So-called ‘moderate Democrats’ are complaining that Speaker Pelosi is using a strategy of maximizing the liberalness of legislation so that it results in a more satisfying product after the Senate gets done watering it down. For example, Ellen Tauscher, leader of the New Democratic Caucus, forced a delay in the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 by whimpering and whining about how the bill will help too many families renegotiate their mortgages.
The problem with this can be seen in David Waldman’s analysis of the foreclosure crisis by congressional district.
Forty-one districts have 9,000+ projected foreclosures for the year. Fourteen are represented by Democrats. Twenty-seven of them (66%) are currently represented by Republicans. Discounting districts represented by first or early second term Democrats — i.e., areas that were previously and traditionally Republican — the number approaches 75%…
…nine of the ten districts with the highest number of projected foreclosures are represented by Republicans. Only MI-09, represented by Gary Peters, currently has a Democrat in office.
In fact, of the 22 districts with more than 10,000 foreclosures projected, only 6 are represented by Democrats (and only two — Dale Kildee and Rob Andrews) have been in office for more than one full term, meaning that 20 out of the 22 districts have pretty much traditionally been Republican.
I don’t bring this up to make the obvious argument that the foreclosure crisis wasn’t caused by poor, black people buying rowhouses in urban ghettos, but to rebut the idea that mortgage relief is going to be unpopular in conservative districts. People are losing their homes at the highest rate in conservative districts, so there are more people there that are going to directly or indirectly benefit from the mortgage cram-down in the Housing bill.
Here’s a piece of advice for Tauscher and the New Democrats. If you don’t like liberal legislation, vote against it. But take into consideration that the country isn’t divided into red and blue anymore. The banks are foreclosing on red America. The populist rage of Rick Santelli is fake, but the populist rage against the banks is real.
P.S. The Dow Jones is below 7,000.
