Remember when Harry Reid told the WH he had the votes and to step back, and they said “You better.” Good times. So glad Rahm and the WH are to blame for this current debacle.
So glad Howard Dean thinks it is a good idea to scrap the current bill and trust Reid with reconciliation. Nothing could go wrong there.
cleek
Obama needs to use his Constitutionally-granted powers to force the Senate to pass this bill !
Ruemara
I just explained to my mate why Harry has a huge responsibility for this clusterfawk, because he swore he had the votes. I guess he didn’t want to let Pelosi swan around, looking all leaderly and successful in passing things. He could’ve just bitten the bullet, let progressives scream, strip out the P.O., pass strong regulation of the industry, the exchanges, the subsidies, then use conference improve the bill and reconciliation to pass the P.O. And this would be over by September. Posturing idiot, no wonder the WH was dubious when he said this.
General Winfield Stuck
It needs to be said often. The WH was right not trying to put the PO in the original Senate Bill/ It would have been smart to do it that way and bypass all the shitstorm from the netroots that the MSM more and more feeds on liberal angst and division like freeze dried turds.
Reid screwed up and it’s Obama’s fault. great. A steep learning curve and a lesson learned by O.hopefully. An inept Senate majority leader. Reid has to go. Before he destroys this presidency.
edit. but cleek is right. What is a constitutional scholar and avowed proponent of separation of powers to do with a headstrong idiot like Reid. Not much. unfortunately. Except sue for a better leader. politically sue that is.
gbear
I detect sarcasm.
DougMN
Jesus, is nothing Obama’s fault? Gotta keep your hands clean, I guess.
Christian Chandler
Reid swore he had the votes, but check out what he said in this interview three weeks ago. This guy knew Lieberman would be a problem.
Kennedy
I’m still hoping that Reid gets clobbered in 2010. He is so damned inept. I’d rather he just lose and allow us to select a new majority leader.
I’m thinking Nelson or Lieberman would be excellent candidates.
jlo
I still can’t convince myself that being legally required to give my cash to insurance pirates is a good idea, even if it is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Mnemosyne
I’m hoping that Dean is also on Atrios’ mailing list and is being cagey.
If Lieberman is going to stand in the way of the bill until the left wing starts screaming to kill it, put me in the “kill it now!” camp until we can get it safely past this grandstanding fucktard.
cleek
@DougMN:
plenty of things are. i can think of 30,000 of them, in fact.
but HCR is being killed by the Senate, not by Obama. (it passed the House without a hitch, remember…)
Rick Massimo
I also remember when Harry Reid said “I don’t work for Barack Obama.”
Good times.
khead
I remember when Jay Rockefeller used to write letters instead of going on TV.
Rick Taylor
Nailed it. This is Reid’s fuck up.
On the other hand, I don’t know about Dean. If he actually wants to pass the bill, probably the worst thing he could do is to say so; Lieberman would undoubtedly come up with something else to take out.
gogol's wife
@cleek:
I love your blog.
Shawn in ShowMe
You’d think a Senator from the gambling capital of the world would be better with numbers.
Rick Taylor
@General Winfield Stuck
__
__
I’m repeating myself, but Booman has been hammering that point since the debate started.
Fulcanelli
@Kennedy: Heh. You said majority. I saw what you did there.
Capitulation. It’s what’s for dinner.
I knew I felt strange, all this winning and shit since 2006. I’m better now.
Da Bomb
It’s Obama’s fault that I couldn’t get my Sausage and egg mcmuffin sandwich this morning at Micky D’s. There was a line and Obama caused it.
That.Is.All.
Dannie22
Why is Ed Schultz on his show blaming Obama for this clusterfuck in the senate? Shouldn’t he be calling out Reid and Leiberman?
Zifnab
Howard Dean was all for the health care bill until the Public Option was gutted and the Medicare Buy-in was dangled and yanked. Lieberman played Reid, now we’ve got shitty legislation, and everyone is supposed to just duck their heads kindly and say, “Thank you sir, may I have another.” Fuck that.
This is Reid’s fault for not getting his Senators in line. And it’s Obama’s fault for thinking Reid actually had anything in hand.
@cleek:
I think Stupak was a bit of a hitch. And there were a few dozen Blue Dogs that decided to throw a public hissy fit. But Pelosi knows how to bend a few arms and crush a few testicles when she needs to.
Lev
@jlo: I’m guessing you were singing a different tune in 2007, back when Obama was getting hammered by the left for not including a mandate in his health care bill. The man had zero netroots support, as I recall. Good times.
You know something? At every stage of this process, Obama and his team have displayed a keen awareness of what could and couldn’t be done politically–one which has almost every time been vindicated by what came next. That this awareness has clashed with the left’s desires doesn’t change the facts.
Zifnab
@Dannie22:
A dozen or so posts back, I asked for a liberal Limbaugh. Schultz is it. Aka – an idiot. *sigh*
TaosJohn
Hell, I don’t trust Reid with anything. Fuck Reid. And while we’re at it, fuck this insane bill. Meanwhile, see this (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/getting-real-ten-myths-be_b_394772.html) for why Nate Silver is a gold-plated idiot.
I have to figure that most of you folks who think the Senate bill is a good thing to pass already have health insurance and that it would be a good thing to make the rest of us have it, too. Well, you’re wrong. And if it passes, your own insurance won’t be worth a cup of piss a year or two from now. There is NADA in the Senate bill to bring costs down. Nothing. Not a goddamned thing. And those vaunted subsidies? The next Republican Congress (coming very soon) will toss them out, leaving you with astronomical premiums forevermore.
“Realpolitik” isn’t real.
“Pragmatism” = slavery to corporate monopolies.
Punishment & fines don’t equal “coverage.
There are loopholes in the language to allow insurers to continue to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. Nothing has been reformed.
The insurance company lobby wrote the freaking bill. Doesn’t that mean anything???
valdivia
Amen brother. Thanks for saying this, remember how people were yelling about how wrong Obama was and how right Reid was? Yeah, look how that worked out
Lev
@Zifnab: Reid sucks, but he has a much harder job than Pelosi does. If Reid hadn’t needed to operate with the supermajority requirement and had Speaker-like powers, he would have been able to quickly report the bill out of the Senate.
J.W. Hamner
I actually think Reid was right on this. We learned from the stimulus (and politics in general) that the goal of a “moderate” in the Senate is to take any good thing and make it 10% worse in the name of… something. “Fiscal responsibility” I guess.
As someone who always thought that the “level-playing field” public options on the table were utterly worthless, I’d much rather it be the target instead of something important like the subsidy levels.
Obviously it’s still his fault it ended up as such a nightmare, but we were pretty damn close to getting 55+ Medicare expansion that was way better than the neutered public option in the bill. It was a worthwhile gamble.
EDIT: I should also point out that at the time I thought it was a terrible idea, and didn’t trust his judgement at all.
Midnight Marauder
Thank you so, so, so very much for this post. That point cannot be made enough.
Rick Taylor
It is stunning how Lieberman so often puts a shiv in the back of anyone who helps him. Reid and Obaqma defended him when progressives were screaming he should lose his perks after backing McCain in the election, and this is how he pays them back.
Of course he did it on principal! Ordinary people might feel some loyalty for those who stuck up for them when they were feeling the heat, but Lieberman is such a high minded noble soul, he has to do what he knows is right, even when it involves screwing his friends over. What a guy.
General Winfield Stuck
@Rick Taylor:
It was so obvious politickally to do it this way, and then drop a conference bill with a PO on the country. There would have been a degree of liberal outrage in the interim, but not like we have now. And a quick conference and on to the final showdown in the Senate. And then whatever was needed, whether it be reconciliation, or putting Lieberman and Nelson on the spot to not obstruct. Whatever. could have been wrapped up in a few weeks.
Lev
@TaosJohn: I always enjoy seeing a liberal right-winger.
The point of the bill is universal health care. UNIVERSAL. I.e., giving it to the people who don’t have it. The bill largely does that. When the fuck did that become just an incidental part of HCR? And what kind of progressive doesn’t even factor that in? Jeez, some people have no priorities.
And the only way we get a Republican Congress is if you drama queens kill the bill.
Tx Expat
@Shawn in ShowMe:
Or that same Senator who is famous for this:
and once found a bomb attached to his car would be better at dealing with manipulative weasels.
I am ashamed to admit that one time in my life I thought Harry Reid might have a pair. I have been thoroughly disabused of that notion. Better majority leader, please.
Tom Hilton
I thought of this when Nelson introduced his Punish the Sluts Amendment. IIRC, that exchange occurred when the White House wanted to go with a trigger to try to get Snowe on board; now, months later, it looks like the best bet for 60 is…getting Snowe on board. Without a public option or a trigger.
Midnight Marauder
@J.W. Hamner:
You were saying…?
gogol's wife
@Rick Taylor:
Bill Clinton knows a thing or two about this. Who gave the first speech denouncing him about Monica?
Kennedy
@Dannie22: Because Schultz is a tool. I remember the first time I stumbled across his show, I thought I was on the wrong channel. I couldn’t imagine why something called “The Ed Show” was on MSNBC.
Kennedy
@Fulcanelli: Reid Math: I need x votes in order to pass legislation, where x = [(number of sitting Democratic senators x 2) – (factor of unwillingness to force any concessions from caucus members)] / (refusal to grow a fucking pair)
cleek
@gogol’s wife:
thanks!
Thoughtcrime
“The Buck Doesn’t Stop Here”
Tx Expat
@gogol’s wife:
Good grief, I had forgotten about that.
Martin
Well, I’m increasingly coming to the view that Lieberman is just fucking with Obama over issues during the campaign. Lieberman has some power now and he’s gonna stick it to Obama. I don’t think there was anything Reid could have done.
J.W. Hamner
@Midnight Marauder: I’m saying there were pluses and minuses, but ultimately I think he made the right call. The only real question I have is whether going for a triggered public option out of conference would have diffused progressive anger somewhat. Or whether going for the Medicare expansion compromise just got liberal’s hopes up only to dash them hard.
I think DKos and FDL would be furious regardless, so like I said, I think he’s responsible but ultimately made the right decision.
valdivia
@Lev:
what you said, all of it.
Tsulagi
Nope. It was an across the board team effort.
Yeah, it would probably get worse. Could get the Brownback amendment calling for Southern Baptists to be sole dispensers of birth control in the country and sex education in schools. Ds ought to look at their 11-D Chess playbook to see who wrote and published it. I’m guessing Teabagger Publications.
Jim in Chicago
Until progressives stop capitulating, we’ll never get what we want. Lieberman raises a stink and gets everything he wants and we’re just supposed to cower and meekly pass what has become his bill?! He’s not even a Democrat. There are more progressives than Conservadems (or Lieberwhores). If WE threaten to filibuster we get what we want because we have the votes to pass a bill through reconciliation. They CAN’T stop that. If just one progressive stands up, they will have to put this through reconciliation. Then the question becomes (a good bill through) reconciliation or nothing. Which do you think Obama and Reid will choose?
I don’t trust Reid either, but even he can put something better together when he knows he needs only 50 votes (+ Biden). Hell, he actually did before LIEberman and his ilk torpedoed it. But there are only a handful of them and they can’t stop a bill that goes through reconciliation. If Bush could pass his goddamn tax cuts for the rich that way, we can pass HCR that way. All our “representatives” need to do is grow a pair.
As Howard Dean says: WE have the power (but not if we never use it!).
Rick Taylor
@General Winfield Stuck
Obvious to someone who knows something about the mechanics of how law-making is done in this country. This has been a learning experience for me, which is why I keep referencing Booman’s blog, because I was grateful to him for spelling some of this out. It’s becoming apparent many progressives passionate about politics don’t understand it any better.
jlo
@lev
I guess you are guessing wrong. For one thing the mandate depends on the plan. If it’s a mandate to buy insurance from the same people who have been fucking you for years then I’d say it’s not a good thing. But you probably don’t care since you are just waiting for the starbursts that come along with 11 dimensional checkmate.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Martin
A Senate bill with a Snowe trigger would be much better bargaining chip in conference than what we have now.
Midnight Marauder
@J.W. Hamner:
I think you would be pretty hard-pressed to say that Harry Reid made anything remotely resembling “the right call” over the past month or so. I mean, what would “the wrong call” look like for you, just out of curiosity?
Rick Taylor
@gogol’s wife
__
Yup! God save us from high minded principled souls.
AnotherBruce
You know, blaming Obama and blaming Reid for this debacle are not necessarily mutually exclusive things. They had plenty of warning about what our Senatorial Drama Queens Lieberman and Nelson are like, and they let themselves get bitch slapped anyway.
Stooleo
They need to stop calling it health care reform and start calling it health insurance reform, then you might get a HCR do over in the 2nd term.
Mnemosyne
@TaosJohn:
You’re mixing up the bills. Wellpoint wrote the Baucus bill. The bill under consideration is not the Baucus bill.
Is it just me, or do a lot of people seem to be half-remembering bad things about the different iterations of the different bills and making them into one giant mash-up of Suck?
Alex S.
I think Reid needed base credibility for his re-election so he decided to fight for the public option. I thought it was a risky move back then and I somewhat expected a managerial amendment to strip the public option from the bill. However, the bill still contains the exchanges and they will lay the foundation for the true systematic reform of the health-care system. Senator Wyden’s plan will be the future. In addition, the bill also contains a co-op provision and some other semi-public stuff (check out Maria Cantwell’s amendment to the Finance Comittee bill). If the Medicare buy-in had stayed in the bill it would have been an extremely effective bill because it would have offered even more choices. But the bill is fine as it is.
Fulcanelli
Hey, cheer up! The American Bankers Association is gearing up to torpedo any financial reform bill that dares rear it’s ugly head in our parliament of whores known as the US Senate.
At least we won’t be talking about health care anymore. Christ almighty, these banking assholes aren’t even smart parasites. You’re not supposed to kill the host, guys.
J.W. Hamner
@Midnight Marauder:
You’re saying it’s only a “right call” if you succeed, and I just disagree. There is merit to the idea that a triggered public option would be better for keeping Snowe on board and getting a bill with a public option out of conference… but what then do Lieberman and Nelson go after for their pound of flesh? My worry would be that it’d be the subsidy levels, and that they would shave off $100 billion from those and make healthcare much less affordable for the poor and middle class.
Could we get that back in conference? Maybe, maybe not… but I’d much rather lose a worthless public option than a single dime out of the subsidies. EDIT: So to answer your “wrong call” question it would be a legislative play that leads to lower subsidies (which could obviously still happen).
Midnight Marauder
@AnotherBruce:
Sure. But only one of them is the Senate Majority Leader, and only one of them decided to go after votes that were never there for an opt-out PO in the bill.
Hint: It wasn’t Obama.
gwangung
@Mnemosyne:
No, it’s not you. Folks are being real sloppy on the details. But, sad to say, details matter in this.
cyntax
Although quite a lot of this rests on Reid, I have trouble believing that Obama and Rahm couldn’t have done something. Particularly if TBogg’s right about this:
Of course Obama can’t magically force the Senate to do anything, but to say he’s completely above the fray and unable to affect anything sure seems to bely his 11th dimensional chess mastership.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’d be surprised if a fink like Lieberman doesn’t have a price. So I’m still guardedly optimistic we’ll get a hideous and regrettable HCR bill.
Annie
@cleek:
If Monday is always “cat blogging,” I am yours. They are too cute, and after all of today’s bullshit, a welcomed change.
Midnight Marauder
@J.W. Hamner:
No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying that, given what we knew about this process every step of the way, I think it was an entirely foolish decision to put the PO in the bill when Harry Reid did. Period. Because it was going to lead to a clusterfuck like the one we’re in now. Even if he would have miraculously succeeded somehow, I would have been thrilled but still thought it to be a particularly moronic approach strategically.
Basically, he tried to grandstand (I agree with what Alex S. about him trying to shore up base credibility for re-election) and the road he decided to travel down was a fool’s errand from the jump. If Reid sticks to the script, I think we go into conference in a much better position than however we limp into it now.
Rhoda
What kills me: because Reid punked out from the FDL campaign agaisnt him he killed the Medicare +5 Pelosi was gunning for in the House bill. Killed the mommentum there.
We could have had a Schumer like public option compromise with no trigger which would allow the conservatives to say, hey we punched the hippies. Or a trigger at worst which could be punched at any time legislativly.
Instead, Reid handed control over to showboating conservative democrats looking to kill the bill. Hell, when you have to force Blanche Lincoln to the floor to vote for cloture you have problems enough without spitting in Olympia Snowe’s eye and shutting her out of the process to appease activists. Especially, since Nelson’s insane we need her and she could bring cover for Lincoln.
But no, this is Obama/Rahm’s fault for knowing how to count to 60. And recognzing they can’t trust Reid, Conrad (whose obsessed w/a deficit commission to gut social security) with reconciliation.
Elisabeth
@gwangung:
To be fair, it’s hard to keep track; I’ve called it the “Baucus bill” a couple of times myself. Of course, why let a tiny detail like which bill we’re discussing get in the way of a good rant.
J.W. Hamner
@Midnight Marauder:
OK, and I just think a clusterfuck was unavoidable and that so far we haven’t lost anything really important.
jwb
@AnotherBruce: What seems more disturbing to me is that neither Reid nor Obama seemed to have contingency plans. (I don’t see cutting a deal with Lieberman as being a plan B since that will also mean cutting a deal with every other centrist—and not all those deals will be compatible.) Really, this whole scenario of Lieberman shitting on the bill was pretty predictable (if not necessarily fated), yet today everyone seems to be running around with their heads chopped off not knowing what to do. I certainly hope it is only appearing that way and behind the scenes stuff is actually happening in line with a contingency plan.
cyntax
@jwb:
Exactly.
I was expecting some hard-nosed politics that involved, at a minimum, not getting rolled by Lieberman.
burnspbesq
The Janebots hate Rahm because in 2006 he went out of his way to recruit candidates who might actually, y’know, win, instead of picking progressives who would lose gloriously. They don’t seem to get that “more Democrats” is a necessary condition to “more and better Democrats.”
oh really
It seems to me there is plenty of blame to go around. Reid’s spineless ineptitude wasn’t exactly a secret a year ago. Lieberman’s ego and self-righteous stupidity haven’t really changed in that time either. Yet it seems like the White House has been fully supportive of both Reid and Lieberman all along. Anyone who thought Harry Reid would suddenly rise to the occasion or Joe Lieberman would put the interests of the American people ahead of his own bloated self-regard hasn’t been paying attention.
Part of the problem may be that people think Obama has ever had an interest in passing a progressive health reform bill. What he needs, and is still likely to get, is the appearance of major reform that will allow him to run in 2012 as the wizard who accomplished what no one else could do. Since the actual effectiveness of the legislation probably won’t be tested before the next election, Obama doesn’t need a public option or Medicare buy-in. He needs a bill…passed.
Much of the discussion here (and elsewhere) seems to reflect the status of the commenter. I suspect that those who have been the loudest cheerleaders for Obama from the start are likely to be people who already have health coverage and probably won’t be that much affected by the outcome of this bill. If you don’t need a public option, then Obama’s failure to call it a necessary part of the final bill isn’t a big deal.
As usual, this legislation is not really about ensuring universal coverage. The way to get that is simple — some form of single payer system — and it’s been off the table since before the election. It wasn’t even worth discussing. For people without health care coverage, the most important parts of health care reform are likely to reside in exactly those parts that the president and Senate appear so willing to bargain away. Those who already have coverage can sit back and argue that just getting something passed is a huge triumph and, don’t worry, once the bill is passed it will be improved over the years. That’s great…if you already have coverage. But if you’re desperate for coverage today, improvements that may come in four or five or ten or twenty years won’t do you any good. Tweaking the bill in 2015 won’t help those who will die next year or the year after because of a lack of health insurance. Those who will face bankruptcy now or in the near future won’t get any benefit from confidently predicted, but uncertain, at best, historical trends. (After all, the political landscape today is nothing like what it was in the fifties or sixties. True, Medicare and Social Security were gradually improved over the years, but the attacks on them have never ended. Who knows what the right combination of president and Congress could do to either one or both?)
Those with immediate or short-term concerns need a bill to address their problems now, not in a few years…or decades. Alone among developed countries, the US fails to provide its citizens with comprehensive, affordable health care coverage. But this country is so dysfunctional, its leaders so corrupt and self-serving, that in our own self-contained bubble we actually pretend that passing a health reform bill that forces people to buy insurance from a private insurance company is a historic achievement. That might not be so bad if those same private insurance companies weren’t so obviously at the root of our problem. If past corporate trends are any guide, who knows, by the end of the next decade private insurance companies (the four or five that remain) may be too big to fail.
burnspbesq
@Jim in Chicago:
You need to start taking your meds again. The delusions are back.
CalD
I think Senator Reid was absolutely right to press for a public option in the Senate bill, for five pretty good reasons:
1. It’s the right thing to do and we should always be willing to try doing things for that reason alone.
2. There was a credible chance it could have worked. In good conscience it needed to be given an honest shot.
3. There would have been simply no living with anyone to the left of holy Joe Lieberman if Democrats had tried blowing off this fight. There’s was never any real chance of pleasing some folks of course, no matter what the outcome, but I think most reasonable people are now fairly satisfied that this has at least been given an honest shot.
4. The first rule of bargaining is that your asking price should be higher than what you’re willing to settle for. This move created some headroom for making concessions if it accomplished nothing else.
5. It was an obvious and irresistible target for the likely opposition. This single provision having now drawn the lion’s share of all criticism aimed at the entire healthcare reform initiative, dropping it will leave a lot of critics scrambling to come up with any further credible justification for continuing to oppose the initiative.
Midnight Marauder
@J.W. Hamner:
And I would contend that the magnitude of the clusterfuck would have been substantially less, and we could have had a situation like Rhoda describes here, if Harry Reid had chosen Door #1.
mcc
“Don’t get rolled by Lieberman” isn’t really a strategy. That’s kind of like suggesting “don’t die” as a cure for cancer. How do you get Lieberman to do what you want? Seriously, how? What power does anyone in the White House have over him? What power does anyone have over him?
The Democrats at this late date seem to have two choices: Work with Lieberman or abandon the bill. What third option is there, or was there at any point? Are you saying you wanted them to abandon the bill rather than get “rolled” by Lieberman, where “get rolled by” apparently means “work with”?
As far as a “contingency plan” goes, I don’t know what else to call the White House’s obsession for months in getting Olympia Snowe on board– for which the blogosphere trashed them heavily at the time.
Martin
@Jim in Chicago:
We ‘capitulated’ to two individuals in the caucus. That’s not actually capitulating, it’s reaching consensus.
Remember, any piece of legislation has an arbitrary starting point that may be too far one way or the other from what the consensus point will be. Moving toward that point among your own caucus isn’t ‘capitulation’, and the starting point is by no means absolute. Hell, even among the most absolutist policy group I can think of – the anti-abortion folks there’s a massive amount of room from one side to the other.
So, let’s say the true progressive position is single payer. Was there consensus among Dems for that? No. What was there consensus for? There was almost consensus for the public option, but just barely even there.
We’re only capitulating if you draw an arbitrary line in the sand and then scream ‘See, you crossed it! You’re not with us!’. The real question is ‘Is the proposed bill more progressive than what we currently have’ and to that the answer is unquestionably ‘yes’, but people are too hung up on that stupid line in the sand to realize it. They’d rather stand up for their privilege to draw the line than actually make progress. That’s not progressivism – that’s ideology.
General Winfield Stuck
@Rhoda:
Although I was somewhat shocked that Reid put it in this bill, I let myself at least hope that he had Liebermans vote and the sixty. One thing Reid has been, if nothing else is cautious, and more often than not to a fault. So I hoped. Big mistake.
And in hindsight I think you nailed it with the Hamsher fear factor on Reid’s big gamble, and that he could schmooze his old bud into going along on cloture.
Mr. Furious
@Tx Expat:
Yeah, I hear he was an amateur boxer as well.
If I had a dollar for every time I heard one of those two fucking anecdotes, I’d be able to afford health insurance…
JMY
Who would’ve thought that the trigger option would be so much better at this point? When it was first being reported, people were going ape-shit. But, it is easy to go back and say “what if…” I guess Reid felt he had 60, but I honestly don’t see how when he had four Democrats say they couldn’t vote for a bill with a public option all summer and fall.
Maybe Rahm and Obama deserve blame. However, it’s hard to fault them, specifically Rahm, for their strategy – you get what you can now, it may not be perfect, but it’s good – and you can improve on it later. It was the same way with the Recovery Act. So yeah I’m mad that the Senate bill may not have a PO, but this is still only the beginning and I think people tend to forget that. The Senate is less partisan than the House, so I’m not surprised by the push back from Lieberman or Nelson. Pissed off? Hell yeah, but not surprised at all.
Nick
@Jim in Chicago:
Dean is wrong, we don’t have the power. The power lies in the hands of those who don’t really care if healthcare passes or not.
Nick
Those who blame the White House do so because they feel they could have done something to change the votes of Landrieu, Lincoln, Lieberman and Nelson. That is something I wholeheartedly disagree with. Obama has no leverage over them because 3 of them come from states he lost big and one is just a sociopath.
Early in the process, there weren’t even 50 votes for the public option, over time people like Kay Hagan, Mark Begich, Mark Warner, Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Michael Bennet, and Ron Wyden, who all expressed opposition or undecided about the public option were all brought into the fold in support of it…who brought them in doesn’t matter, but the White House did have varying amounts of leverage over most of them.
Some say you need to strip chairmanships, I don’t remember the last time this was ever done as a punishment in the Democratic Party, some say primary challengers, but that’s not Obama’s responsibility, that’s ours, and even that’s been known not to work (google A. WIllis Robertson and Civil Rights) some say he should’ve played hardball and held up projects or funding…again not his call, but there was this news that the White House was threatening to close Offutt Air Force Base if Nelson voted no and the outrage that caused this afternoon quickly forced both sides to deny it.
Nick
@mcc: You do what Lyndon Johnson did, you get a Republican or two, and that’s just what the White House tried to do.