Here’s what it means for Wright to be running as a “citizen’s candidate”: Instead of the standard procedure for the selection of a congressional candidate, in which a self-centered politician gathers resources for the power to orchestrate a top-down campaign, Claudia Wright was democratically chosen by a group of committed citizens who had organized around a selfless purpose: The replacement of Jim Matheson as Democratic congressional candidate with a progressive candidate.

As a Blue Dog, working with Republicans to block Democratic legislation, Jim Matheson has gained the strong opposition of his district’s progressive candidates. In spite of his claims that he doesn’t need liberal help to win re-election, Matheson looks vulnerable this time, and his campaign is struggling to figure out a good way to deal with the rebellion on the Left. So far, they haven’t come up with a reasonable response.

Win or lose, 2010 may well be remembered as he year of Claudia Wright. Utahn Democrats are tired of the Blue Dog nonsense.

It’s the Blue Dog Democrat strategy to a T – and it’s enabled Melancon to rise to the top of the right wing Blue Dog Coalition in the House of Representatives. The Blue Dog Democrats are like Melancon – voting like Republicans in Congress, but registered as Democrats for electoral advantage. Melancon has become the co-chair of the Blue Dogs, leading the charge as the Blue Dogs rip apart progressive Democratic legislation.

Charles Melancon thinks that kind of political two-timing has earned him a promotion, so this year, Melancon is campaigning to become Louisiana’s newest United States Senator. The bumper sticker you see here speaks to Melancon’s bid, reading, Melancon is too much like a Republican to get this Democrat’s vote.

This year, once again, Democratic voters are being asked to plug their noses, never mind the stench of betrayal, and give their support to members the right wing Blue Dog Coalition. Those Blue Dogs are Democrats, but they vote with the Republicans, wrecking Democratic Party attempts to to pass progressive legislation on issues like health care and climate change, over and over again.

Democratic voters have been asking themselves: What’s the point of having a Democratic majority in Congress, when it’s made up of creeps like the Blue Dogs? This year, the discontent is out in the open, with bumper stickers like this one, declaring, I’ll never give my vote to a mangy old Blue Dog – featuring a graphic of a blue dog, slinking away.

Sanford Bishop consistently votes against the progressive values of his constituents, and in favor of the interests of corporate polluters. The Democrats of Georgia’s 2nd district deserve better – and it’s to them that this bumper sticker is designed to speak. Sanford Bishop? I want a real Democrat! – not a blue dog.

Now it’s sure, they’re no barn owls over at Irregular States. They’re right on the money. Today, Representative Griffith announced that he’s switching political party constituencies from Democrat to Republican.

Don’t expect to see a change in Griffith’s voting record, though. Griffith was already voting like he was a Republican. He was a Blue Dog Democrat, a Democrat who supports a right wing agenda pretty much like that of the Republican Party.

This afternoon, Irregular States has posted a new button design: Alabama Voters Unite Against Parker Griffith. Democrats have learned that Congressman Griffith can’t keep his word. Republican can see that Griffith might switch allegiances again next year. Whatever his political party of the moment, Parker Griffith holds to an extremist agenda that’s just plain out of touch with the needs of the day.

A Blue Dog Democrat is nothing more than a GOP elephant trying to make an ass out of itself.

Michael Arcuri was part of the Blue Dog effort to stall Democratic health care legislation earlier this year – which made the Republican opposition to the bill possible. Representative Arcuri also voted against the House bill to deal with climate change. Who could have imagined a Democrat taking a position against the environment? Congressman Arcuri could imagine such a thing, apparently.

Mike Arcuri is a disappointment, not a Democrat.

Mainstream progressive Democrats are joining liberal activists in nearing a full scale revolt against their own party’s leadership, demanding that the Blue Dogs’ destructive activities finally be brought under control.

U.S. Representative Maxine Waters spoke for many when she said of the Blue Dogs, “Now the chickens have come home to roost.”

You can show your participation in the progressive campaign to challenge the Blue Dog Democrats with progressive primary campaigns by placing the bumper sticker you see here on your car – with an evocative graphic blue dog and a simple, clear message: No Blue Dogs.

In 2009, however, it’s become clear that the Blue Dogs are not really independent at all. They’re dependent – upon the Republican Party.

In the 2008 elections, voters gave Democrats the White House and both houses of Congress because they wanted change from the years of failure under George W. Bush, but the Blue Dogs have been fighting against change. Jim Costa and the other Blue Dogs have been working to scuttle climate change legislation and health care reform.

Jim Costa himself has earned a progressive rating of just 19 out of a possible 100 for the 111th Congress. The Democrats of California’s 20th district have watched Costa pal around with the Republicans over and over again this year, and cringed.

That’s why this bumper sticker has been created as a protest against Jim Costa – not from a Republican perspective, but on behalf of the Democrats in Costa’s district. Democrats, we can do better than Jim Costa.

The last phrase of this famous refrain from children’s television seems to be something that right wing Democrats in the U.S. Congress have a special identification with. Members of the Blue Dog Coalition seems to believe that they can do anything that they want to do, and still get the support of Democratic voters.

The Blue Dogs play a rather nasty political game of running for office as members of the Democratic Party, but then turning coat in office to work against the Democratic Party, helping congressional Republicans instead. The Blue Dogs in Congress have blocked legislation on the very issues that gained the Democratic Party its majority in the first place: Climate change, health care reform, equal rights, and restoration of the Constitution are all 2008 issues that the Blue Dogs have joined with Republicans to deny.

The progressive majority of the Democratic Party has had enough. We didn’t suffer through the Bush years just to have the Democratic-controlled government promote the same awful regressive policies all over again. That’s why, in 2010, the rallying cry for progressives is: Blue dogs belong on children’s TV, not in our Congress.