Blue Dog Votes

In addition to the fact that Blue Dogs who won’t allow up-and-down votes are pretty much entirely useless, it seems to me that Blue Dog votes on cloture provide a pretty good first approximation of whether Republican-collaborationist Blue Dogs are primarily worried about constituents or donors. If the former, for low-information voters a no vote on the merits should be good enough; “sure, she voted no, but she refused to prevent a majority vote” isn’t going to make a good campaign ad. If your primary audience is high-information donors and lobbyists, though, you’re going to have to vote for filibusters.