Talk:Blue Dog Coalition

"who identify as fiscally responsible and centrist"

Is that NPOV? It seems to call the non-blue non-dog Democrats "fiscally irresponsible". --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:50, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

The article is reporting their own description of themselves, rather than claiming that they are fiscally responsible, so I think it meets NPOV rules. But as a self-description, its a vague and unhelpful one: either as you say, an accusation by implication that other factions are fiscally irresponsible, or just a meaningless platitude that everyone would claim. (Ditto for the other claims on their website of "commonsense solutions to practical problems" and "dedicated to the financial stability and national security of the country"). As such, I think the article could benefit from more details about what they actually advocate and what they have actually done. Iapetus (talk) 11:14, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Continued vandalism by User talk:Toa Nidhiki05

This user has been sitting on this page for five+ years on the insistence that the blue dog democrats contain center-left tendencies, all because he found *two Politico articles by the same person* that claim such. The user is incapable of pointing out what exactly is leftward leaning about any politician mentioned in the sources he is using, and meekly defers to them seemingly without much awareness as to the matter at hand. The idea that a conservative coalition within a centrist party, which for the last four years has been fighting off leftists as if it considers them a disease, could be considered left-leaning is absolutely absurd.

I wonder why the perspective of a single conservative, against many others who disagree, should have the authority to define what center-left tendencies are if he can't even point them out when asked. Why is this individual so concerned with narrative control over a faction of a party that he isn't part of? In the political world the blue dogs are overwhelmingly known as a conservative faction, including by conservatives, so why must everyone else reading the article be subjected to this one user's bias?

See also

@NSW ModLib, IR2017, and Toa Nidhiki05: It isn't generally appropriate to place an external link in a see also section. Other than that, I don't see how One Nation Conservatives (caucus) relates to this article. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:54, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

• Correct, external links aren't to go there. Conservatives/liberals in Australia are not the same thing as those here (the major conservative party there is called the Liberal Party) so linking to caucuses from a conservative party doesn't make a lot of sense on a caucus for a liberal party. Toa Nidhiki05 18:12, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

  IR2017, do you have any thoughts on this? Toa Nidhiki05 12:25, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

"Shifted left"

The source[1] does not say the Blue Dogs shifted left. It says that the center has shifted left, and that the Blue Dogs have more socially liberal views. The Blue Dogs AFAIK have not shifted left at all on economic issues or foreign policy. Right now, the text inappropriately implies that they shifted left overall. The source does not say that. Also, it's much too much weight on a single source to state this interpretation. The article has a more nuanced point than the one being used: Some observers say this shows that the coalition, like the party, is drifting away from the center. The Blue Dogs may have regained some influence after 2018, but it’s hard to imagine the trend of polarization reversing itself. “They make a stylistically moderate point,” says Danielle Thomsen, a visiting scholar in politics at Princeton University and author of a book on the political center. But from the policy side, she says, “the actual demands that they’re trying to make might not differ so much from the party mainstream.” Progressives like Mr. Lawson disagree; he says many Blue Dogs today use socially liberal views to win support from Democratic voters, despite the fact that on economic matters they represent corporate interests. He says the coalition wrongly identifies the political center as a place where Wall Street gets a bigger piece than Main Street. “It’s ‘fiscal responsibility’ that happens to hurt the people,” he says. Andre🚐 18:54, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Sources are pretty unequivocal that they've shifted left and align more with baseline Democratic policies. The fact that progressives dislike Democrats that aren't progressives and feel that liberals and moderates are too corporate isn't especially notable here. Toa Nidhiki05 18:57, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

That's not the case, and it doesn't address the argument. You have one source which has a nuanced take that says the Blue Dogs have adopted more socially liberal views. However their economic views and foreign policy have remained the same. The source given does not even say the Blue Dogs shifted left - it says the center shifted left. Andre🚐 18:59, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

It's not just one source. This one WaPo one, for example. Toa Nidhiki05 21:03, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

A point-in-time analysis from 2018 that is already out of date, once again overindexing on a recentism horserace analysis and ignoring a longer view. But regardless, it also states in the same Wapo article: "These Democrats are resisting the push to use the new majority to advance the most ambitious liberal agenda", again pointing out that they are not as left as the mainstream caucus. There is other research showing that the Blue Dogs move left at a slower rate than the party or the country. See this research from 2010 for example: "The two-sample t-test below shows the relationship between the slight liberal shift and membership in the Blue Dog Coalition. Both groups, over the 104th -110th Congress period do move left on average, but Blue Dogs move less to the left than the rest of their party. Again, our significance level fails to meet the threshold required to rule out chance results" [2] This article from Bloomberg Government explains it's a perception and that the Blue Dogs are fighting a tide: [3] "Blue Dog co-chair Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) said it’s become harder for moderate voices in the party to break through the perception in the electorate that Democrats have moved further to the left." Andre🚐 21:10, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Saying sources from the last few years are outdated while trying to pass off a source from 2010 as better is many things, but a serious argument isn't one of them. Toa Nidhiki05 21:44, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Of course it is a serious argument. The 2010 source is an academic study, while the 2018 source is a Wapo "analysis," borderline editorial. Here's another explanation of the effect: 'ideologically extreme and moderate candidate are now roughly equally likely to be elected to Congress' -Utych, S. M. (2020). Man Bites Blue Dog: Are Moderates Really More Electable than Ideologues? Journal of Politics, 82(1), 392–396. https://doi.org/10.1086/706054 And just to be clear I'm not saying Wapo is unreliable or not to use it. It should be used but it needs to be balanced with progressive views and other views.Andre🚐 21:46, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Progressive views are not worth noting here. Progressives dislike any Democrats to their right, which is most Democrats; frankly, their opinion doesn't matter. Toa Nidhiki05 21:54, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Progressive and moderate wings of the party both have perspectives on whether the party has moved left or had moved right. For NPOV we need to balance all the views. Your claim that the only view that matters is that conservative Dems think the party is too far left is not NPOV. And it's too much weight on a couple of cherry-picked sources. Andre🚐 22:01, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Toa Nidhiki05. The current Blue Dog is not conservative at all. The center-right should be confined to its historical political position. Mureungdowon (talk) 03:33, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

That's an opinion. The recent edits removing center-right should be reversed. Blue Dogs are center to center-right based on RS Andre🚐 16:27, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I have reversed those edits, as there is no consensus for them, as the editor who made them knows full well. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:00, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Re: How to Read (Interpret & UNDERSTAND!) the Blue- Dog Seat Chart in Congress

Hello,

I am NOT sure WHO it is (which names/addigend "authority") to turn to in order to provide me with some explanation as to how to read & understand the chart listed/posted on this page!

In your chart, you have 2 columns: one entitled: Democratic Seats & the other, entitled: Seats both of which show a certain value/number of a general number. So, thinking that the Bule-DOg Coalition is a part of teh Democratic party, which values refer to/reflect the count of soley that coalition (as carved out & separate from teh entire democratic party). The way it is presented here to me is truly unclear/confusing (challenging to my understanding...).Is thee a way to improve this presentation to ensure betetr clarity-or, if there isn;t, can anyone then, CLARIFY this to me, personally/individually,  pretty please ? ! :) 

AK63 (talk)