The Myth of the Moderate District

Aaron Blake at the Washington Post talks about "The myth of the dying moderate." It's true that the moderate isn't dying but he's mistaken on this point:

What's more, when a moderate is kicked out of a swing district, he or she is often replaced by a moderate member of the other party -- or at least a member that learns quickly that he or she needs to be moderate if he or she wants to stay in office.

If you take a look at the membership of the Republican Main Street Partnership you'll see that the most common states for the congressmen are California, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Aside from California and Pennsylvania none of these states have blue dog members. Of the 10 new RMSP members only two replaced Blue Dogs. RMSP members come from moderate to liberal districts in moderate to liberal states. Only 4 of the 45 congressmen come from a state John McCain won. A lot of them replaced party line Democrats, who while not the most liberal in the Democratic caucus they weren't moderates either.

The Blue Dogs come largely from conservative southern, plains, or mountain states. It's heavily Republican country, many in states won by John McCain. So they were replaced by conservative Republicans. There are moderate districts. These districts usually only have a Republican moderate if it's a blue state like New York or Illinois and a Democratic moderate in a red state like Georgia or Louisiana.

The states with both are California and Pennsylvania, which are very blue and light blue. So it's not surprising that Republican moderates represent districts in them. Blue Dogs in Pennsylvania tend to represent rural Republican area. In California, however, you have a number of Blue Dogs representing liberal districts. I don't have an explanation for this.

Edit: I checked National Journal's 2009 conservative/liberal scores. If you click on Blue Dogs and Main Street Partnership you'll discover that the most liberal Blue Dogs and the most conservative Main Streeters are in California. These are moderate groups, so their voting records indicate they shouldn't be members. So, yes there are Blue Dogs in California but they're most liberal in the coalition.