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An Oklahoma Blue Dog

During the 2004 elections, country singer Toby Keith -- he of 'we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way' fame -- endorsed two candidates. One was George W. Bush. The other was a Democrat: Rep. Dan Boren (Okla.).

This year, Boren can count himself among that increasingly rare class of Democrat: the safe incumbent in a right-leaning district. Boren's 2nd district voted 59 percent for Bush in 2004 and 64 percent for John McCain in 2008, and yet Boren's campaign recently released a poll that showed Boren leading Republican challenger Charles Thompson by 65 percent to 31 percent. Strategists and race-watchers expect similar results in November.

#ad#Being the scion of one of Oklahoma's most prominent political families certainly helps. Boren's father, David, is a former governor and senator; his grandfather was a five-term congressman. The Boren's are old-school Democrats of the southern, Blue Dog variety. Or, as one GOP strategist puts it, Boren embodies 'what a real Blue Dog used to be.' Indeed, he can attribute his political success in large part to a résumé and voting record that, especially of late, would make it easy to mistake him for a die-hard Republican.

For example:

? In 2006, he made the League of Conservation Voters' 'Dirty Dozen' list of 'anti-environmental' lawmakers.

? In 2008, he was elected to the board of directors of the National Rifle Association, and currently, he is co-chairman of the Second Amendment Caucus.

? In May 2010, he received the Spirit of Enterprise Award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for his pro-business voting record. He was the Chamber's highest rated Democrat in the House, with a cumulative score of 88 percent. He was also one of 31 Democrats to send a letter to President Obama and the Congress leadership asking for all the Bush tax cuts to be extended.

Much to the aggravation of his own party, Boren has been a consistent and vocal opponent of Barack Obama, refusing to endorse him in 2008 and voting against nearly every one of the administration's major policy items including the stimulus, health-care reform, cap-and-trade, and card check. But that's not all. 'Boren is a good example of a Democrat who has not only voted against Obama but has really excoriated him at every turn,' says Isaac Wood, House-race editor for Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball newsletter.

Boren was an outspoken opponent of health-care reform. Unlike fellow Blue Dog Chet Edwards (D., Texas), Boren didn't just walk the walk by voting against the bill, he talked the talk. Referring to the Democratic leadership's efforts to garner support for the bill, Boren famously told Fox News:

They can break arms. They can do whatever they want to. They'll never get my vote -- ever. They'll have to walk across my dead body if they want my vote on this issue.

By employing this sort of rhetoric, Boren has been able to represent not just the political views of his constituents, but also their feelings -- of anger, frustration, and betrayal. Which might explain that as Edwards is having a hard time winning over voters in his conservative district, Boren is comfortably ahead in the polls, and on extended hiatus from the campaign trail, awaiting the birth of his second child, a boy, any day now.

Boren says he realized as soon as Barack Obama became president that 2010 was going to be a difficult year for his party. When many commentators were suggesting that the GOP has lost its way and could only remain viable as a watered-down, more moderate version of itself, Boren worried about the direction his own party would take, given majorities in both houses and a popular, ambitious president. His party's current travails, Boren says, are self-inflicted.

'A lot of the legislation passed or proposed in this Congress has been outside the mainstream of where most Americans are,' Boren tells National Review Online. (Not only did Boren return our call -- most Democrats never do -- but he confessed that NR is his 'favorite' publication.) The administration's biggest mistake, Boren says, was not focusing intently enough on the economy -- issues such as health-care reform and cap-and-trade were unfortunate distractions -- combined with an apparent hostility toward the business community.

#page#'[Obama] has almost seen the business community as the enemy, and that rhetoric has not been helpful,' Boren says. While he 'hasn't written off' the possibility that his party will retain control of the House in November, he says that whatever the outcome, the lesson for Democrats is clear.

'For the Democratic party to survive, it's got to be a more centrist party,' he says, likening the political environment to the aftermath of the 1994 midterm elections in which Republicans swept to power. 'President Clinton was able to negotiate with Newt Gingrich, but will President Obama be able to negotiate with Republicans? I don't know,' Boren says.

#ad#As much as Democrats would like to think that the losses they suffer in November will be the result of voters' blindly venting their frustration over the economy by voting out Democratic incumbents, Boren knows better. 'Those that voted the straight party line, I don't think that's going to work for them [this year],' he says.

It definitely isn't working. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is suddenly wishing it had more Dan Borens to go around. As many party incumbents across the country are realizing, their proximity to the Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda will be a tremendous factor heading into November. This is especially true on health-care reform. Democrats are doing everything they can to deflect or ignore the issue. Many are even running against Obamacare. Since August, Democratic candidates have spent more than three times as much on anti-reform ads than on pro-reform ads.

Rep. Gene Taylor (D., Miss.) recently became the first Democrat to sign a discharge petition that would force a vote on the outright repeal of Obamacare -- a proposition that Boren says is problematic. But Taylor, like Boren, appears as safe as any Democrat heading into November. These Blue Dogs who survive the mid-terms will almost certainly play a particularly influential role in the 112th Congress.

For Republicans, this presents a bittersweet challenge. Unseating someone with Boren's record is, according to a GOP strategist, 'certainly an uphill battle this year.' Then again, why would they want to try? With enemies like these . . .

-- Andrew Stiles writes for Battle '10, NRO's election blog. 

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on September 23, 2010 (boomark / email).