It sounds like the House liberal caucus is a big part of the problem. They simply do not understand that if the Senate bill goes nowhere, health care is over. Kaput. And so is their party. Those of you who live in their districts know who you are. First thing tomorrow, get calling!
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[…] little later today I will announce a slightly more organized plan that reader mcc and I are working out to track who stands where on […]
Zzyzx
I assume McDermott is one of those. I just placed a call. It helps that I was a second level delegate in 2008…
Omnes Omnibus
At this point, I am hoping that House liberals are just full of sound and fury at the moment. Some might want their moment in the sun like Baucus, Nelson, and Lieberman got; others might just be pissed that is has come to this. In the end, I am hopeful that enough people will hold their noses and vote for the Senate bill.
My pony is on backorder, but it will be delivered soon.
Bobby Thomson
Look, I know hippy punching never goes out of vogue, but you might direct some of your rage at the rest of the caucus, too. Stupak is still out there, and the Senate bill doesn’t contain his Bishop-approved language. Even if the entire Progressive Caucus voted for this, you still have votes to flip.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/its-stupak-stupid-by-digby-so-everybody.html
Jim
If Olympia Snowe signs an oath in blood to switch parties, bring Collins with her, and both appear on Rachel to vow their undying loyalty to a public option, I’ll understand why they think they get, as Marshall puts it, another bite at the apple.
And even then, there still Lieberman, Nelson (Bahy, Webb, McCaskill….). WTF are these people thinking?
Will
Don’t worry. Obama is working with the Republicans to get a new Senate bill. It’s going to work this time, really.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Progressives/liberals are 15% of this country. That is it. The are not a majority. They will not be a majority ANY time in the near future. This is why most Democratic legislators are moderates. They aren’t going to produce major, game changing reform. EVER. Moderates don’t do that. The house liberals are living in a dream world if they think they are going to get what they want.
Conservatives, on the other hand, are 40% of this country. They outnumber liberals more than 2 to 1. The only way that liberals really win is by convincing moderates to pay attention to their issues, give liberals a sliver of what they want, and put a lot of energy into stopping the conservatives from f’ing up this country.
Somewhere along the line, too many people have lost sight of this. If you really want change, you have to change the opinions of most of the country, person by person. You have to convince people that only loosely follow this stuff, that you are right. Unlike the folks on the internets, those people will actually consider your opinion.
JonathanE
For the love of god, pass the senate bill, focus on reconciliation, and be done with the god damned thing.
JGabriel
Obama, as quoted by Rachel Slajda @ TPM:
What the fuck? I understand that Obama wants to be President of all Americans, but this reasoning is ridiculous.
Should the Senate just take off for the next two-three weeks, until Brown is seated? We wouldn’t want the Senate to do anything without MA’s Senator there to obstruct it! Hey, why didn’t we tell the Senate to wait 6 months for Franken to get seated? Why must the Senate wait for the GOP voice of Massachusetts, when was it okay for the Senate to move forward without the voice of Minnesota?
Fuck this.
.
General Winfield Stuck
To add a little optomism to my “we are fucked now” comments today. Although it is certainly a pony, I have always maintained that reconciliation is a viable, likely the only way a PO was ever going to pass. It is a real longshot now, with the mood as it is in DC. But though a pony, it is a gettable one, I still maintain, though barely.
All you need is 50 dem senators to get together and decide to take action, for first realizing to save the party, as well as real reform, both for the future toward single payer, which is the only way HC can be saved from dystopia in this country, I believe. And I think many senators do too, and if it was true at one point, Harkin’s claim of having 52 senators willing to go that route, then it might be worth calling your dem senator to plead for this. Both of mine have stated they would likely go along, but tomorrow I will call them to insist.
I don’t think the senate bill will fly in the House. Though I have a lot of confidence in Pelosi to make things happen, IF she puts her mind to it and gets out the whip, especially to use on wayward liberals.
kindness
What’s the deal? I’m gettin’ a bit frustrated with the dfh aspect that’s floating around a whole bunch here.
Do you really think it’s the liberals who’ve mucked up Health Care Reform? I don’t think so. Yea you can blame Markos & you can point the finger at Jane Hamshire but …… Honestly, I can’t say I like the Senates bill and I do want better. I don’t think passing the Senate bill and then get new legislation to make it ‘better’ has any validity to me. Especially when every single compromise came from the progressive side.
Just chill with that circular firing squad bs. Liberals aren’t the problem on this issue. The corporatist whores are the problem.
Bort
40% of the country are conservative? Anyone can make up statistics. 67% of the people know that.
Jamie
Stupak, Caucus, Lieberman, Obama, the list goes on and on
Edward G. Talbot
Look, I want the bill to pass, let me be clear on that. It helps more people than it hurts.
But they might be thinking that democrats are going to lose their majority in November if they vote for it because – accurate or not – the perception is that this bill is a sellout, and that the mandate is going to hurt everyone. Dems have proven incapable of changing that perception.
Now, if they vote against the bill and no reform happens in its place, they might be in equal or worse trouble. or they might not if they are actually able to put in some real financial reforms, which is what the average independent is most interested in anyway.
It’s very very easy to see why progressive legislators wouldn’t want to vote for this bill. Democrats have painted themselves into a corner that only some bold moves will get them out of and this bill will never be perceived as bold.
Sentient Puddle
As noted in the article, the progressive caucus has blown a lot of smoke. They had all kinds of threats leading up to the House vote, and it turns out they were bluffing. Honestly, I’m not inclined to take their threats seriously. I think in the end, they’ll get pragmatic for a second and realize that this is about as good as they’re going to get.
Jamie
OK that was supposed to be Baucus not Caucus
Jamie
92% of the statistics sited on the internet are made up on the spot.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jamie: Only 73.2% of people know that.
D. Aristophanes
Here’s the deal, assuming TPM is right about the House liberals. One thing for those who want HCR to do is to NOT antagonize these critters in such a way that they start drawing lines in the sand that they won’t be able to cross later due to public loss of face.
MattR
@Omnes Omnibus:
There’s only a 58% chance of that.
Jim
Something doesn’t add up. Axelrod and Plouffe are out saying pass the Senate bill, and Obama’s saying start over?
JasonF
Yay for me — I just made my first ever call to my Representative, Jan Schakowsky. I don’t usually call her because she’s smart and progressive and actually has a backbone, so she doesn’t need to hear me tell her to vote the right way. But given the freakout from the left, I thought “better safe than sorry.”
So I told the person who answered the phone that while the Senate bill wasn’t as progressive as I would like, it’s much better than nothing. We can always fix it later. I said I hadn’t heard anything from Rep. Schakowsky in the last day, but given the statements of people like Rep. Frank and Rep. Weiner about not voting for the Senate bill, I wanted to make sure Rep. Schakowsky didn’t feel the same way.
The woman I spoke to didn’t explicitly tell me what Rep. Schakowsky was going to do, but she agreed that passing the Senate bill and fixing it was better than letting the reform effort die with some future hope of starting over. She even volunteered that Social Securtiy and Medicare started off far weaker than they are now and were improved over time.
I don’t care how liberal you think your Representative is. You know they’ve been hearing from Jane Hamsher for weeks. Let them know that there areplenty of us on the left who recognize that politics is the art of the possible and that we need to do what is possible now even if it is not ideal.
Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck:
Already done, it seems. See
The Moar You Know
@General Winfield Stuck: Not going to happen. Here’s your list of Senators on public record as opposing reconciliation:
Bayh, Evan – (D – IN)
Byrd, Robert – (D – WV)
Conrad, Kent – (D – ND)
Feingold, Russell – (D – WI)
Landrieu, Mary – (D – LA)
Lieberman, Joseph – (I – CT)
Lincoln, Blanche – (D – AR)
McCaskill, Claire – (D – MO)
Nelson, Ben – (D – NE)
Webb, Jim – (D – VA)
That leaves you with 49 Senators. They plus Biden do not get us over the line.
jwb
@Edward G. Talbot: Yes, but it’s really the economy that has them screwed over more than anything else. Nevertheless at this point the voters are going to be pissed about HCR whether or not a bill passes, so they may as well make the calculation based on whether it makes policy sense rather than on the 2010 political calculation. My sense is that the Senate bill on balance does more good than harm, so I think they should push it through, pass whatever they can through reconciliation to make it better, then tack hard against the banks, including a complete and utter makeover of Obama’s economic team, so as to change the conversation.
Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck: Already done, it seems. See this.
MattR
Is there a good summary of what exactly is in the Senate version of the bill somewhere?
Lev
They’re being self-defeating. Progressives want a public option. Hey, me too! But if you do this whole thing through reconciliation, you can’t have one. Why not? Because you can’t set up the exchanges under reconciliation rules. I guess you could just have some sort of freestanding public option that anyone could just buy into, but believe me that that would never pass.
The amount of times I’ve read Grijalva saying that we should junk everything and just start over with reconciliation just for a public option…I mean, seriously. I realize that to some people that’s all reform is, but in reality it’s not.
BFR
@JGabriel:
I think his comments make no difference at all here. Webb, Bayh, etc were already all out in force before Obama calling for a halt to Sentate work on HCR until Brown was seated.
What matters is what the administration is doing behind the scenes with the House caucus at this point cause the Senate is a dead-end.
Theoretically, they can make it clear to the Blue Dogs that the money train for their re-election is going to come to a really quick stop if they don’t get on board with the Senate bill. The same could be said to the liberals too.
Malron
Labor Coalesces: Pass Senate Health Care Bill, But Only If It’s Fixed Quickly
So now the House is being pressured by Labor as well.
General Winfield Stuck
@The Moar You Know: That’s pretty close at 49. I don’t understand Feingold’s contrariness on this. But point taken.
MattR
@The Moar You Know: Conrad is now walking back his opposition to using reconcilliation under the right circumstances according to this article in the Hill
mey
Go House liberal caucus! I’m going to call and give them my support.
BeccaM
Sorry, John, but it’s not going to happen. Right now, I can sometimes afford to see a doctor — I have no insurance, so it’s all on my own dime, but I do have just enough income to make it there for occasional urgent care.
If the Senate plan passes, I as a woman whose marriage is not recognized due to DOMA, make too much to qualify for any help whatsoever — too much being anything over $15k a year. I will be 47 in a few weeks and I’m female, both conditions for which I can be charged higher premiums. I have hayfever allergies and get migraines, enabling insurance companies to ding me for an extra 10%. If I get high cholesterol or blood pressure, they can charge me more. The Senate bill STILL allows insurance companies to rescind my policy if I forget to tell them I had mumps in the 2nd grade, or that I was once treated for a sprained knee in my teens. The only plans I’ll ever get will be high-deductible / high-copay ones that suck up 20-25% of my income, which I’ll never be able to afford… and at that point, I simply will not have the hundred bucks or so it costs to get an infection looked at or my teeth taken care of. Plus, that insurance will be useless because I’ll be bankrupt before the first reimbursement for anything kicks in.
I supported the House plan, even though it was far too little…but at least there’d be a public option eventually. But the Senate bill is a travesty. I will not bestir myself to help its passage.
danimal
The problem is that progressives and Blue Dogs picked HCR to be the issue to have a f#%$ing egofest game of chicken. At this point, they still seem to think they can walk away and then come back to pass a better bill later. There’s plenty of blame to share.
I’m disgusted and for the first time in my adult life, I can see myself quitting the Democratic Party. They (the two wings of the Democratic Party) can fight over the carcass. HCR isn’t a symbolic issue to use as a power proxy; it’s life, death and bankruptcy for hundreds of thousands of Americans. Go have a pissing battle over something else.
Stoic
But health care reform is already kaput. The Senate bill is atrocious. It’s a compromise to hell.
gwangung
@The Moar You Know: So what I’m drawing from this is you can argue as forcefully as you can for certain positions, but not to be utterly disappointed if it turns out that the votes aren’t there to make those positions go through.
Calming Influence
When calling, you might want to ask them to reconcile these 2 talking points:
So how the were Republicans able to pass legislation without 60 votes? Did they let Republicans in blue districts or states facing tough reelection prospects go all wobbly on them? Hell no.
Tell every Democrat “vote for this one, or you’re cooked.” The problem is this: the Democratic party seems totally O.K. with Democrats acting in ways indistinguishable from Republicans.
Malron
U-Turn: Frank Says, With Assurances, He’ll Vote For The Senate Health Care Bill
The plot thickens. Keep calling, people.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Bort:
Except I didn’t make it up:
This is a link to ideology identification over time from Gallup
I got the percent of liberals wrong, it is 20-21%. Still not high enough to realistically expect to get more than a little of what they want in a democratic system. Still means liberals are outnumbered almost 2 to 1. The legislative dynamics will NOT change without significantly changing the ideological make up of the country. Attacking moderates and protesting in the streets isn’t going to get you there.
JasonF
@Edward G. Talbot:
Every single Republican running against a Democratic incumbent in 2010 is going to point to this bill. Period. It doesn’t matter at this point whether it passes or not. The Democrats tried to pass it, they worked on it for a year, they own it. Far better to own it as a success (in terms of the legislative process) than as a failure.
Do people view it as a sellout to the insurance comapnies or pharma or whoever? Many people do. Democrats will need to work on that. They will need to explain to their constituents why it is not, how the bill tangibly makes people’s lives better. If they don’t do that, it won’t matter whether the bill passes or fails. Because if they don’t do that, the Democrats are either the party that tried to sell you out to the corporations and were too incompetent to make it happen or they are the party that did sell you out to the corporations, and either way they are screwed. The only way out at this point is through — pass the bill and educate people as to why the bill was good.
But the idea that if Democrats walk away now the Republicans won’t bring up healthcare in November is just laughable.
BombIranForChrist
Wow, the progressive congress people now have something they have never, ever had before: Leverage. They need to do the right thing and support the bill, but I can’t fault them if they discover that they like the power that Leverage brings. Just as long as they vote for the damn bill!
jwb
@The Moar You Know: Agreed that it’s dicey, but a couple of those names might be convinced to change their mind.
mcc
@The Moar You Know: “Opposing reconciliation” meaning what, exactly? Up until now “reconciliation” has mostly referred to the idea of passing most of the core HCR bill through the reconciliation procedure. For various reasons a Senator might oppose passing the bill’s main reforms through reconciliation while simultaneously being open to a reconciliation option (such as the one we’ve seen discussed in the last 18 hours) that involves targeted improvements to an already-passed or simultaneously-passed base Senate bill. Kent Conrad, for example, who not only is one of the main problem Senators but also critically is the chairman of the Budget committee, specifically describes his own position this way.
Moreover, I think a lot of people might change their minds in weird ways about what is and isn’t an acceptable political solution after last night. We may need to rewrite that list.
General Winfield Stuck
@Chad N Freude: Well, shit. That’s a fucking suicide note. My earlier rumors of death of dems were not exaggerated it seems.
Where is my glue?
HumboldtBlue
Here’s an idea, don’t call. Don’t waste your dime. They aren’t going to change their minds because you called. You’re not important, not in the slightest. You’re not an insurance conglomerate or big Pharma so you don’t count. You’re not Wall Street and you’re not a defense contractor so they could give a flying thermometer what you think.
If you’re gonna call someone make it Ghostbusters or a sex line, at least then you’ll get some satisfaction out of your dialing.
Face it, we don’t have the money or the votes to make any sort of change and they know it. Just don’t get ill, really, don’t get ill. Or, at best, get yourself elected to Congress. Otherwise, you’re screwed.
The Populist
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
With all due respect…BULL. True cons make up, at best, 20-25% of the country. Progressive libs make up maybe another 15-20% and the rest are on either side of the aisle calling themselves independent/moderate/centrist/republican/democrat with no real identifier.
This argument that cons outnumber people who are liberal or lean liberal is ridiculous. If it were true, please enlighten us as to how a black, supposed “liberal” won the presidency against a milquetoast Republican and his VP who is supposedly the darling of the “right.”
Sorry, it don’t pass the test nor does it ring true to non-partisan polling numbers I’ve seen. Oh, and just because you call yourself a dem it doesn’t mean you are any more liberal than a republican with “conservative fiscal views and liberal social beliefs”. This is why I hate this claptrap…nobody outside of the extremes on both sides can easily be pigeonholed as a 100% lib or con.
mey
@HumboldtBlue: +1
Lev
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Interesting that the percentage of liberals has almost steadily increased since the early 1990s. I just wonder…I remember reading about a poll conducted in 1936 where 55% of respondents identified as conservative, right before giving the most liberal president ever a 48-state victory. Point being, I’m not sure what value these self-identifications have.
The public trends conservative, but not right-wing. If the Republicans were to adopt Clinton-style economic policies and stop with all the hating, I suspect they would win practically every election. But they don’t, so we are here.
mcc
By the way, I don’t want to derail this thread, but the White House has issued a new statement which SIGNIFICANTLY improves on (you might say backtracks from if you’re feeling uncharitable) the bizarre, messy statement from this morning.
More in this direction please. Seems pretty pathetic they’re not even going to attempt to ask the Senate to do its job, but maybe that was a waste of our time anyway.
freelancer
@HumboldtBlue:
In fact, stay home on election day. Don’t give them your vote! That’ll show ’em!
The Populist
@General Winfield Stuck:
It’s bizarre but he may be taking a liberal stance here. He’s said in the past he won’t vote for a bill without a public option.
General Winfield Stuck
@mcc: They could keep it streamlined, and get around the Byrd rule with offsets like canning the winger welfare Med. Advantage to pay for a simple PO, and add things like rescission and pre-existing conditions.
The wingnuts did this with their holy grail of welfare reform, and in not using it for the dems one would make the reconciliation process ideologically unbalanced. But fear is too often the dems coin of the realm. jeebus help us.
The Populist
@Lev:
Amen. It fits my post above where people who say they are Republican may not vote for extremists as they may lean right on fiscal policy but left on social ideals.
DonkeyKong
Wait! hold on, what if Obama and the Democratic Congress came out in favor of school uniforms……………………..(beats head against the wall until brain squirts out!)
mcc
Feingold sometimes takes unexpected positions, but this one isn’t very surprising. He has a reputation of being sort of a stickler for Senate procedure and sometimes opposes weird procedural cheats regardless of party of origin simply because they are weird cheats.
He would definitely be one of the Senators I would somewhat expect to change his mind about reconciliation depending on what, precisely, reconciliation is being used for.
Omnes Omnibus
@HumboldtBlue: Well, that’s a cheery thought. Maybe we should all just roll over and die too. Does any one individual have the effect that a lobbyist does? No. But, if representatives get hundreds of calls on an issue, they will know that there are thousands of people who feel similarly but haven’t called. Representatives want to be reelected. Knowingly pissing off a plurality of their voters does not help in their relection efforts. In addition, some Representatives might want to do the right thing here, but might simply need the encouragement – the knowledge that voters have their backs on it – in order to actually step up.
Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck: I found it so depressing that I thought of killing myself, but my health insurance doesn’t cover self-inflicted death.
The Populist
@DonkeyKong:
I believe the Dems need to go on the jobs, jobs, jobs bandwagon. Fuck Newt and Steve Forbes and their “green jobs aren’t real” stance. Green jobs are going to be the next growth business in this country. If these two idiots and their supporters don’t agree, pray tell what the next industry that will grow us out of this mess will be?
Technology is where it’s at. Too bad the right hate science. Maybe that is why Steve and Newt are telling us that the green industry is a new bubble. It’s not…only a fool would argue that.
rootless_e
What this country needs is a Lincoln Republican party that will advocate efficient government, civil rights, infrastructure investment, and labor rights. I’ve really had it with the Democrats and their whiny base of politics as therapy “leftists”.
Citizen Alan
Couldn’t you have at least waited a whole day? It’s only been 19 hours since that stupid, stupid woman gave away our 60th Senate seat, and less than six since
CarterObama announced that the Senate will shut down while he reaches out to the man who recently implied he was a bastard love-child. Couldn’t you have at least waited a whole fucking day before you came out and started bashing the dirty fucking hippies for not immediately rushing to abandon every thing they consider vital to effective health care reform again.And if, as I expect, HCR passes the House with more Progressive votes than Blue Dog votes, will you at least thank them for biting the bullet and bailing out
Carter’sObama’s sorry ungrateful ass on his signature issue. No, never mind, that would be silly. Fuck those hippies. Fuck’em hard.The Populist
@mcc:
I could swear Russ said basically, no public option, no support. This bill does not have a public option and Russ wants that.
Now with the win in Mass, uppity cons think Russ can lose in Wisconsin. I wonder if that is factoring in as well? I have always seen Feingold as a guy who doesn’t worry about such things and stands on principle.
Chad N Freude
General Stuck is the only one who has picked up on this, but I think it pretty much blows away a lot of the speculation going on here. And not in a good way. I recommend that everybody who sees a possible way forward read it.
Tax Analyst
When it comes to current politics I feel like one of those cats chasing the laser-pointer light…except not as nimble and more prone to depression and disappointment.
More darting, uncatchable light-dots, please…
sfp
@HumboldtBlue:
Speaking of suicide notes…
Martin
@Will: No, the WH is keeping options open. They’d be stupid not to be talking to Snowe and Brown. Remember, they don’t need to vote for the bill, they just need to let the filibuster drop.
Edward G. Talbot
@Jason F and @jwb
You guys may be right. I don’t think anyone expects that failing to pass a bill will somehow get them off the hook. The calculation is whether saying “We get the message, we won’t pass it” will do less damage than passing it. And yes, I know that message was not clear, that this was more about the economy, but that doesn’t mean someone can’t run with such a message.
We can speculate all we want about which will hurt them more in November and it is reasonable to suggest that both will hurt them so they should base it on sound policy. But it seems likely to me that some blue dogs will conclude they are better off opposing it now. Given how the real answer is unknown, it’s an uphill battle to convince them otherwise.
I still think that opposing the bill is a logical political position for some legislators. Personally I think that from a purely political standpoint (forgetting what’s right or best for the country) the dems need to:
1.Pass some minimal healthcare reforms around recission,
etc
2.Spend the next 9 months making republicans vote against jobs bills.
The Populist
@rootless_e:
We had that but the idiots on the right allowed the Christian freaks to take over the GOP and on the left they allowed spineless toads to inhabit their party.
freelancer
@Citizen Alan:
Repeat after me.
“There are no do-overs. That’s not the way the game is played. There are no do-overs.”
Okay, your turn.
Mary
Can we get a list of the liberals and their phone numbers?
williamc
@mcc:
Thank F’ing FSM! I was already writing letters to President to Express Mail tomorrow about his “Wait for Scott Brown” statement earlier…
This is getting out of hand, but apparently people (Barney Frank, the President, Conrad) are walking it back, probably realizing that this country was in for a world of hurt if conservatism managed to rise from the un-dead and reclaim Congress without a fight in November.
and for f’s sake, give it a rest of attacking progressives. Its all hands on deck to pass this thing, and you aholes who still think your “centrist tendencies to compromise” are better than the progressives who stand their ground and fight for their beliefs keep it up, you are going to put some progressive House members in a place where they can’t support this bill. Remember, the Senate bill still restricts a woman’s right to choose, even if not as much as Stupak, you are asking Liberals to swallow something anathema to us, even more so than loosing single-payer or the public option. Take a crap on us another day if you still need to argue about Hamsher and the GOS destroying this process (sure, it had nothing to do with Liberman and Nelson…), but for the next few weeks, we have to pass this, or the tea baggers will be rooting out Beck’s Progressives/Marxists in the Administration at this time next year…
The Populist
@Martin:
If i was a Dem congress critter or even the Prez, I’d be pointing out how the right tried blowing UP the filibuster option and now they love it.
rootless_e
Populist: We have two parties: the untreated psychotic party and the passive aggressive borderline group therapy party. God save us.
Chuck Butcher
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Revised to make yourself look even stupider. When polling is done on issues the numbers completely flip from your bullshit. If you actually paid attention to electoral analysis you’d look a lot less foolish. But then…you are a fool and a tool.
Citizen Alan
@Lev:
I don’t even think that’s true. People are more likely to self-identify as conservative over liberal because well over 100 years of media framing has persuaded them that “conservative = sensible and patriotic” and “liberal = crazy and unAmerican.” However, when people are polled on actual positions, they generally support the “liberal” position over the “conservative” one most of the time, and they become more liberal with each passing generation even as they are conditioned by society to not realize it.
Chad N Freude
Barney Frank returns from the dead.
EDIT: Sort of.
GregB
After holding up Massachusetts as an example of the state for political ridicule for 30 odd years, the Republican right now demands that the work of the nation must stand still until the good people of Massachusetts seat their Senator.
I blame Balloon Juice.
-G
General Winfield Stuck
@The Populist: Well, yea, I can understand that, but Moars list had him down for opposing reconciliation to get a PO? That, I don’t get, if it’s true.
mcc
@The Populist: Not sure I was clear, but in the post you respond to I was attempting to refer to the budget reconciliation process.
I’m not sure what Feingold did or didn’t say about the public option. I know the Senate bill lacked a public option, and he voted for it. Here’s the statement his office put out when he did.
I’m sure Feingold did everything he could to preserve the public option, while there was still some hope of that being possible.
HumboldtBlue
That’s pretty much where I stand. I can not see where my vote has made one iota of difference, in fact I would say casting my vote is a useless charade. Democrats, and I use that term very liberally, were given everything we were told they needed and now?
PeakVT
Is our Democrats learning yet? Of course, nobody can agree on what it is they are supposed to learn…
El Tiburon
Good riddance. Maybe our grandkids will get it right.
Until then fuck ’em and feed ’em fish heads.
Citizen Alan
@The Populist:
This is exactly what I was talking about in my last post. The subtext of what you just said (whether you meant it to or not) is that there are people who vote Republican because they lean right on fiscal policy. Well what does “right” mean in the context of “fiscal policy”? Most people would define fiscal conservativism as favoring a balanced budget over deficit spending and favoring pragmatic investment over wild speculation. No literate person could possible associate that definition with the way real-life conservatives have behaved fiscally over the last 30 year, but they still get the benefit of people assuming they’ll be fiscally restrained once in office despite all evidence to the contrary.
General Winfield Stuck
@El Tiburon:
You are all class dude. And a better wingnut than the wingnuts.
cfaller96
I’m too lazy to check to see if someone has already mentioned this, but the Senate bill is unpopular with the American people. It doesn’t poll well. People aren’t stupid, and a mandate without any cost control (i.e. the Senate bill) is an electoral death wish. Tim and John and Doug can sing the praises of the Senate bill until they’re blue in the face, but that doesn’t change the (IMO permanent) reality that according to the American people a mandate without cost controls will be unpopular and will never work.
So if the motivation is to “save health care” by passing the Senate bill, well, I’m not sure what benefit that will give to the Democratic Party this fall or in 2012.
(Besides, as John would be the first to tell us, threats from progressives aren’t as serious as threats from the moderates. And the moderates are NOT on board. But hippie-punching is so much more fun, so carry on I guess.)
mr. whipple
I think they should hold hearings on sexist language in hip hop lyrics.
Omnes Omnibus
Let the the House progressives vent; they are being asked to eat a huge shit sandwich in order to get HCR through. I do not doubt that they will do what they need to do. In the meantime, they are pissed off and showing it. Blue Dogs, Nelsons, and their ilk have figure that they can live without HCR passing. they have decided that it is okay with them that a President from their party will be considered a failure. As a result, they compromised very little. The progressives, on the other hand, want HCR desparately – and everyone knows it. Therefore, they have to do all the compromising. It sucks as a position.
freelancer
Clearly, this is all just a smokescreen for Mark McGuire.
Citizen Alan
@freelancer:
What are you babbling about, you gibbering mongoloid babboon?
mcc
@Mary:
Here are the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. All will have their phone numbers on their website. Not sure if there’s somewhere a list of members+phone#s together.
The following is a serious suggestion:
If people here really want to get on this, it seems to me the thing to do would be to just do a proper whip count. This is actually pretty easy: put up a google doc spreadsheet; make rows for each member of the CPC, or other “leaning” dems. List phone numbers and states so that someone can figure out if they’re a constituent quickly. And then just start going down the list, or try to find constituents to call, ask each one how they would vote if the Senate bill were to come up for a vote (yes, no, undecided, or the nadler/weiner position of “only with improvements through reconciliation”), and mark them as such in the spreadsheet. I could try to set this up tonight if people are interested in participating.
(One note: I’m not sure when the right time to do this would be. Apparently Pelosi spent the day in meetings with various groups within the Democratic caucus and tomorrow will be holding some kind of caucus-wide meeting. It seems likely if there’s going to be a specific strategy followed, she’ll announce it then. In the meantime it might be pressuring some dems too hard on this– if certain dems are saying “no Senate bill” as a way of negotiating into a place where either the Senate would do its job and pass the version with the negotiated fixes from last week or the fixes could be passed separately, well, that sounds kind of risky, but this isn’t a strategy I think we really want to undercut. On the other hand if things wait too long without taking a direction the bill will die so it’s worth it to get started as soon as possible… and if people are interested there’s no reason not to start collecting phone numbers to target now.)
Nick
I’m waiting for Lady Jane Hamsher to inform us that this Massachusetts Senate Election defeat was orchestrated by Obama in order to force the netroots to push for the Senate bill.
Mary G
I’ve decided to work for the Democrat running against my Republican congressman. Even in a traditionally red area (a grotesquely gerrymandered thing which is mostly the Southern California Inland Empire – which has suffered terribly in the housing crash – and San Clemente where I live (on the coast 50 miles away) the Dem came within 4 points in November without really trying.
If the Republicans are going to try to run on anti-incumbent basis this November, a little taste of their own medicine is in order.
Chuck Butcher
Oh for …. Nelson and LIEberman aren’t up for four years, that being the Senate and all – and that’s assuming they want another 6 and not to cash in with their paymasters.
mr. whipple
I mentioned here the other night….what is the motivation for a blue-dog/conservadem to pass HCR? We give the Nelson’s and Baucuses and such a lot of grief, but they are getting slaughtered in their own states on this issue, and frankly I’m amazed some got on board at all.
General Winfield Stuck
@cfaller96: The public at large doesn’t have a fucking clue what the senate bill would or would not do. All they know is the lies and distortions the left and right wingnuts tell them on their teevees. They could have had no denial for pre existing conditions and lifetime not getting kicked out of their plans, and some recourse for denied claims. The ones that have never used their shit plans that read swell, but when needed swallow them whole, will go to bed still believing they are in like flint, until they get sick. Then some politician will read their sad story of premature death due to getting dropped from their plan when they needed it most. And more talking heads will opine we need to do something. And dems will get the blame for failing, and not entirely without justification. 20 years pass, and we do it all over again.
Citizen Alan
@Omnes Omnibus:
You can’t say “shit sandwich” to describe the bill anymore. Apparently, it’s cliched or it hurts moderates feelings or some damned thing.
Dennis-SGMM
Confession time: I am only a Democrat because of my love for slapstick comedy and the Dems so rarely disappoint in that milieu. Look at 2008: Democrats take the White House and win larger Congressional majorities than either party has had for years. So, being Democrats, they immediately tie their own shoelaces together and then complain that they can’t walk. Comedy gold.
williamc
I have to add, this is freakin awesome.
I now have to call my Congressman, the Honorable John Lewis (D-Georgia), and make sure that he will vote for a bill that I hate and just wrote him a letter a week ago saying needed to be vastly improved before he should even think about voting for it, all because one of the most liberal states in the Union decided a pin-up idiot teabagger deserved to replace Teddy Kennedy in the Senate.
Its time for drinking…
celticdragonchick
On CBS News tonite, it sure sounded like the Dems are caving in.
“Health care reform is going on the back burner” was the major story.
Also, it was noted that the Republicans have paid no political price for lock step opposition to the President.
This may just be depression, but I am getting the feeling that we may have a one term presidency here if some people can’t get their act together and start treating the GOP like the enemies they are…and making sure that people know it. The GOP has succeeded in framing the debate and controlling the narrative.
They have momentum and they know it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: feces hoagie?
The Populist
@Citizen Alan:
True…people also tend to reflect the founding fathers who were basically liberals on many issues. The USA was founded as a LIBERAL democracy. Too bad the right can’t wrap their minds around the idea that liberal is a good thing and usually stands for justice for all and fairness.
Mary
@mcc: Sounds good. I hope we can figure it out. We definitely don’t want to do any harm.
tballou
I think you are really misguided on this one. The Senate bill is nothing more than a big fat gift to the insurance companies, and it deserves to die. I say let the whole mess collapse in a great heap and either start over with a whole series of noncontroversial, relatively small steps that most Repugs would probably support, or just wait a few more years and our health care crisis will become an unmitigated disaster and they will be begging for change.
Violet
@celticdragonchick:
This.
I’ve been harping on this for months now. The Dems are ridiculous and the WH has just let them go. It’s a downside of Obama’s community’s organizer background where you let everyone say their piece and move forward together after some ugly consensus-building. It probably works fine in places where the day isn’t governed by soundbites and news cycles, but in modern American politics it just doesn’t work.
The Dems need to find simple messages and keep bashing away at them. The “Yes We Can!” theme worked great for the campaign. Come up with similar things – why health care benefits the economy, for instance. Make it short, sweet, and memorable.
It just isn’t that hard. And they’ve failed miserably.
Chad N Freude
@celticdragonchick:
They could be right. Or they could be a TV news program. Take your pick.
EDIT: That was pure snark. I think they may very well be right.
Sasha
@The Moar You Know:
Do you really think that one of them won’t break if you twisted hard enough?
Nick
@Violet:
Actually I think it is hard…doing this assumes Americans, the majority of whom have healthcare they’re happy with, care about their fellow man. As we’ve proven time and time again, it’s all about them.
I don’t know how best to make it all about them until they all actually LOOSE their healthcare themselves.
jwb
@JasonF: They’ll be pointing to it if the Dems don’t pass it, too. I think it’s at least a wash—and probably better for the Dems to pass something than not.
The Populist
@Citizen Alan:
Alan,
I understand what you are saying but keep in mind this idea that the right have been pushing for over 20 years now: Liberal = tax and spend, conservative = fiscal restraint. You and I and the everybody else who posts regularly here know how wrong that is. The problem is laying it out for people who want to believe that conservatives care about their tax dollars (they do not).
What I am saying is that folks like to believe they are conservative because of a myth that it’s better than the alternative. I know many who vote with the Republicans who are pro-choice and want more money for schools and are not against the idea of welfare for the truly needy.
We all know that a great majority of Americans have no idea of the history of liberalism and what it’s done for THEIR lives. They just want to “fit” in by telling people they lean conservative.
The media does a good job, as you know, of framing this nonsense that America is somehow “conservative” when it’s really not. I see America as much more pragmatic than that when you subtract the 20% who think Sarah Palin is right on everything.
rootless_e
I want to say that everything bad in the world is due to Obama and Rahm Emmanuel ignoring my feelings. As a true progressive Democrat, suffering from sensitivity and over-extension of poutmuscles, I am hurt, hurt, and hurt, by this inexplicable failure to address my concerns.
Nick
@Mary G: This is how Democrats should be reacting
WIN!
Nick
@The Populist: This
sfp
@JasonF:
It matters a hell of a lot. If the bill fails, then Republicans can run against any notion that any liberal has ever advocated and they won’t even be lying, because there will be no health care reform bill, just a large number of mutually contradictory provisions that Democrats suggested at one time or another–and this is before you take the black helicopter death panel bullshit into account.
If HCR is signed into law, then there is something concrete to defend, and a lot more people will be motivated to defend it. Of course the Republicans will say all kinds of stupid shit about it–that’s a given. But an actual bill gives us some control on the messaging: we can talk up the immediate benefits that will really exist, and when Republicans lie about it, we can cite chapter and verse to call them on it.
Chad N Freude
@The Populist: True, but
Liberal had a somewhat different connotation back then than it does now:
angler
I phoned my rep, Betsy Markey, Colorado dist 4. She was a no on the original House bill because it was not sufficiently fiscally conservative. I doubt she’ll be a yes on the Senate bill even though it moved in the smaller budget direction.
39 House members all but two of them Blue Dogs or conservative Des not in the BD caucus voted against the House bill. If half switched to back the Senate bill the progressives would not matter to the president on this bill. Why, oh why, won’t they come around?
celticdragonchick
@angler:
Because they are herd animals and panic is contagious.
Nick
@danimal:
This is NOT new. This is why it’s failed so many times before. Listen to the LBJ tapes of Medicare, same thing…Wilbur Mills had LBJ over a barrel and it wasn’t until the 1964 landslide that LBJ was about to push it through, and even then only because the Democrats picked up a seat in the Senate (by 48 votes)
I won’t even go into the Clinton healthcare debacle.
The Populist
@Chad N Freude:
Yes Chad, but wouldn’t you agree that the connotation has changed thanks to 20+ years of the hard right take over of media? These media outlets sell this idea that liberal=bad, liberal=tax and spend, liberal=take away freedoms when in fact conservatism fits all those arguments.
They may not tax people, but they sure as hell spend our tax dollars while borrowing more that we, as a nation, are gonna pay some serious interest. In the end, we all know who pays that tab. They may not raise our taxes but they sure are shifting the burden of it onto the middle class.
mr. whipple
It will be MUCH better for them to pass than not. Look at it this way: for decades we’ve been innundated with the DNC/DSCC/DCCC, party platforms, etc telling us that if we give them $ and work hard they can get a majority and get this done.
So, people did, and what have they got if this goes down? Watch the donations dry up, watch as people stay away in droves. Yes, it’s self-defeating in many ways to sit out, but people aren’t going to sit there and listen to a rational argument about a blue dog getting pressure at some Town Hall Meeting. That just isn’t going to fly.
Texas Dem
My congressman is a Republican as are both of my senators, so there’s hardly any point in calling them. I think I’m going to take an evening off from politics and watch the Man v. Wild marathon on the Discovery Channel.
The Other Steve
Ok, I take back everything nice I said.
Pelosi has turned out to be the huge disaster I thought she’d be back in 2003 when they made her the leader.
She’s a wimp, she can’t speak in public, and she can’t keep her caucus in line.
cfaller96
@General Winfield Stuck
Yes, and…?
Look, we can debate back and forth as to why the Senate bill is unpopular and whether or not it should be unpopular, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is unpopular, and (for the reasons you mentioned and more) I feel pretty safe in assuming that the Senate bill will remain unpopular well into midterms and possibly 2012.
John is whipping readers to call Congressmen to pressure them into voting for a terribly unpopular bill. He’s trying to persuade readers by implying that it’ll be good for the Dem Party, which we both agree is an extremely sketchy assertion. This makes sense only to John.
I think that once again John is letting his HCR fatigue and his instinctive resentment of progressives cloud his judgment here. This makes no sense.
Chad N Freude
@The Populist: Way more than 20 years. But Enlightenment Liberalism was what was originally called (modern) Conservatism, which has become the Picture of Dorian Gray, morphing from a handsome young man into a depraved, hideous monster. Modern Liberalism is more like the Enlightenment variety than modern Conservatism, but forgot about the concept of limited government and leaving people pretty much alone after the First Great Depression. Personally, I think modern Liberals (among whom I count myself) have lost sight of the line between government protecting people (I think of FDA, HHS, Transportation Safety, etc.) and government providing people with whatever the government thinks is good for them.
General Winfield Stuck
@cfaller96:
BTW. This post was penned by TimF. who is somewhere left just this side of Mr. Trotsky. And the only poll that matters are the ones at the ballot box. The one in 2008 that gave dems the mandate to reform HC. The one that happened yesterday is one seat in one state, that already has universal healthcare. And you are a fool of the first order if you believe dems failing to pass even a less than ideal HCR bill will help them at the ballot box. Unless you are a ratfucking gooper. Who knows these days?
Texas Dem
Update: new episode of Man v. Wild on Discovery Channel tonight (Rocky Mountains). Maybe Bear can tell us how to get the House Dems to pass the Senate health care bill, but I doubt it.
sfp
@cfaller96:
I disagree. One of the big reasons that the bill is unpopular is that nobody really knows what it is, and because the negotiations have been so fluid, its opponents can basically say what they like about it and its supporters don’t have anything to defend.
That changes once the bill passes. According to polling, the individual features are quite popular on their own. Let the Republicans vote against it instead of just fulminate against socialized medicine and death panels.
Chuck Butcher
I’ve been toying with the idea of calling my OR House delegation (minus Walden) and strongly urging them to pass the Senate bill. If you’ll excuse me, I frankly want to see you live with this thing. I’ve referred to it as a disaster with a couple goodies hidden inside (paraphrasing) and been considered essentially an idiot.
This is, of course, exactly the same thing as walking away or voting GOP to teach you a lesson. But then, if I’m wrong you get what you wanted and a shining success and a GOP ass kicking and your permanent majority.
Nah, I’m just going to keep my trap shut with them…
General Winfield Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
Gosh Chuck, that’s so sweet of ya. Thanks for sharing.
edit- I almost forgot. Fuck you very much!
Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck:
And which side is that?
Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck: Ah, civil discourse, almost a lost art.
General Winfield Stuck
@Chad N Freude:
use your imagination
The Populist
@The Other Steve:
Alan Grayson for majority leader!
The Populist
@Chad N Freude:
I do not disagree, and yes it’s been more than 20 years but I use that to illustrate the Gingrich revolution.
As for them leaving us alone, I trust a Dem a lot more to “leave me be” than a conservative. A dem might want to have too many departments overseeing government but why not? Less government got us Katrina, the bank mess, lax food and water standards and other things.
Leave me be by dumping the patriot act (sorry, righties, you can’t listen to my fucking phone calls OR read my emails…if you think I am guilty of a crime, arrest me, charge me and fucking prove it in court like the constitution says!).
Last time I checked the right spies on us, they created Watergate, they always advocate nanny state legislation of the worst kind. Yes, libs do it too but honestly? I don’t care if there is a law saying I can’t talk on my phone in the car without a hands free unit. I don’t care that I have to pay income tax on my earnings. What I am saying is some of this nanny state stuff is more states oriented than fed. If you ask me, the feds when controlled by the right tend to act like it’s a fucking police state.
Libs brought us miranda rights, civil rights for people of color, workplace standards, etc. The right resist this stuff. When the right tax me more than a rich guy and then run up the national credit card, who pays? Certainly NOT the rich guy…it’s folks like us who do. How is that freedom? Last I checked, Bill Clinton refused to talk about a Patriot Act when OKC was bombed, he left us a surplus and while he cowtowed to censorship groups thanks to the Gores (sorry, if Tipper hates music with curse words in it or violent video games…guess what? DON’T BUY THEM FOR YOUR KIDS!) he truly was a freedom guy.
We are still pretty free in this country. Last I checked, nobody was knocking on my door to put a bag on my head and transport me to secret locales for questioning. If anything, that day WILL come if the right take control.
The left are bumbling idiots, but they are the types of people I TRUST to protect my freedoms more than those idiots on the right.
Chad N Freude
@The Populist: I guess we’re pretty much in agreement. I do think that the right promotes Talibanesque nannyism and the left promotes protect-you-from-yourself nannyism.
Elie
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Sista sista – you are right but too many of us are brilliant but weak and impatient and very very destructive. It is very hard to keep that big tent up over all of us in the middle of the tempest while we act out our various missions and perspectives…
Unlike the right, we have to get hard things done but we have no tolerance for the process of that and sometimes, no courage for the fight of it. We have seemed to respect the top down ruthlessness of the right’s paradigm way more than negotiation and learning to my mind…we cant wait and we dont want to learn anything so we get mad and start breaking up the ‘furniture’ that provides structure and protection to our ideas and long term goals
(I feel like I am saying more of a prayer or meditation but I am just feeling this in my deepest bones)
Elie
@The Populist:
Amen
Elie
@Chuck Butcher:
Chuck
You seem to be a bitter bitter man.
That “I’ll show YOU” streak is not only mean, but reveals a great deal of pain to me. The pain I respect but the meaness just hurts your soul…
There is a lot of turmoil and uncertainty in figuring out what is best overall for a country as big and diverse as ours. Its fair to say its a messy process at best.
No one is born or is privy to later to all the answers. At least for me — the discovery process is both necessary and sometimes stressful. Learning always is. Why are you so certain about things that are deep and complex and layered in ways that cannot be simplistically resolved? We have opinions in this place and they vary and people grow and learn. Who needs to be flogged for opinions that differ?
Liberal used to mean tolerant rather than some sign post in political wars. How I wish we could be there rather than the mixed up and painful place that we are!
I do believe deeply that the liberal progressives have more in common than not. Cant we believe in that and each other enough to dispense with the painful bitter? Doesnt the opposition punish us and the values we believe in enough without us doing it to each other?
Chuck Butcher
@General Winfield Stuck:
Thanks to you all’s demonstration I now know how.
BillCinSD
Why exactly is it that the House must pass the Senate bill now? The only timing that matters is when the bills are signed by the President. Passing the bill now on the hope that the Senate might do some reconciliation takes all the push for reconciliation away. So why lose the existing leverage, when keeping the leverage and forcing the Senate to act would likely improve the bill in a way that would keep the progressives. In any case, the whole Stupak thing is likely a much bigger problem for passage.
Chuck Butcher
@BillCinSD:
How the blazes do you expect to reconcile a House bill that is better than the Senate’s existing one within the Senate? You do remember possibly that they started out roughly where the House bill was.