SOURCE: PRIMARY COLORS
Primary Colors, an organization dedicated to electing more liberal Democrats, has released its list of the 90 “Good Democrats” in the US House—those representatives who consistently vote more progressive than their districts. And of Washington State’s six Democratic House members, only Jim McDermott makes the list.
That’s pretty impressive for McDermott, considering that he already represents Washington’s most progressive district. And that’s pretty pathetic for the rest of the delegation.
Of course, the conventional wisdom is that McDermott isn’t a very effective congressman. But could it be that the conventionally wise just aren’t nearly as progressive as the 7th Congressional District voters who routinely reelect McDermott by overwhelming margins, and so they dismiss (or even resent) what he brings to the table?
And could we do a crappier job as a state of recruiting and supporting progressive candidates?
Jim McDermott is about as good as a fresh dog turd on your newly mowed lawn.
I hear ya, Brougham! They’re strangely compelling in their own way — much like your comment.
What metric determines the political leanings of the district and how strongly a meme be for the house is one way or the other politically.
Wow, it’s really irritating when you can’t edit. That last part should say how strongly a member of the house is one way or the other politically.
I liked the way you said it in #3. It was absolutely impenetrable, yet you seemed quite passionate about it.
It’s obviously not 100% perfect, but you can get a good sense of it from measuring progressive votes from colleagues in similar partisan leans. In McDermott’s case, a D+29 would warrant about a 92% progressive expectation.
It doesn’t take into account as much the difference between partisanship and ideology — but the algorithm does a good job at identifying the folks who are underperforming in the easiest way to understand it.
@5 I’m actually not passionate at all. I’m just wondering what the metric is, because it’s hard to know what I’m reading without knowing. It would be like saying I’m 7 away from where so and so is standing. 7 what? Feet? Inches? Miles?
@7 Well, you could click through the link provided and read their FAQ for yourself. They explain the metric there.
Jim’s ideological alignment with his district is just fine, but that’s not a measure of energy or effectiveness. I’m sure he would be a better representative in Congress if he actually had to campaign for re-election, instead of just staying on cruise control.
@9 I wish our top two primary would put two democrats facing each other in the general election for wa-7, just as I wish it would put two republicans against each other in republican districts, so these safe seats would have actual campaigning. The 7th is so strongly democratic, I don’t understand why it doesn’t happen.