Can Blue Dog Democrats Survive The 112th Congress?

Washington - As the 112th Congress dawns this week, North Carolina's trio of conservative Democrats find themselves not only a minority within the U.S. House of Representatives, but within their own party as well.

U.S. Reps. Heath Shuler, Larry Kissell and Mike McIntyre represent a breed of Democrat that got hurt badly in the November election. Conservative Southerners fell in droves, with the Blue Dog Caucus losing half its members.

Kissell, Shuler and McIntyre squeaked through, but the coming changes in both population patterns and re-districting by state legislatures with new Republican majorities mean they, and others like them, will likely have to fight harder than ever to keep their seats two years from now.

It's a scenario playing out across the South. U.S. Census numbers released in late December show that red states gained more congressional seats, and Republicans are expecting more clout in the U.S. House of Representatives.

That leaves North Carolina's conservatives struggling to bring their voices to the Democratic caucus and remain relevant in House votes even as they find themselves in the minority. In separate interviews, all three of North Carolina's blue dogs said there is a feeling that if the Democrats don't recruit more candidates like themselves, the future looks grim.

"There simply is not a voice being heard for moderates in this country," Shuler said. "You see the fringes, the outer edges of the political spectrum. We need a voice in the middle, where we think 80percent of Americans are."

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