John Barrow is wildly out of step with the Democrats he represents. When his district was last reshaped, he was gerrymandered into a district that is marginally Democratic (D+2, I believe), but the Democrats in his district are mostly African-American and very liberal. Last cycle he beat the very progressive Regina Thomas in the Democratic primary because President Obama endorsed and cut an ad for him. Barrow’s entire campaign consisted of little more than Obama’s endorsement repeated over and over again in radio ads on black radio stations.

Which is unfortunate. Because Barrow has paid the President back by continuing his ridiculously reactionary voting record. Most recently, he was one of 3 Democrats on the House Energy & Commerce Committee to vote against a health care bill.

Before launching this blog, I did similar work for FireDogLake’s health care efforts. Jane Hamsher had me running around the Hill asking Democrats to pledge to vote against any bill that didn’t contain a robust public option. I was tenacious in taking on the task; I made some reliable progressives fairly uncomfortable by bringing up campaign promises they had broken. I ended up leaving FireDogLake in part because I decided it was important for me to have some friends on the Hill… it didn’t make a lot of sense to be pissing off Republicans and Democrats. And it may be possible for me to do more good by growing the majority rather than whipping on Democrats from red districts that can’t be counted on for everything, but dammit, they are a long sight better than Republicans…

Barrow isn’t one of those Democrats. He’s a Democrat from a blue district that’s voted for George Bush’s wars, domestic spying programs, Patriot Act, etc, etc etc… At the same time, if legislation is progressive and helpful to the poor, you an count on Barrow to vote against it.

I asked him why: