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More blog heat for Tauscher

By Josh Richman
Tuesday, December 19th, 2006 at 4:19 pm in Elections, Ellen Tauscher, General, U.S. House.

Berkeley-based liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga (“The Daily Kos”) has a good summary of blogosphere-bashing being brought to bear upon Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, who considers herself a moderate but is being singled out as too conservative and Bush-friendly to be a loyal Democrat. His and other blogs – including SFist, Calitics, firedoglake, and Crooks And Liars – are talking about finding a primary challenger to take on Tauscher in 2008.

First they noted Tauscher had removed a photo of herself with President Bush from her official Web site; this week they’re saying she also “scrubbed” photos of herself with Joseph Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-independent Senator from Connecticut.

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Replies Tauscher spokesman Kevin Lawlor: “Congresswoman Tauscher is a proud Democrat and has been all her life. She values the netroots and every tool that gives citizens a voice in our democracy. She has a 10-year record of representing her district well – on choice, on the environment, and on using her role on the House Armed Services Committee to fight for the truth and a better course in Iraq that gets our troops home sooner and safer.”

Opinions on her political ideology aside, a few corrections/additions to the bloggers’ facts might be in order:

  • Tauscher is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition but is not its chairwoman; she chairs the New Democrat Coalition, a different – though sometimes overlapping – group of moderate-to-conservative Dems.
  • Kos says Tauscher “essentially acts like she represents Utah while serving in a 59 percent Kerry district.” He doesn’t note that Tauscher outperformed Kerry in her district: she earned 66 percent of the vote in 2004, getting 182,750 votes compared to the 169,373 votes Kerry got in her district. And she got 67 percent of the vote this year.
  • Two other photos of Tauscher and Lieberman remain on her site, although they depict the pair in the company of others while the removed photos showed just the two of them.
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    2 Responses to “More blog heat for Tauscher”

    1. Matt Says:
      December 21st, 2006 at 5:00 pm

      Question: Why is the fact that Tauscher outperformed Kerry relevant? Seriously, I’m confused. If the charge is that she is too moderate for her district, the fact that Kerry got 59% in her district with no incumbent advantage indicates that she could be significantly more liberal (i.e. more like Kerry) and still safely and overwhelmingly retain her seat. So it seems very fair for Democrats to complain that Tauscher is not a liberal enough Democrat for her district.

    2. Josh Richman Says:
      December 21st, 2006 at 9:32 pm

      I see your point, but I think one also could claim that her district doesn’t want her to be much more liberal if 13,000 more voters cast ballots for her than for Kerry in 2004. From that point of view – not necessarily my own – she could be more liberal and still get re-elected as you say, but if she did so with fewer votes, I think that would indicate she’s more out of synch.

      Of course, a lot depends on who she’s running against, as well. Could be a case of lies, damn lies and statistics.

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