NY-20 Rep. Scott Murphy represents the most Republican-by-registration district in New York, and like his NY-20 predecessor now-Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, joined the Blue Dog Coalition.
Though Murphy has supported all the major Obama/Democratic initiatives (stimulus bills, HCR, financial regulation, cap-and-trade, etc.), he is more sensitive to the concerns of small business owners and more concerned about trillion-dollar deficits than Democratic Members of Congress from, say, New York City.
So, he sounded out a senior House Republican about "getting our budget house in order" with a possible coalition of Republicans and moderate Democrats.
And was essentially told screw you, we're going to defeat people like you, take over the House, and deal with the budget our way next year.
Details, below.
Murphy told the story during an appearance in Keene, Essex County, at the northern end of his sprawling, 10-county district, yesterday.
It was reported on the WNBZ News blog:
I went to a friend of mine on the Republican side of the aisle –- a very senior member –- and I said, "Hey, I think there’s a group of centrist Democrats that if we could team together with Republicans, we could put together a path to get our budget house in order and we could get it passed if the Democratic leadership doesn’t want to." And he said to me, "Oh, we’re watching you guys squirm on this issue. We’re going to be in charge of the budget next year. We don’t want to help you out."
As a special-election freshman, Murphy can be forgiven, IMO, for not recognizing that the House Republicans would NEVER negotiate in good faith, even for a goal they agree on with many moderate Democrats -- getting our budget house in order.
Murphy personally ran into the Party of No, which wants to run over moderate Democrats like him in November.
Now, presumably, he knows better.
Murphy is more moderate than most Democratic Members, but he is also more liberal than most Blue Dogs.
Murphy's private-sector experience, prior to winning the 2009 special election, was as a venture capitalist, largely helping startups get started. So he knows how to create jobs, with public or private financing, and, let's face it, creating jobs is the No. 1 issue.
Tomorrow, Murphy will host Small Business Administrator Karen Mills at a Business Roundtable in Saratoga Springs, and his second TV ad features local business owners who Murphy has helped, largely through the SBA.
Murphy is facing a strong Republican/Conservative challenge from recently retired Army Col. Chris Gibson, who has adopted far-right tea party grievances (aka, the Party of No agenda) as his essential campaign themes. Plus, Gibson hired Patrick Ziegler, a tea partier who had campaigned unsuccessfully for the NY-20 GOP nomination, as his campaign manager, and Ziegler has delivered the few dozen active local tea partiers as reliable campaign volunteers.
Murphy is not a perfect Democrat, but if we let the perfect be the enemy of the good, we will enable Speaker Boehner (who did a Saratoga fund-raiser for Gibson last week).
I will be supporting Murphy quite a lot this year, even though I disagree with him on some things and wish he were more liberal.
But he's not, we have a big tent, and the prospect of Speaker Boehner is nightmarish.