Boren: Blue Dogs are ‘Yellow Dogs’ squeezed by the left

“Blue Dog” Democrats are simply old-school Southern Democrats who’ve been scared off by the party’s left flank, Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) claimed Tuesday.

“A Blue Dog is a kind of hybrid,” Boren, an especially conservative Democrat, told constituents at a town hall meeting this morning. “It’s a Yellow Dog that’s been squeezed by the left.”

“Yellow Dog” Democrats were voters in the South who historically favored Democrats because Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States during the Civil War, was a Republican.

Boren told constituents that he’d decided to oppose the House healthcare bill after returning to Washington in September because he’d spend the August recess reading the bill.

“I actually had the time to sit down and read the bill, 1,000 pages,” Boren said, according to the McAlester News-Capital.

Boren has been one of the most outspoken Democratic lawmakers against the healthcare bill and leaders in the House over the past few months’ worth of debate over the healthcare reform effort.