This WSJ piece by Karl Rove says it all:
The GOP Is Winning the Health-Care Debate- Gallup says independents now favor Republicans by nine points.
Passing health-care reform could be harmful to the health of congressional Democrats.
Just look at how President Barack Obama’s standing has fallen as he has pushed for reform. According to Fox News surveys, the number of independents who oppose health-care reform hit 57% at the end of September, up from 33% in July. Independents are generally a quarter of the vote in off-year congressional elections.
When Karl Rove says they are winning the debate, he means nothing of the sort, because this is not about debate or ideas. It never is with the Rove Republicans. It is about political opportunism. Remember, you never roll out a new product in August.
They can’t help themselves/
geg6
This tells me that we’re winning. Rove only says shit like this when the GOP is getting their asses handed to them. And, for once, the Dems seems to be getting it together. In fact, I’d be willing to be that it is news like this that has him spinning so franticaly:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/07/dems-discussing-public-op_n_313054.html
Yeah, I posted this in the last thread, but I’d like to hear whether others here think this is as good an idea as I do (and Sam Stein, JMM, and Ezra do, too) at first glance.
DougJ
It has nothing do with anything. It’s a tale told by a hack, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Lola
The election is far away. Republicans are trying to psych out Democrats. This talk though has really forced Democrats to come together on reform. Democrats fear another 1994 although I don’t think there is anyway that’ll happen. After all these years, why do Dems still fall for Republican antics?
Bulworth
I have a poll here that shows that McCain/Palin are gaining!
James K. Polk, Esq.
Awww, how schweeet… Rove is concerned about helping Democratic Congresscritters become more electable.
What a nice guy, he certainly couldn’t have any ulterior motives…
cleek
wanna know what they really think?
check this out.
Meyer
Nothing to do with the fact that these are FoxNews surveys.
Nothing whatsoever.
Good ol’ Karl is just trying to be helpful!
Legalize
I love the opt out idea. It’s sort of like a poison pill, but onus is taken off of the senators and placed in the states – just like the wingers claim should be the case in all matters. How many senators will really vote against permitting their home legislators to choose what they want? I see this as a win-win for everyone – except possibly really poor people in places like Mississippi. But I bet that after not too long, the people of Mississippi will be clamoring for their legislature to opt in to what folks in sane states have. The most populated and wealth states, i.e. “blue” states like NY, CA and IL, as well as the big “purple” states like OH, FL, and PA will obviously opt in to the program, thereby ensuring sufficient funding.
I’m sure it’s not as simple as all that, but if the public option is “robust,” approaching something like medicare, this looks like a winner.
General Winfield Stuck
When I read Karl’s little opus this morning it brought a smile to my face. Even for Bush’s brain, he set a new personal record for built Strawmen and Jumped Sharks.
And he left out this little poll factoid. Rule number 1 or 3, I forgets, tells us you can hammer down your opponent with negative attacks, but you hammer down yourself even more.
This and victory for moi in the Qwest wars (got a 160 dollar credit for bad service by annoying the living shit out of em) and this is turning out to be a fine morn.
trollhattan
Aw, good ol Turdblossom and his majik number thingies. Is this anything like his claims on the eve of the ’06 midterms that nobody else’s numbers mattered because HE had different, mo bettah double zooper-zecret numbers showing the pubs retaining both houses of congress?
Yeah, right Carl.
AnotherBruce
What could one possibly trust more than an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Karl Rove? Flesh eating bacteria? A used car salesman named Fast Eddy?
KC
Karl Rove really is little more than a one-trick pony. His shtick is the same all the time — take a look at what’s happening, then try to convince people the truth is the exact opposite. The GOP has taken this tactic to heart. I see it all the time from the nuttiest of wingnuts.
Eg, Michelle Bachman yesterday saying “only people on the left” talk about the birthers.
linda
but, kkk-karl has the magic numbers…. ;-)
kay
@geg6:
I like it a lot. One of the reasons I backed Obama was because he has what I saw as a state-legislature perspective. I think liberals dismiss input from the states at their peril.
Reform has to actually work and states are going to be crucial in that. They have to own it.
John PM
@Bulworth: #4
Awesome!
IndyLib
@cleek:
My favorite comment from that piece
The Black Panthers and the KKK, together again for a reunion tour to force real ‘Merikans into muslimsocialistic FEMA re-edumactation camps where they will be indoctrinated with the opposing views of black empowerment and white supremacy until their heads explode from the cognitive dissonance.
JasonF
OT: The McNaughton painting from the other day has been re-annotated to hilarious effect.
Christian Weston Chandler
Did you guys hear that Barack Obama got AIDS from a monkey? The monkey was Michelle Obama’s brother.
Napoleon
@geg6:
Not a good idea. The proposed public plan is available to to few people as it is. The plan is a recipe for disaster by setting up the plan to fail.
Sly
Is Turdblossom referring to this Gallup poll? Naw. What about this one, putting GOP congressional approval at 9%? Didn’t think so.
According to Communist Party surveys, 90% of respondents are in favor of rescinding the corporate charters of insurance companies, nationalizing every hospital, clinic, and doctor’s office in the country, and bashing Karl Rove in the face with the butt of a Kalashnikov. I deem this as credible a representation of public opinion as Fox News surveys.
Nine. Percent.
Even most of the wackos hate them now.
IndyLib
Please take me out of moderation. I will find a way to atone for the sin of spelling sockulism correctly.
The Grand Panjandrum
Karl does have his own math, right? He’s probably about as accurate with this prediction as he was about the 2006 midterms.
Mike G
According to Fox News surveys…
Credibility FAIL.
Midnight Marauder
OT, but this is absolutely horrifying:
Oklahoma Abortion Law: Details To Be Publicly Posted Online
Brick Oven Bill
Yes, this is one part of how they think. But we must acknowledge that both political parties play the same games, with the goal of increasing the power of themselves, and their money backers. Consider the song ‘Banana Republic’:
Soon you learn the native customs
Soon a word of Spanish or two
You know you cannot trust them
They know they can’t trust you.
Here Jimmy Buffett presents to us the goal of the political class, and the nature of multiculturalism. When the Citizenry stands united, there is little need for government, and the government is timid.
The nature of politicians is to accumulate power and control, thus the desire to divide and spread discord. This makes me angry, as the scenarios all end poorly, for the majority of people.
The SEC should mandate that Hedge Funds disclose their short positions. I am becoming convinced that there is a group of investors shorting the dollar. The public should have access to the names and addresses of people shorting the dollar.
Will
I was surprised Rove was this blatant, and this short-sighted, about what he perceives as the political benefit for the GOP of the Dems passing health care. Although I shouldn’t be.
There is no policy in his world, only politics. All he can think about is the next election, the midterms. And all he can think about is how passing historic, century-awaiting, re-aligning healthcare reform might actually hurt the Democrats next year. I know this is not exactly news, but it still is something to witness how utterly captured this “political genius” is by the prospect of winning some seats. He literally could not care less about what those individuals actually do once they get elected, as long as they have an -R after their name.
The Democrats lost seats in the 1966 midterm elections, which happened to follow Johnson pushing through Medicare and Medicaid legislation in ’65. Do you think a single Democrat looked back and said “Geez, we probably shouldn’t have passed Medicare and Medicaid.” I mean, come on!
Mojotron
Sly, the wording on that is somewhat confusing but its actually stating that only 9% of republicans polled support the job that congress as a whole is doing, it is not stating that only 9% of everyone polled support republicans.
gbear
@Midnight Marauder:
Hackers taking down the entirety of Oklahoma’s web capabilities in 5…4…3…2…
General Winfield Stuck
Maybe OT, a little
There is some indication that Reid and Senate dems may be going for a parliamentary trick called “A Vapor Bill”. Don’t ask to have it explained, because I can’t.
Here is one explanation from The Heritage Foundation
While I am no longer a Harry Reid fan by any stretch, but when he wants to, there is about no one who can beat him on creative usage of arcane senate rules. The question is, does he want to with HC reform with a PO.
kay
@Will:
I feel as if it is a last-ditch effort to solidify unanimous opposition to any bill.
It looks a little desperate.
Maybe he’s harkening back to the days when he and Cheney descended on Congress and gave the GOP House their marching orders for the week. That turned out well for GOP House members. How many are gone since the last Rove directive?
Morbo
Nate Silver already took a brick bat to this poll. What Fox News did was release these numbers as if they had run this question by itself and people considered the question in a vacuum and registered their disapproval accordingly. That is decidedly not the case. The actual question was embedded in a much larger poll, and the questions included on that poll are… well, see for yourself (pdf) (e.g. Do you think President Obama apologizes too much to the rest of the world for past US policies?). Nate’s takeaway was that a poll which leads with questions like these is probably not going to produce a very good result for the president further down the line. Yay, Fox News, yay Rove.
Morbo
^Link for 538^
Ash
@Midnight Marauder: This is Oklahoma, there is no reason to be shocked or surprised.
And how does anyone get away with citing Fox News surveys? They make Rasmussen look like indisputable facts.
LD50
Off-topic, but Andrew Schlafly’s new Bible just got even better:
Sly
Mojotron
My mistake. According to CBS/NYT, GOP favorability remained at 30% at the end of September. Quinnipiac has their approval rating around 25% as of today.
We have apparently not reached Peak Wingnut.
Brick Oven Bill
As I understand it, Hedge Funds are mandated by the SEC to publically disclose their long positions, and their holdings. But they are not mandated to disclose their short positions.
Does this make sense?
This is disturbing because while a group of investors with political connections might lack the ability to create wealth, they surely retain the ability to destroy wealth. Soros made $3 billion in this recession.
George Soros is having a very good recession.
It is a good question to ask why Hedge Funds are not required to disclose their short positions. Also who withdrew the $500 billion from the money markets immediately before the market crash last fall? There have to be names associated with those accounts making the withdrawals.
kay
@Napoleon:
But the states are going to have to administer any deal, and we found out with S-CHIP that getting people enrolled is 3/4 of the battle. It’s difficult to do. It goes one kid at a time.
If states sign on to a public option, and facilitate voluntary enrollment because they’re actually invested in it, couldn’t that mean a “robust” public option with high % eligible enrollment in each of the 25 Dem states rather than a weak and struggling national program with a lot of hated sanctions for non-compliance?
It’s in their interest to do this, they’re getting killed on health care costs, and they’re probably going to be asked to expand Medicaid, which they’re going to scream bloody murder about.
I’d rather persuade them than fine them.
KG
@Midnight Marauder: I’m willing to bet that law gets struck down, very fast.
@Brick Oven Bill: as a parrothead, I do appreciate you citing Buffett. I offer this counter point, also a Buffett song:
It must not be that different, the ass and the hole in the ground.
Stooleo
OT
Does the political environment today seem a lot like the political environment pre Oklahoma City? More extremists calling for a coup.
SpotWeld
If we get Rove to say his name backwards, does he dissappear back to his home dimension?
smiley
@Midnight Marauder: No way that law holds up in federal court because of federal medical privacy laws.
@General Winfield Stuck: Limbaugh was pushing this a week or so ago. Between him and Heritage, it must be true.
freelancer
@cleek:
I see your crazy and raise you 200 crazies:
Is it time to whisper the word ‘impeachment’?
“In other words, “high crimes and misdemeanors” does not refer to a criminal act. Our Founding Fathers fully intended to allow for the removal of the president for actions which include: gross incompetence, negligence and distasteful behavior.
For those who mistakenly hold the illusion that impeaching Barack Hussein Obama would be a simple matter of “playing politics,” the founders fully intended that the impeachment of a sitting president be a political act.
[…]
Worldview explains why Obama intends to take away your freedom to choose your own doctor and your own treatment. Wherever government controls health care, bureaucrats decide who gets treatments, transplants, dialysis and costly medication.
The groundswell of calls for the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama is growing.”
Okeeedokeeeee, let me unpack this.
Impeaching Democratic Presidents = A Patriot’s duty.
Impeaching Republicans for War Crimes = DFH, not serious thinking.
Got it. You Betcha
General Winfield Stuck
@smiley:
Depends on the true meaning of true.
Midnight Marauder
@Ash:
Oh, I’m certainly not shocked or surprised. Maybe only that it took them this long to pull a move like this. But when I read that, I just kept thinking “What fucking country is this happening in? Surely, not the SHINING CITY ON THE HILL? Surely, not the United States of America?”
But alas…
Brick Oven Bill
Tim made the decision not to bail out Lehman. Lehman was Goldman Sachs’ main competitor. The failure of Lehman contributed greatly to the fall of the market. The decision to let Lehman fail was made the week McCain regained the lead in the polls.
Then when Obama took the lead and won, Tim was appointed as Treasury Secretary. With a Goldman Sachs’ lobbyist as Chief of Staff.
Goldman Sachs’ stock price has tripled since Obama was seated.
Thus, we may not have been born two hundred years too late.
drillfork
@geg6:
Opposing in a big way…
http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/10/08/silver-bullett-in-the-head-for-the-public-option/
Nellcote
We have questions…
Did any states ultimately op-out of the Stimulus Bill?
Did Steven Colbert make it into the conservative bible yet?
Ash Can
@Midnight Marauder: There’s got to be some court somewhere that will smack that sucker down. Or some doctors in Oklahoma that will set up their own web site and post detailed information from the state legislators’ doctor visits, in all their colonoscopy/jock-itch/boner-pill glory.
As for Karl Rove, anyone who believes a word he says is a drooling idiot. How many more of his predicitions have to blow up in his face before even the people who read the WSJ religiously figure out that he’s talking out his ass?
Will
@Brick Oven Bill:
You should read the New Yorker piece “8 Days of the Financial Crisis”. Lehman failing was Paulsen’s decision, not Geithner’s.
Brick Oven Bill
Which firm did Paulson run Will?
Zifnab25
The opt out provision would be cute for sake of schaddenfraud… But I’m in Texas. And Rick Perry is an ass.
Besides, just on principle, this is like saying states should vote on whether or not you can buy a Chevy or use Sprint over AT&T. Why the hell should Texas decide I can’t buy public insurance?
Mario Piperni
Here’s my art piece contribution to this story and Rove in general.
Nylund
In my mind there are a few types of “independents”
1. True reasonable, non-partisan indepenents (whatever that means)
2. Republicans embarrassed by the crazies in their own party, too full of shame to admit to a pollster that they belong to the party of Beck, Backman, Birthers, teabaggers, etc. This group includes Republicans with enough of a brain to realize that Bush was a terrible president and feel regret over supporting him, but won’t become democrats. I would also include people like Glenn Reynolds and Megan McArdle, who despite endlessly shilling for the GOP INSIST they are “Libertarians” and not Republicans.
3. All the various sub-genres of wacky Republicans (like the Ron Paul crowd), who are basically Republicans frustrated with the GOP for not being crazy enough (for not demanding a birth certificate, abolishing the Fed, orchestrating a military coup overthrow of Obama, etc.)
In short, I think the vast majority of “independents” are either truly insane Republicans, or embarrassed to be Republicans.
Its basically a way to be a Republican while getting to disown whatever particular aspects of the party you don’t like and absolve yourself from the guilt of supporting such horrible monsters.
A sports analogy:
Person 1: “Uggh, I can’t believe you like the Yankees. They just use their vast sums of money to buy up all the good players from other teams and load their roster with steroid users like A-Rod, Giambi, Clemens, etc.”
Person 2: “I’m not a Yankees fan! Look at my shirt, it says, ‘WANKEES’!”
Person 1: “But you buy tickets for all the Yankees home games and always root for them to win.”
Person 2: “But…but…but, my shirt says Wankees!”
Person 1: “That isn’t even a REAL team. Who are you rooting for in the playoffs?”
Person 2: “Well, I guess I’m rooting for the Yankees, even though I don’t consider myself a fan because I’m really a Wankees fan.”
In short, OF COURSE Independents are polling anti-Obama. They’re mostly just embarrassed Republicans.
Will
@Brick Oven Bill:
My point was that 1) Paulson made that decision, not Geithner. 2) Paulson is a Republican who made that decision with the approval of the Bush White House. 3) Paulson did not get any kind of position in the new administration. So your theory that Geithner did all of this to hurt McCain, help Obama win, and then be rewarded with Treasury doesn’t work on any level.
Brick Oven Bill
Fed Considers Sweeping Rules on Bank Pay
Per the article, the Fed only has the power to regulate pay at seven large financial institutions. Which large financial institution is not included among these seven?
kay
@Zifnab25:
States can tie it up for a really long time if it’s a national mandate, and they will.
Stimulus isn’t a good example. The feds weren’t asking the states to do anything special. They put some restrictions on stimulus funds, but nothing like the demands administering health care will involve, and insurance regulation is the traditional province of state law.
I want to be careful before setting this up as a states versus feds fight to the death. I don’t think it has to happen.
AkaDad
This would be like Karl Rove saying that I’m witty and intelligent.
What a moran.
geg6
@drillfork:
Well, just because FDL hates it doesn’t make it a bad idea. I take Ezra’s word on what seems reasonable over Amanda’s. Amanda gets more than a little…well, shrill…when it’s not exactly what she thinks something should be. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have Cole’s distaste for her (and she, of course, didn’t spend an entire day screaming at me, so that might change my mind about her if she did). But I tend to trust Ezra’s take on it. And I find Josh to be a pretty good barometer, too. I’d have to read more about it, but it sounds like something that could give Blue Dogs and perhaps even a sane Republican or two something that would allow them to 1) not support a filibuster and 2) actually vote for it.
geg6
Ooooop, that was Jane that was yelling at John. Not Amanda.
I think.
Silver Owl
Rove is lying to and for the republicans as usual. It’s got to suck to be such losers that it requires Rove to do the only thing he is capable of doing, lying.
If republicans were as tough as they like to brag and pretend they are then one would think presenting viable plans, budgets, solutions and ideas would not be such a hardship.
SpotWeld
I’m starting to think BOB is a really odd Eliza program again…
Roger Moore
@Will:
I think this is wrong in two respects. One is that he’s thinking even more short term than the next elections. This is really talking about the next news cycle, not the next election cycle. If the Democrats are really worried about bad PR from passing health care reform, they should do it now so there’s another year of news cycles in which the voters can forget about it.
More important, though, is that he’s talking about what he thinks the Democrats should be thinking about, not what he truly thinks is important. He’s using his reputation as a political genius to try to gull the Dems into doing what he wants them to, not what’s the best choice for them.
Will
Agreed on both points. It’s amazing that Rove actually thinks he can still scare the Democrats into his little traps at this point. He hasn’t gotten away with that in 5 years.
Will
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125495123152271693.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories
The election is still a year away and pressing issues such as the health overhaul, the lagging economy and the future of the Afghan war could tip the balance. Yet, there are some little-understood forces that suggest a full repeat of 1994 is unlikely.
For the moment, all but nine House Democrats have said they are defending their seats, far more than in the 1994 cycle, when 29 incumbent House members in the party vacated their seats — and Democrats lost 22 of those spots. Incumbents stand a far better chance of hanging on in a political storm than do newcomers. In addition, Mr. Obama, for all his recent troubles, hasn’t slumped in popularity as far as President Bill Clinton did then, at least so far. And while Democrats’ fund-raising lead has slipped in recent weeks, they have built up an advantage in campaign cash.
Perhaps as important, Democratic leaders have warned lawmakers earlier this time to start preparing for a tough fight; in 1994, by contrast, even some prominent Democrats didn’t realize until late in the game that they were in trouble.
Joey Maloney
Who the heck are the “Blank Panthers”? Radical albinos? Separatist amnesiacs? Extremist Treacher-Collins sufferers?
Howlin Wolfe
@Brick Oven Bill: “tu quoque, tu quoque!!1!!” quoth BOB
smiley
Another wacky letter to the editor. How they think:
gwangung
@smiley: Those of us who actually flirted a little with Marxism and revolutionary student thought are face palming at that.
PTirebiter
Even if they were winning the health care debate, it’s hard to figure their exit strategy for the mess they’ve created. Someone ran a prime time spot here in Dallas last night, with a tag urging viewers to contact Senator Cornyn to thank him for protecting their Medicare benefits. I had the box on as background noise so I wasn’t paying much attention. I was only surprised by just how mild my reaction was, even their shamelessness has become a yawn.
smiley
@gwangung: This part made me think that it might be a spoof:
But I doubt it is. no one here would get it.
SenyorDave
When Karl’s on his death bed, what are the odds that he does a Lee Atwater and begs forgiveness? Remember, Karl, since you trot out the Old Testament all the time to preach hate on gays (inconvenient truth that Jesus had nothing to say out about gays but plenty about greed), the Old Testament believes in a vengeful God. I like to believe this meshes perfectly with karma, and something tells me that you might end up being envious of Sisyphus when you go to the Great Beyond.
Calouste
@Midnight Marauder:
That’s a terrible law and I can’t imagine it will survive even one round in a federal court.
Although it could have the unintended side effect that daughters of some upstanding Republican citizens are going to show up in that list (although the real players will of course just send them out of state).
The second requirement is the reporting of the county, not the countRy in which the procedure is performed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the wackos in the Oklahoma state lege claim universal jurisdiction, but in this case it is not accurate.
BethanyAnne
@Joey Maloney: ha! That’s what I was wondering. Maybe they are just a generic enemy. :-)
IndieTarheel
Leave it to the original moon-faced assassin of joy to harsh my mellow.
Repubican Disaster
Karl Rove, Rupert Murdock, Faux News, The Wall Street Journal… one big GOP Reich-wing circle-jerk.
thalarctos
For that act alone, you are my hero, GWS.
Koz
This is ridiculous. In fact, it’s a pretty clear case of what the psychologists call projection. The D’s have had no real comprehensible idea for accomplishing anything in health care.
The entire energy behind this is to justify the D majority and prevent the psychological deflation that will happen if there is no health care bill signed into law this year. This is obvious from reading arcana about political maneuvers or liberal websites like this one.
Koz
“Agreed on both points. It’s amazing that Rove actually thinks he can still scare the Democrats into his little traps at this point. He hasn’t gotten away with that in 5 years.”
I liked it better when the Left thought Karl Rove was some kind of evil Svengali.
Koz
“I was surprised Rove was this blatant, and this short-sighted, about what he perceives as the political benefit for the GOP of the Dems passing health care. Although I shouldn’t be.”
At this point the GOP is going to reasonably well in the midterms in any scenario. The public mood desperately wants an economic recovery and the Obama Administration has no idea of how to promote growth.
The public mood isn’t looking for an expansion of the welfare state, though we may get one. Politically speaking I don’t know whether it would be better or worse to pass some kind of health care bill, but substantively, there’s nothing we’ve seen from Congress yet that is definitely better than the status quo.
General Winfield Stuck
@Koz:
Why are you wanking on a dead thread, dude?