Blue Dogs in Danger

Another stimulus bill?  That may be an inevitability according to Robert Reich in Salon.com.  If that happens, it could spell doom for a number of centrist Democrats in Congress. 

Reich, former Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, says the first stimulus was too small, and President Obama will be forced to return to Congress looking for more money. 

Yes, I know. We're already in the gravitational pull of the midterm elections  so it will be even harder to round up the needed votes from Blue Dog Dems fretting over the deficit. And you can forget the Republicans.

But here's the problem. Everything else on the table -- a new jobs tax credit, more loans to small businesses, more help to troubled homeowners, another extension of unemployment insurance, another round of subsidies to first-time home buyers -- are small potatoes relative to the importance and likely effect of a larger stimulus. Some of these initiatives may do some good, but even combined they'll barely make a dent in the growing numbers of jobless Americans.

Exacerbating the situation is the nation's unemployment rate, which could hit 10%, will be a political threshold we haven't seen in a long time.  Reich says if the job numbers don't start climbing, it will make the 2010 elections a tough go for Democrats.

That should be Obama's selling point to the Blue Dogs. He should tell them the economy needs a bigger stimulus in order to show improved job numbers by the mid-term elections. And he should make sure they understand that they're more politically endangered next November if the the job numbers aren't moving in the right direction by then than if they vote for a larger stimulus now.