Blue Dog Democrats
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Blue Dog Democrats is a coalition of United States Congressional Representatives who are members of the Democratic Party. It currently has 26 seats.[1] Blue Dogs are noted for promoting fiscal conservatism (balanced budgets, tax reductions, decreased spending, smaller government) while being otherwise socially liberal.
They used to be known as "Reagan Democrats," having voted for the man in the 1980s—to the nation's eventual dismay, as Reagan would push an agenda so fiscally irresponsible that it would be named after him; paving the way for noted centrist Bill Clinton to win election in the 1990s.
Since Clinton's election, the vast majority of the Democratic Party, reeling from so many Republican victories in the White House, switched to the right in an attempt to compete with the conservative vote and largely leaving the left to dry. President Barack Obama has largely done the same; he even considered himself to be a "moderate" Reagan Republican. Rahm Emanuel, his first Chief of Staff, is another example of a Blue Dog who steered administrative policy towards the right.
Blue Dogs are more likely to follow Republican lines of thought when it comes to fiscal policy, and they tend to side with corporate interests in nearly all other matters as well. Any similarity ends there, as Blue Dogs remain not quite as socially conservative as modern Republicans. They tend to be the first to recommend reductions in the largest cash gluttons, namely military spending and oil tax subsidies.