It’s hard to believe that, only a year and a half ago, the Blue Dog Coalition was a huge political force. They made the health care reform process a real pain in the ass, lengthening the debate while sapping the popularity of the concept. Most of them lost after that, and they keep dropping like flies:

U.S. Rep. Mike Ross, the only Democrat among Arkansas’ four House members, announced Monday he won’t seek re-election next year.

Ross, who has expressed interest in running for governor in 2014, said in a statement that he wants to spend time with his family and explore “new opportunities here at home in Arkansas.” He later said opting out of next year’s House run keeps the gubernatorial race an open possibility.

Not exactly surprising, as being the swing faction of the in-power party is a lot of fun, but being the marginalized and dying rump of the out-of-power party isn’t. Still, I think this is one of those major stories that nobody is really watching, but is probably going to have a really big impact on American politics in the future. I’ve written about the Blue Dog phenomenon before as being a solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist anymore, an attempt to hold together a Democratic coalition from earlier days. But that’s something of a simplification. If you look at the membership of the Blue Dog Coalition, it’s not even majority-Southern anymore. California has more members than any other state, despite a 0% likelihood that any of these folks will face a tough race from a Republican. And some of the recent members don’t really fit the description of a typical Blue Dog–Patrick Murphy wrote the bill that ended Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, for example. It seems clear to me that some fraction of the Blue Dogs are such there as some sort of marketing exercise to avoid being painted as liberal, and many more join to be a part of a powerful swing group. Someone like Adam Schiff (CA-14) represents a very Democratic district and isn’t going to start voting like Mike Ross lest he be primaried. So why even join the Blue Dog Coalition? What possible benefit can it confer on a fairly mainstream Democrat in a safe district? Someone like Schiff is only going to bother to be in the group because it’s seen as influential and important (and gets lots of favorable attention from the press and from pundits)–but that credibility comes from the notion that Blue Doggery has some purchase in Real America. Which is to say, the more Heath Shulers and Dan Borens and Mike Rosses retire, the more it starts to look like a collection of moderate Dems from California, Oregon and Maine, and the less inclination that people are going to even bother to join up in the future. It’s entirely possible that membership in the Blue Dogs will dip to single-digits in 2013.

Is this a good thing? Well, in some cases it isn’t. In some cases it’s just irrelevant–Schiff and a bunch of other California Blue Dogs are going to have their districts redrawn and are probably going to just be replaced by other Democrats if they leave. And it’s probably going to mean Democrats will have to work even harder for Hispanic support in order to form a coalition without those canines. For the record, I think that Democrats would be better off finding a different model for candidates in conservative districts. When you talk about what people think in the so-called “flyover country”, what predominates in my experience is a really strong form of anti-authoritarianism. It’s not so much ideological, more like a sense that people running things don’t really care about them, don’t understand them, and are just self-obsessed idiots who want to help themselves. Which is not exactly off the mark. But the Blue Dogs are among the most pro-establishment politicians you can find. Their views on most subjects are identical to, say, the editorial pages of the Washington Post. Is it any wonder that these electorates can’t get rid of these guys fast enough? Some have enough personal popularity to stick around, but it really all comes back to that quote from Miller’s Crossing: they only run this town because people think they run it. And fewer people are thinking it anymore.