Monday, October 06, 2008

Congressional Liberals Would Rather Switch Than Fight?

The Monkey Cage points out that the Congress members who sold out their opposition to the bail out bill were most likely to be liberal:
[T]he 33 Democratic switchers are more liberal and more junior than other Democrats. Interestingly, one-third of the Democratic switchers are members of the Congressional Black Caucus; CBC members were significantly more likely than their Democratic colleagues to switch their votes in favor of the bailout. Press reports suggest that Barack Obama had lobbied many of the CBC members, urging their support for the package.
And the lesson to Democratic Blue Dogs at the other end of the spectrum: if you want others to embrace the pain of bailing out, you are either going to have a powerful individual busting heads or forsake your abdication of your constituents' earmarks, because the other great motivator besides Obama was what is called "pork."

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