Scott Johnson of Powerline scares me. He doesn’t believe in the reality of Blue Dog Democrats. He says they’re usually just liberals from conservative districts.

He writes:

I’ve never much believed in the concept of a “blue dog Democrat.” As far as I can tell, the only thing that determines whether a “conservative” or “moderate” Democrat votes with his party’s leadership is whether the party needs his vote. If it does, it’s bye-bye blue dog. On this interpretation, being a conservative Democrat is just a pose that is adopted to the minimum amount necessary to gain re-election in a swing district.

I fear that he’s right but I hope he’s wrong mainly because this healthcare overhaul really scares the heck out of me for so many reasons we’ve discussed before.

But the main reason it scares me is that it’s become clear that the power may be in our hands on this issue. And we need to scare the heck out of the Democrats into not doing this. We do this by ensuring that Republicans all vote no on this disastrous idea of destroying our country’s healthcare. Not most. Not many. All. Democrats wants this to be a bipartisan vote, not for the sake of bipartisanship but just to have someone to share the blame with when things go south.

You know that guy in the office who cc’s everyone on every email and he never says “I” am responsible. He says “We” an awful lot. He’s not a team player. That’s all about apportioning future blame. CYA. Well, just about every politician is like that guy. If things go bad with healthcare the Democrats want to be able to say it was bipartisan.

But if they have to do it alone they will. Obama’s legacy is all about health care reform now. The White House and the Democrat Party will threaten them with financial support for their reelection if they fail to come to Obama’s aid on this one. And that’s scary for a politician.

We need to be scarier. With our phone calls. With our letters. With our blogs. Word of mouth. We need to ensure that this doesn’t go through.

If there aren’t Blue Dog Democrats as Scott Johnson fears, we need to create ’em.