01-27-10 - 1:00 p.m. - When Congressman Scott Murphy announced his “blueprint for fiscal reform” yesterday, the day before President Obama’s State of the Union speech which is expected to address deficit reduction, it was the first inkling many of us had that our congressman from the 20th District had joined the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition. Asked about the move, Murphy spokesman Josh Schwerin produced a press release issued by the Blue Dogs on December 16, 2009.

Although it’s not surprising that Murphy would join the Blue Dogs—his predecessor Kirsten Gillibrand was a Dog Blue during her tenure in Congress, and Murphy himself often speaks about “commonsense solutions” and the need for the federal government to live within its means as families and small businesses must—it is puzzling why no word of the new alliance came from Murphy’s office. Instead it was left it to the Blue Dogs to make the announcement.