Republicans as unpopular as ever

Yglesias comments:

[this] makes it difficult to understand the inclination of some Democratic members of the congress to buck the president and join forces with congressional Republicans as an act of political cowardice. The path of least resistance is for Democrats, who are relatively popular, to stick with the President, who’s very popular, and to stay far away from the very unpopular Republicans. Whatever’s driving them, it’s not timidity.

Perhaps the Democratic agenda isn't full of unalloyed good ideas? Just a thought.

I think the best explanation is not all congressional Democrats come from safe Democratic seats. There are plenty freshmen or near-freshmen with close to a 50-50 chance of being reelected in 2010. This gives them a pretty big incentive to vote moderately. Depending on the issue at hand, this can make them less OR more susceptible to special interests. (e.g. parasitic unions on one hand, greedy business interests on the other)