Blue Dogs bark: the role of moderate dems in a Pelosi House.(POLITICS II)(Nancy Pelosi)

REP. JOHN TANNER, chairman of the self-styled "Blue Dog Democrats," has a colorful way of describing the influence he hopes his group of moderate lawmakers will have in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's House. "They'll have to talk to us on the tarmac rather than asking us to jump 30,000 feet to catch the plane after it's left," says Tanner in his Tennessee drawl. "If they want our help, I don't think that's too much to ask."

What he means is that the new Democratic leaders, dominated by true-blue liberals like Pelosi, won't really control the House: To get anything done, they'll need to consult with more moderate Democrats like Tanner and the Blue Dogs. It's a matter of simple numbers. Come January, there will be 232 Democrats in the House, and 44 of them will be Blue Dogs (maybe more, since a few other Democrats are said to be hoping to join). Take the Blue Dogs away, and Democrats are well short of the 218 votes needed for a majority.

That simple fact has meant that the Blue Dogs are receiving lots of attention these days, more than at any time since their founding, back in 1995. After the Democrats' cataclysmic defeat in 1994, a group of moderates--the founders included then-representatives Charlie Stenholm of Texas and Billy Tauzin of Louisiana--got together to separate themselves from the old-style, tax-and-spend, interest-group liberals who had led the party to defeat. They called themselves Blue Dogs because--well, there's some disagreement about that. Their website explains, "Taken from the South's longtime description of a party loyalist as one who would vote for a yellow dog if it were on the ballot as a Democrat, the 'Blue Dog' moniker was taken by members of the coalition because their moderate-to-conservative views had been 'choked blue' by their party in the years leading up to the 1994 election." A more pedestrian explanation is that, early on, the group occasionally met in Tauzin's office, which featured an eye-catching painting by Louisiana artist George Rodrigue, whose trademark is a quizzical-looking blue dog. One way or another, a name was born.

Now, the Blue Dogs--veteran members like Tanner and fellow Tennessean Jim Cooper, as well as newcomers like former Redskins quarterback Heath Shuler and Brad Ellsworth--are trying to distance themselves from the old-style, tax-and-spend, interest-group liberals who have led their party to victory. And also, by the way, from the big-spending Republicans who led their party to defeat. Although they are generally a little more socially conservative than other Democrats, and a little more cautious about pulling out of Iraq, to hear the Blue Dogs tell it, their big issue, from now through 2008, will be fiscal responsibility.

"Where the Republicans made their fatal mistake was allowing the pay-go rules to lapse," says Tanner. "They are not an end in themselves, but they do force choices. Once you let them go, it becomes 'I scratch your back and you scratch mine.'" Tanner is referring to the doctrine that any new tax cuts or spending must be offset by similar cuts in spending. It's a doctrine Republicans in the House used to believe in--and to which many hope to return. Tanner says he'll stress the issue of financial accountability in the executive branch, too. A number of federal agencies have, to put it kindly, fallen down on that job, and Tanner says he'll push for more auditing. "If you can't tell us what happened to the money we took away from taxpayers involuntarily, then you don't get it next year," he says.

It sounds good, but Republicans are ...