Blue Dog Howl
by digby
It looks like some people don't know who they work for:
Yesterday, Arkansas' Mike Ross, an influential Blue Dog Democrat, stated that he was opposed to a public option in the Democrats' health care reform package. "An overwhelming number of you oppose a government-run health insurance option, and it is your feedback that has led me to oppose the public option as well," Ross asserted in a letter to his constituents.
Ross may well have gotten a significant number of letters and e-mails against the public option. He may have hosted a town hall forum before an audience who was skeptical of such a provision. But if Ross had actually polled his district, it's unlikely he would have found overwhelming opposition to the public option. Instead, he might even have found a that a plurality or majority of his constituents supported the public plan.
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While Arkansas-4 does not have a lot of Obama voters, it does have a lot of people in poverty: 20.5 percent of its population, which ranks it 50th out of the 435 Congressional Districts. It is basically like an exaggerated version of Kentucky where, according to the Research 2000 poll, 46 percent support the public option and 45 percent oppose it. That the public option is "overwhelmingly" unpopular in such a district is unlikely.
We can systematize these results by means of a regression analysis that accounts for the Obama vote share and the poverty level in each district. (Technically, we'll be using a logistic regession, treating each of the voters included in one of these surveys as a separate data point.) This analysis finds that support for the public option nationwide is about 55 percent, against 36 percent opposed, similar results to what I believe to be the most reliable polls on the subject.
What's more interesting, though, is where we project the public option in individual districts. We find that:
-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 291 of the 435 Congressional Districts nationwide, or almost exactly two-thirds.
-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 235 of 257 Democratic-held districts.
-- The public option is estimated to have plurality support in 34 of 52 Blue Dog - held districts, and has overall popularity of 51 percent in these districts versus 39 percent opposed.
Mike Ross works for Blue Cross, like all Arkansas politicians. But while he may think because of that that nobody will ever bring up his probable vote against health care reform, I tend to think otherwise. It might not be a Republican, mind you (although don't rule that out ... they have no shame) but there are some people in politics these days who are kicking ass and taking names and who will very likely to be willing to run ads against them.
Most people are willing to be practical if somebody comes from a district that is truly conservative and demands that they vote a certain way. Democracy is democracy. But these corporate lackeys and village shills who refuse to represent their constituents and act like Republicans are another story.
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