It’s refreshing to see that not everyone walks in lock step with the whole, “we won because America was unhappy with the war and they want our agenda” rhetoric of the Democratic party:

Representative Joe Donnelly, a freshman Democrat from Indiana, has a blunt message for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Stick to a “middle-of-the-road agenda” or their party’s control of Congress may last just two years.

If Pelosi “goes too far one way or another, we’re not coming back,” Donnelly says. He sees his party’s victory in the November elections as less an endorsement of its agenda than a rejection of Republican rule: “People just got real tired of this bunch, and they fired them.”

It’s truly amazing that he has the guts to say this given the vindictive nature of his party. And it appears he isn’t the only one. There may be some sliver of hope that conservativism isn’t dead in the House:

Donnelly’s view reflects those of many of the 30 House Democrats elected in districts previously held by Republicans. Their fragile hold on their seats means they’ll be pushing their new speaker, who represents heavily Democratic San Francisco, to limit confrontations with President George W. Bush and the Republicans over taxes, the war in Iraq, stem-cell research and abortion.
[…]

It may be more difficult for him to support other parts of the party’s agenda. Donnelly, a practicing Catholic, opposes abortion and is also against federal funding stem-cell research that uses human embryos, which most Democrats back.

He also may clash with the Democratic leadership over how to handle the war in Iraq. While he describes the war as a “disaster,” he says he doesn’t support the fixed timetable for withdrawal proposed by Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha that Pelosi, 66, has endorsed. Instead, like Bush, he opposes any withdrawal until Iraq is “stabilized.”

“My goal is to help the president,” he said in an interview. “I am not going to rip him to shreds. If he does a better job, then our soldiers can be more successful, Iraq can be stabilized and our troops can come home.”

(via)
Read the rest here.
We’ll get to see how these guys vote when the stem cell bill comes up for a vote.