How vulnerable is Peterson — and the rest of the Blue Dog Dems?

The Blue Dog Democrats have been wielding quite a bit of clout up on Capitol Hill lately. Earlier this month President Obama was feting them at the White House. Just today they successfully bargained with the House leadership to slice $100 billion off the health-care-reform package and delay any vote until after the August recess. The agreement is expected to clear the way for the legislation to pass the House’s Energy and Commerce Committee.

The mantra of the conservative Dems is that they’ll be politically vulnerable if they fully embrace President Obama’s agenda, particularly on universal health care. There are 49 congressional districts currently represented by Democrats where John McCain out-polled Obama in last year’s presidential contest. While not all of these are represented by members of the Blue Dog Caucus, it tracks pretty closely. Only one of these is in Minnesota — the Seventh Congressional District, represented by Blue Dog Dem Collin Peterson.

But how truly vulnerable are these conservative Democrats? Michael Tomasky, writing for The Guardian, makes a pretty persuasive case that the overwhelming majority of these legislators have very little credible fear of being tossed out of office by the voters. Tomasky created what he calls the Margin Versus McCain index. Basically it compares the margin of victory for McCain with the margin of victory for the Democratic legislator to come up with a score.

In Peterson’s case, McCain won his district by just three percentage points in the presidential contest. By contrast, the 10-term congressman romped to victory by 44 points. That equates to a MVM rating of +41 — the ninth highest among the 49 legislators. In other words, barring serious financial or moral impropriety, Peterson can keep his seat as long as he wants. Then again, if he keeps disparaging his constituents to political web sites, he might see the electoral climate grow a little muggier.