn asks, "Is the tea party gang turning the GOP into a party of hate?" 

When John Boehner, the Republican leader of the House, appeared at the Tea Party rally at the Capitol on Thursday afternoon, it was a dramatic signal: The wing-nuts have taken over the GOP.

Think I'm being harsh? The angry folks at the protest -- which attracted several thousand conservatives -- held up signs with messages of hate: "Get the Red Out of the White House," "Waterboard Congress," "Ken-ya Trust Obama?" One called the president a "Traitor to the U.S. Constitution." Another sign showed pictures of dead bodies at the Dachau concentration camp and compared health care reform to the Holocaust.

But don't take my word for it.  Ask the Congressional Budget Office.  The CBO says the bill would only extend coverage to 3 million people by 2019, leaving 52 million uninsured by the same year.  It would, however, reduce insurance premium costs.  The Democrats' bill, by contrast, would extend coverage to 36 million.  From the NYT blog "Prescriptions": 

According to the report by nonpartisan budget office, the Republican bill would reduce future federal deficits by $68 billion over 10 years, compared to a reduction of $104 billion by the House Democrats’ legislation.

The findings by the budget office mostly seemed to confirm assertions by Democrats that the Republican bill, offered as an amendment to the Democrats’ measure, would do little to change the status quo.  

Frank Rich has a pretty good summary of the fratricidal GOP battle for an upstate New York congressional seat. Already, a solid Republican has been driven out of the race by  a torrent of attacks from the Club for Growth/Beck/Palin conservative candidate.

I should add that the conservative is the chosen candidate of Jackson T. Stephens Jr. of Little Rock, a Club for Growth moneybags. Stephens may buy himself a seat in upstate New York. If he does, it won't be of much help to locals, not that Jacko cares. The candidate is a carpetbagger who doesn't live in the district and knows next to nothing about it. But he's solid on the starve-government orthodoxy of his patrons.