Is Moderate The New Conservative?

In Indiana’s helter skelter 2010 race for the U.S. Senate, Blue Dog Democrat Brad Ellsworth has openly declared what’s been clear for some days: That he intends to ask the Indiana Democratic Party central committee to appoint him the party’s senatorial nominee (Evan Bayh intentionally dropped out a day before filing time in order to prevent an open primary contest).

John Gregg, Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives, made it clear that he was extremely happy about Ellsworth’s campaign. “He’s actually a conservative Democrat, which makes him a moderate,” Gregg said. Gregg’s idea is that a conservative politician can be called a “moderate”, as long as that conservative is running under the Democratic Party name. Let’s examine Brad Ellsworth’s recent voting record to see if that claim fits.

Last March, Brad Ellsworth voted in favor of the Mack Amendment to H.R. 1262. That amendment would have allowed the government to pay construction workers at below the prevailing wage – in the middle of a recession. Was that a moderate vote?

Ellsworth also voted in favor of the Stupak Amendment to the Democrats’ health care reform legislation. That amendment will, if the health care reform legislation is ever passed, block insurance companies from providing coverage for abortion. It’s a form of big government meddling in the private decisions of doctor and patient. Was that a moderate vote?

Ellsworth refused to support H.R. 981, a law that would block sales of cluster bombs, which frequently kill children and other civilians years after war has ended, until certification of child-proofing technology on the munitions is provided. Was Ellsworth’s acceptance of child-killing bombs a moderate stand?

Brad Ellsworth voted against climate change legislation last year. Even though the legislation had been dramatically watered down through compromise with corporate lobbyists, Ellsworth said it still didn’t give enough ground to major economic interests. Was that a moderate vote?

When politicians like Brad Ellsworth vote along with Republicans over and over again, it doesn’t matter much that their registration is with the Democratic Party. Brad Ellsworth talks like a right winger, and votes like a right winger. Let’s call it like it is. Ellsworth is no moderate.