Another Blue Dog bites the dust


Oklahoma Rep. Dan Boren announced Tuesday that he would not seek another term. | AP Photo

By ALEX ISENSTADT & DAVID CATANESE | 6/8/11 11:22 PM EDT
Another one bites the dust.

On the heels of an election that decimated the Blue Dog ranks in Congress, one more conservative House Democrat is packing it in.

Unlike the Blue Dog Democrats who were tossed out by voters, Oklahoma Rep. Dan Boren is leaving of his own accord, announcing Tuesday he will not seek a fifth term.

His departure is the latest blow to the party’s moderate-conservative wing, a faction that is beginning to look like the nearly extinct Gypsy moth Republicans of the Northeast.

The Blue Dog decline has been sharp, to put it mildly. Following the 2008 elections, the coalition counted 54 House members. When the dust settled from the 2010 midterms, just 25 remained. There will be two fewer with the departures of Boren and Indiana Rep. Joe Donnelly, who is running for Senate.

Former Tennessee Rep. John Tanner, a leading conservative Democrat who helped found the coalition in 1995, acknowledged that the Blue Dog wing is, for the time being at least, struggling for survival.

“It ought to concern us from the standpoint that we need to put aside strongly held philosophies,â€