Hillarysworld

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New Democrats Take Center Stage
By Emily Cadei, Roll Call Staff
March 17, 2010, 12 a.m.

If Blue Dog Democrats represent the type of districts Republicans must win to get closer to the majority in 2010, then New Democrats personify the seats the GOP needs to win to actually regain the majority.

The business-friendly New Democrat Coalition doesn’t have the same public profile as the smaller and more cohesive Blue Dogs, who have become a symbol of House Democrats’ challenges in maintaining unity in their fractious Caucus, not to mention holding their 75-seat edge in the chamber.

But in many ways, it is the members of the New Democrat Coalition — home to a large number of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) “Majority Makers” who won pivotal suburban swing districts in 2006 and 2008 — who are truly on the front lines of Democrats’ fight to pass their ambitious legislative agenda and maintain their majority.

“A lot of the places where Democrats made gains between 2006 and 2008 were in some of these districts,” said a chief of staff for a New Democrat Member. He said the coalition embodies the gains the party has made in moderate suburban areas and in moving “past the culture wars of the ’90s and into middle-class issues,” which proved successful in recent elections.

This is the same battleground where Democrats will have to fight in 2010 and where they are already fighting to persuade voters to support their policy priorities.

At the beginning of the month, the White House invited the coalition’s leadership to its own one-on-one meeting to discuss health care. The coalition’s chairman, Rep. Joe Crowley (N.Y.), called it a “very honest discussion with the president” and said “it demonstrates the White House looks to the New Democrats as a sweet spot for this caucus.”

It is wavering first- and second-term New Democrats who are facing some of the fiercest arm twisting on the health care overhaul vote expected to take place this week, including Reps. Michael Arcuri (N.Y.), Scott Murphy (N.Y.), Michael McMahon (N.Y.), Jason Altmire (Pa.), Gabrielle Giffords (Ariz.) and Mark Schauer (Mich.). All face competitive re-election races this fall.

Continues @ Roll Call
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