Might as well put this up.
(1) Use a phone. Email has nigh on zero impact. Trust me on this. Letter mail gets read, but you don’t have time. Reach the House switchboard at (202) 224-3121 .
(2) Remember, this person works for you. You pay his or her salary and you voted for them. You’re the boss here, or at least one of them, and it’s they who should worry about what you think of them.
(3) Identify your name and the town or neighborhood where you live. If you are not a constituent, save your phone bill and yell at the TV.
(4) State the issue. This is easy: pass the Senate bill or the party gets it. We can (and certainly will) fix the shortcomings later.
(5) How strongly do you feel? Don’t apologize about feeling passionate or pissed off. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
(6) What are you going to do about it? Again, squeaky wheel. Will you reward good behavior with money or volunteers? Support a primary challenger if you feel let down? Stay home in November? Do you belong to a group who listens to your opinion or feels the same way you do? This part will get their attention and get the message passed on. Do not forget it.
Good luck!
***Update***
This made me chuckle (some day I’d love to vote for fantasy unicorn Democrats who have the balls to do something like that), but this from Josh Marshall suggests that constituent heat might already be adding up.
***Update 2***
A thought: Wouldn’t it be more effective, especially if your rep already supports passage or never will, to target calls to those reps holding out on voting for the bill as is but would have voted for it after conference committee? We call can contribute or not contribute to any campaign we want. We may not be able to vote in District X in State X but we can sure as hell tell Rep X that we will contribute to his/her opponent in the future.
If you have the disposable income, might as well call key figures and let them know that you will gladly support anyone who steps up and makes this happen. Choose your battles, though. Influential legislators often have a potent money spigot.
me
Trouble is my rep is a Republican.
Tim F.
@me: It still helps when they know you exist.
Flitterbic
And what of us poor soles represented only by the sorry likes of Johnny Isakson, Saxby Chamblis, and the weasel Tom Price? My voice is hoarse from yelling at the TV and flipping off Price’s office when I drive by has yielded few results.
God, I need to move.
asiangrrlMN
@Tim F.: Damn. I wish you had put up this list five minutes earlier. I missed #6 when I called.
Tim F.
@asiangrrlMN: Call them back. Not kidding; it is that important. If you knew what the average teabagger call sounds like you would not worry about seeming rude.
John S.
I don’t see that it matters at all right now.
I’ve been one of the most vociferous defenders of Obama around here (nobody can hold a candle to Stuck), but after his statements today:
The people of Massachusetts don’t speak for the entire country, and last time I checked the rest of us put 57 Democrats in office to carry out our will, which you are now thwarting by kowtowing to a fucking teabagger.
So fuck you people of Massachusetts and fuck you, Mr. President.
BTD
Umm. Far be it from me to begrudge activism by anyone, but events appear to have overtaken this effort, at least in the short term.
Time for a Plan B.
valdivia
just called. the woman was so flabbergasted she passed me on to someone else and I yelled some more. Feel better.
lol
@John S.:
Individual Dem Senators already took fast-tracking a bill off the table.
asiangrrlMN
OK. So what is Plan B?
Violet
@John S.:
Agreed. I’m a huge Obama supporter. Well…was. This statement today, his just giving up on HCR, is astonishing. I’m shocked. I really am. I didn’t expect that.
And why the HELL should MA get to decide how the rest of us have health care. They’ve already GOT THEIRS. Just typical.
I’m beyond despondent.
Would a phone call on this issue to the White House help at all?
beltane
@John S.: Virtually everyone in Massachusetts already has access to health care, unlike people in the rest of the country. It’s not just that the Democrats are full of fail; it’s that they prefer it that way.
Nikki
Called my congresswoman, Donna Edwards. They wouldn’t say how she intends to vote, but I said I want her to pass the Senate version so that we can get a health care law enacted.
mcc
You might actually want to just mention your zip code. In my experience 90% of the time they’re going to ask for this anyway.
mcc
You might actually want to just mention your zip code. In my experience 90% of the time they’re going to ask for this anyway.
BR
Tim, thanks for that post. I’ve been encouraging everyone I know to call on exactly that, and have been doing the same.
Call, and then spread the word to family and friends to call ASAP and demand the house pass the senate HCR bill and get it to the president by next week.
John S.
They already passed the fucking thing, so the point is irrelevant. If the House ping-ponged the bill, it goes straight to the President’s desk.
I realize a fair number of Reps have been signaling that the bill won’t pass and they can’t vote for it, but ultimately this thing was in their hands. For Obama to come out and say what he said just gives cover to the timid and provides them with no incentive to send him a bill.
This is exactly on of the few times when a President can actually have some major influence over the passage of a bill and use the bully pulpit, and this is EPIC FAIL.
valdivia
@John S.:
Not that i don’t believe you but can you give me the source?
Just saw that. If this means eh thinks he is going to get this through the senate again then this is the first time I think Obama is wrong. Get this fucking thing through the House and make it end.
Bokonon
My experience with the Republicans in Colorado’s congressional delegation is that if you write or phone in with something other than the GOP’s party line, they will ignore you (or hang up on you, or mock you). They and their staff seem to take a winner-take-all view of elections in which they represent only the people that voted for them – and that everyone else is just occupied territory, to be ignored or coopted and kept out of the political process. Really infuriating to be told by a 20-something partisan puke working the phones that you have no voice and no representation.
Stroszek
@John S.: I agree. This O-bot is done with him if he’s not even going to try.
Tim (The Oher One)
I just spoke to Waxman’s office. I got the impression that he’s on board voting for the Senate bill through the House.
lol
@John S.:
Obama was referring to the idea of the Senate rushing the compromise version through before Brown got seated, not the House simply ping-ponging the Senate version.
Cathie from Canada
Excellent effort — hope it works.
I am reading Firedoglake, Taylor Marsh, Kos and all the others talking about complex scenarios on how the Demos can get tricky with reconciliation.
But you go to war with the Democrats you have. And these guys aren’t ever going to get tricky, or think strategic, or grapple with the long-term big picture, etc etc.
So OF COURSE the only solution now is for the House to pass the Senate bill, straight up and no frills. I don’t understand why the Democrats didn’t plan for this all along — oh, wait…
The Grand Panjandrum
@valdivia: ABC News.
Mary
There’s an article in the Washington Post that says that Brown is open to bipartisanship on health care, which would make sense since he voted for the Mass. plan. Counting on Brown seems kind of risky to me.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/20/AR2010012002822.html
Corner Stone
@valdivia: It’s at TPM but also ABC News
As quoted by ABC:
mcc
This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said. Well, that’s not exactly true. Barney Frank’s statement was somehow worse. But Frank was also pretty incoherent so let’s just ignore him. This blockquote is the worst way to look at it possible. It implies the Senate is important, which it isn’t. It implies Brown’s election were the people of Massachusetts speaking on the health care bill, which it wasn’t. It implies Brown should be in some way involved in the health care bill, which he shouldn’t. And of course just as icing it implies we should follow rules in the case of Brown’s election we haven’t ever followed for any other election ever and put the entire Congress on hold while we’re waiting for a certificate of election, just because we have to give Republicans advantages for no reason.
Either jam through the negotiated house version while we have 60 votes, or cut the Senate out entirely. If we’re passing this in the House and cutting out the Senate except to rubberstamp some fixes through reconciliation later, then there’s no reason to wait for Scott Brown. Assuming this statement isn’t going to be disregarded in 24 hours once Pelosi comes up with a better plan, this seems to be embracing delay for delay’s sake. Brown could take up to 15 days to be seated. That’ll be after Obama’s State of the Union. So we’re just gonna all kind of sit around and issue press releases about how terrible everything is until that happens. Hey Obama, how’re you going to like giving your first State of the Union speech with the stench of failure filling the room, and the Republicans cheering like an italian Soccer crowd at the first mention of “the health care bill has not passed y–“?
mcc
This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said. Well, that’s not exactly true. Barney Frank’s statement was somehow worse. But Frank was also pretty incoherent so let’s just ignore him. This blockquote is the worst way to look at it possible. It implies the Senate is important, which it isn’t. It implies Brown’s election were the people of Massachusetts speaking on the health care bill, which it wasn’t. It implies Brown should be in some way involved in the health care bill, which he shouldn’t. And of course just as icing it implies we should follow rules in the case of Brown’s election we haven’t ever followed for any other election ever and put the entire Congress on hold while we’re waiting for a certificate of election, just because we have to give Republicans advantages for no reason.
Either jam through the negotiated house version while we have 60 votes, or cut the Senate out entirely. If we’re passing this in the House and cutting out the Senate except to rubberstamp some fixes through reconciliation later, then there’s no reason to wait for Scott Brown. Assuming this statement isn’t going to be disregarded in 24 hours once Pelosi comes up with a better plan, this seems to be embracing delay for delay’s sake. Brown could take up to 15 days to be seated. That’ll be after Obama’s State of the Union. So we’re just gonna all kind of sit around and issue press releases about how terrible everything is until that happens. Hey Obama, how’re you going to like giving your first State of the Union speech with the stench of failure filling the room, and the Republicans cheering like an italian Soccer crowd at the first mention of “the health care bill has not passed y–“?
Rock
The Democratic party is astonishingly gutless. Obama’s public statements are idiotic and I hope that in private he is pressing the House to do the right thing. But I doubt it.
Welcome to Obama’s Waterloo.
Tom Hilton
Just called Pelosi’s office, and got transferred to voicemail (you think maybe she’s getting a lot of calls?). She isn’t one of the reluctant ones, but I did urge her to push ahead with a vote on the Senate bill, and told her people I know are calling their representatives as well.
The Grand Panjandrum
@BTD: Fine. Let Obama veto the motherfucker then.
valdivia
@lol:
I hope you are right. If he really thinks HCR is not important then he is close to losing me and I am the biggest O-Bot there is. Really, plastic unicorn and all.
John S.
I know that, except that it isn’t at all what it sounds like, and that isn’t how most people are going to interpret it.
It sounds like “I need to check with Scott Brown to make sure he’s okay with everything before I pass HCR”.
BTD
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Ha! Good one.
valdivia
So why not call the white house too? Is there a number we can call?
Elie
@valdivia:
You got that right (not about your being an Obot, but about him losing me — probably more of an Obot than you)
I am just sick and wondering what the hell! All this time I thought I could believe that he would stay the course and work this through!
Gotta call the White House and give him a piece of my mind!
Never thought I would want to do that during this presidency, but here we are…
Xantar
@John S.
My read on that quote is simply that Obama doesn’t want to let the Senate take another crack at this. It’s all on the House to pass the Senate bill verbatim. And he’s right in that respect. If Democrats try to jam the legislation through before Brown is seated, that will just give Lieberman or Nelson another chance to gum up the works some more and possibly kill the bill for good.
As to the part about Brown being a part of the process: he’s just being diplomatic like he always is. He also said he wants Republicans in general to be part of the process, but you didn’t hear him complain too loudly when HCR passed the Senate on a strict party line vote.
Jon
Just called Albio Sires’ office. Got a nice lady who assured me I’ll get a response as soon as possible. Blah.
Elie
@valdivia: \
(202) 456-1111
Just tried — its busy
BTD
The update is comedy gold.
TEL
I called my congresswoman, Barbara Lee. I told the staffer my name, city, and state, and that it was very important to me that a health care bill get passed, even if it isn’t perfect. The staffer took my message and asked my zip code. I doubt my call made a difference (Lee’s seat is about as safe as you can get), but I called anyway.
I’m so depressed about all of this.
flounder
I called Grijalva’s office even though I am not a constituent, even though I am next door. I told them how awesome he is and how I had sent him money alone and via ActBlue for fighting for the Public Option.
Then I told him this has gone on to long and what happened last night makes progressives like him stronger but ironically means they gotta pass the Senate bill, demand reconcilliation to fix the junk, and start a new fight.
The staffer honestly sounded sorta relieved to be taking a call like mine.
FWIW my rep. Ann Kirkpatrick’s staff was rather pleasant to talk to.
batgirl
@Mary: Of course he is, just like Snowe and Collins, and Lieberman — All he wants to do is slow it down because the longer it takes the more likely it will fail. I call bullshit.
JR (not the other JR)
@Flitterbic: Howdy, neighbor. I hear you on that.
The Grand Panjandrum
I called my critter Paul Hodes. The person took down my information and listened very patiently as I went on and on and on and on …. the more I talked the more pissed I got. I even got a shot in on Barney Frank.
The one advantage we have here in NH is that Hodes is running for the seat Judd Gregg is vacating, so I made it clear that my money and time would not go to anyone who let HCR die without an epic battle.
ruemara
Called my moderate dem rep and spoke with a pleasant young man. I’m fairly sure he’ll vote for it because, he’s been right where I’ve wanted him on all issues.
valdivia
@Elie:
thanks will try too. I already emailed very very angrily from their website.
FormerSwingVoter
I just called my Rep, Steve Lynch, and was transferred to voice mail. I told them I was really looking forward to donating and volunteering in the next election cycle, but would be unable to do so if nothing got done on health care reform. I encouraged them to please, please sign the Senate bill into law so that we can get something to help millions of Americans and start bringing costs under control.
blackfrancis
Called and got my message through, pass the Senate version or get voted out. Vote for it, I’ll volunteer. I left them my contact info as well.
I can honestly say I am glad that I moved out of MA a few months ago, can’t blame this on me!
Corner Stone
@Xantar: I thought so too except for a couple quotes. This one:
and the lead quote on ABC where they claim he warned “Congress” not to do anything – but he could’ve said Senate and they botched it.
blackfrancis
@The Grand Panjandrum: Howdy neighbor!
flounder
FWIW I think the Obama statement is aimed at people who are being told that the sneaky Democrats are so scared of Scott Brown that they are going to try and pass all sorts of socialism through as ACORN stalls on signing off on Brown’s election. The fucking Senate Dems would never have that much ratfuck in them anyways.
You and I aren’t the audience.
PTirebiter
I get Sam Johnson in the TX 3rd-
Slammin’ Sammy is a creationist that simply loved the idea of replacing Caesar Chavez in the state history curriculum with Phyllis Schlafly, and Newt. I’m proud to report the Board adopted this swell idea, order your new Texas, US History text early.
edmund dantes
TPM has working with Snowe being rumored coming out of the White House. So that sounds like Obama is looking to re-visit HCR in the Senate. Which makes no fucking sense. It’s only going to get much much worse. They tried to give her everything she wanted before, and she still said “no thanks”.
John S.
@Xantar:
Dude, believe me when I say that I understand exactly what Obama is saying and why he is saying it. But people like us are political junkies and can make the finer distinctions.
Your average person (and the media of course) are not going to interpret it that way. It just sounds like Obama acquiesced to Scott Brown being a kingmaker.
batgirl
Just called both the Chicago office and the Washington DC offices of Congressman Danny Davis. Said I wanted him to pass the Senate version of HCR and pointed out that I have yet to vote in the primary coming out (we have early voting) and that by vote will be tied to how he proceeds. The DC office didn’t even bother to take down my name and zip code.
williamc
I’m actually a little stunned by the President folding on this right now, kneecapping the pressure to get this done (I think he really still believes this post-partisan horsepuckey), but I have to say, its been furthered along by people like the majority of you commenting here. Most of you have done nothing except attack the people (who are not calculating politicians and are ON YOUR SIDE!) complaining about his horrible habit of following wherever the political winds/cable conventional wisdom takes him and laughing about Overton’s Window (is there not 1 other political scientist here that realizes that this thing and the progressive base of the D-Party are real and not just some “Manic Progressive” fantasy?). I’ve spoken out here at great lengths against the Senate abomination, and was totally into killing-the-bill until Hamsher went over to the Tea-bagging Darkside, but even I now realize that THIS BILL MUST PASS THE HOUSE or we will never get it done. What’s the WH thinking? “Let’s get some Republican imput on this, that more conservative bill will be sure to pass the more liberal House…this is starting to feel like the triangulating yourself out of a majority 1990s all over again.
I’m starting to loose that in-the-tank for the O-man feeling, and I can’t wait to see how the apologist spin this one away…
growingdaisies
Called Rep. John Sarbanes office (D-MD) and was told by the young woman on the phone that he supports the house bill, but hasn’t made a decision on the Senate bill. STRONGLY argued that they need to pass the Senate bill and fix it later. Anyone else in my area who wants to pass on the message, please please do.
Martin
@valdivia: Obama thinks it’s hugely important, but the message DC is getting is that the public doesn’t think it is. Obama’s getting attacked from the left and the right. So is Congress. What other conclusion can they draw? They put together a bill that, while not perfect, does help, and everyone shits on them for that because it’s not perfect.
The left has a choice here – either Jane’s plan of killing HCR until baby Jesus and the tooth fairy show up with the perfect bill, or back Obama and Congress *now* and give Obama something he can push with, because the only message out there now is that MA means that the public doesn’t want HCR. Jane’s almost won this round.
catclub
I think posters here are TRYING to interpret this in the worst way possible. But I know that Obama is careful about what he says.
‘The SENATE should not ram something through,’ does NOT mean that the House should sit still. It means only what it says.
untwist your knickers
John
@lol:
Yes, but if he wanted to encourage the House to ping pong, he should have said something about that, and not about this “rushing it through the Senate” strategy that everybody knows isn’t going to happen.
edmund dantes
@catclub: Then why this
If what you say is true, there is no need to work on Snowe.
Violet
@John S.:
EXACTLY! Obama is making everything worse. I’m following this crap and what I heard from what he said was, “Let’s do nothing on health care until Scott Brown is seated because his opinion is what really counts.” WTF? Seriously, What The F*#K?
I’m beyond disgusted. I have been a huge Obot but this is ridiculous.
I feel like taking a page out of Erick Erickson’s book and starting a campaign to send unicorns to Obama, or something equally stupid. Whatever it takes to GET HEALTH CARE DONE.
Arrrggggh!
batgirl
@williamc:
If this is true, we are even more frakked than I thought.
Martin
@John S.: Personally, I think that’s exactly what he wants. If the media message is that the public doesn’t want HCR, and that Democrats are supposed to hear that message, he wants us to go out there and change that message. Where is the backlash from the left against GOP obstructionism? There’s none, and in fact, there’s been an embrace of it from people like Jane. I figure we’ve got until the state of the union to change the message.
flounder
Can you moderate my comment?
Actually here it is:
FWIW I think the Obama statement is aimed at people who are being told that the sneaky Democrats are so scared of Scott Brown that they are going to try and pass all sorts of socialism through as ACORN stalls on signing off on Brown’s election. The fucking Senate Dems would never have that much ratfook in them anyways.
You and I aren’t the audience.
scudbucket
@BTD: The update is comedy gold.
What’s the funny part? The Ezra post? He’s right, we’re down to two options (given that Obama took the Senate out of the loop): ram the Senate bill through the House, or piece a less ambitious plan together via reconciliation.
Brachiator
@Cathie from Canada:
So true.
I really don’t understand why the Dems are so reluctant to actually govern. Unfortunately, Congress’ inability to do anything other than stumble is made worse by Obama’s insistence on deferring to Congress and his futile attempts to get honest bi-partisan support from the Republicans.
John
@catclub:
Okay, sure. But if Obama wants the House to pass the Senate bill, he needs to say so. Soon. Because have you been reading what these house idiots are saying? They’re going to need to be dragged kicking and screaming to pass the Senate bill. Obama talking about how he doesn’t want something to happen which obviously isn’t going to happen doesn’t help in any way.
batgirl
@edmund dantes: Yes, the Senate bill will only get worse from this point on. Our only chance is to have the House pass the current Senate version.
Fuck every Democrat (including Obama) every which way if they don’t get this and they don’t do this!
I know someone who died last year because he avoided going first to the doctor, later to the hospital until it was too late because he couldn’t afford it. This has got to stop.
kay
@Martin:
I agree with this.
I’m afraid there’s a really narrow window, though. That’s why I’m a tad pessimistic.
Am I the only one who believes that Congress would rather not legislate on controversial or politically dicey issues? Because they don’t want to. I mean, that’s always been my assumption, and it’s been borne out nearly my entire adult life. They want to cut taxes and name post offices. Everything else carries risk.
They’re getting ready to bolt. I can feel it.
Brett
I wish you guys luck. I live in a highly red state, and my representative is a hard-core blue dog democrat who has pretty much voted against all of Obama’s proposals. He’s not going to listen to me bitch when he has much more to worry about from the more-conservative-than-God rural voters in his gerrymandered district, and when the local Democrats will never, ever vote against him for fear of losing all of our national representation. *
*Seriously, aside from the brutal first fight after the gerrymandering, he’s got it made. He’s popular enough with the conservatives that all of the Republican challengers are pretty pathetic (the last guy got something like 20-25% of voters, and fewer Republicans than our guy), and since the state Democratic party has no national representation other than this guy, they won’t vote against him short of the district getting re-drawn (which it very well might be after the 2010 Census – one of the proposals I heard for re-drawing the districts would be to turn our guy’s seat into a safe Democratic seat by sticking all the democratic areas in one district while creating three rock-solid Republican districts).
FormerSwingVoter
@Violet:
Wait, can we do that? Mail little toy ponies to the White House with a note “I’m giving back that pony you promised us, asshole”?
Bhall35
Called my rep, Mike Capuano, and who, by most Monday morning quarterbacking, would have been a far superior candidate to Coakley (but we’ll never know now). His office listened politely and thanked me for the call, but wish I had also said I’m sorry he wasn’t the nominee. But, spilt milk and all that…
You Don't Say
@Tim F.: My rep is a republican too.
A thought: Wouldn’t it be more effective, especially if your rep already supports passage or never will, to target calls to those reps holding out on voting for the bill as is but would have voted for it after conference committee? We call can contribute or not contribute to any campaign we want. We may not be able to vote in District X in State X but we can sure as hell tell Rep X that we will contribute to his/her opponent in the future.
John S.
You know what, you’re exactly right.
My apologies for shitting on this thread with doom and gloom. Call every fucking politician you know and let them know that – as The Dude would say – this aggression will not stand, man!
I’m still pretty miffed at Obama, though. I was a tournament chess player in school, and I get the feeling that I would mop the floor with Obama at 3d chess, let alone 12d chess.
Will
What the hell is this?
Obama: Senate Will Not Vote On Health Care Before Brown Is Seated
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/obama-senate-will-not-vote-on-health-care-before-brown-is-seated.php?ref=fpa
And I’m about the last guy in the world to complain about our president. And this $hit is ridiculous. What kind of message does it send the House to say SLOW DOWN right now?
Or is he deliberately ignoring the House, so that they can pass it quietly, and then he can sign it quickly, circumventing the Senate and Brown entirely? Does it ever go back to the Senate if the House passed it verbatim? I did not believe that it did.
God this is frustrating.
Violet
@catclub:
It’s not being reported correctly. It’s being reported as “Congress” and even if it is reported as “Senate,” the average person may not make that distinction. Heck, the average person can’t even name the three branches of government. Do you really think they will distinguish between the two legislative bodies in this statement? No, they won’t. They’ll hear “Senate” and think “Congress” and think Obama wants Congress to give up on HCR.
Allan
@catclub: This. Obama is a lawyer. He said exactly what he had to say.
@edmund dantes: Yes, there is a reason to work on Snowe. It is because whether or not the Senate ever votes again on HCR, it will be voting on other issues and we need 60 votes because the system is fucked. Since we can’t expect Senatorfold Scott Brown to be vote 60, someone else will have to be.
flavortext
Called my Rep, Lois Capps, explained that I thought the passing the Senate bill is better than no bill, and told the woman on the other end that I’ve done canvassing and GOTV efforts at my uni and that it’s going to be hard to get college students to vote at all, much less for Dems in November if they fail to do anything with such a sizable majority. I didn’t ask what stance Capps was taking but she promised she would let me know her response by email or snail mail.
sfp
I just called my rep (Blumenauer, OR-3 — a reliable liberal from a safe seat, which means he may be one of the disgruntled progressives).
The very courteous aide said that Blumenauer hadn’t taken any positions re: the Senate bill (chuckling wearily as he did so–I imagine he’s getting a lot of calls about this).
When I gave the standard spiel, he didn’t tip his hand one way or the other as to Blumenauer’s intentions, but he DID say that he personally completely agreed with me. So I have some hope that my elected representative is getting the message.
Martin
Look, Obama got elected because we showed up. We went to rallys, we waited in lines. The Dems expected us to stick with them, not sniping at them and sitting on the sidelines making deals with Grover Norquist, of all fucking people.
We’ve not been showing up. The teabaggers are. People showed up in MA and sent a Republican from one of the bluest states in the nation.
Obama and the Dems aren’t going to go out and oppose public sentiment. They just aren’t. How many have said that HCR should wait for Brown to be seated? They’re respectful of elections, of what the public are telling them. The most vocal of the left is telling Obama and Congress that HCR should be killed. The most vocal of the right is telling Obama and Congress that HCR should be killed. What conclusion do you think they should draw? GOS is saying to kill it. Most of the people here are saying to kill it. Nobody should be surprised if it gets killed with everyone pushing against it.
If there’s support for it, they better fucking show up in some force in the next two weeks, because I’ve spent way too much time fighting people from the left and right that this is worth doing. I think there’s only a handful of us supporting this and we’re not enough to change the course of this. The Dems are governing to the will of the people right now.
Lev
I just called my rep, John Garamendi. I got a staffer who took all my info down and promised to pass it along. To be honest, I’d be shocked if Garamendi were willing to kill HCR. He’s a huge wonk and his congressional campaign a few months ago was pretty much single-issue, focused on enacting HCR. Better rep than Tauscher was. So I’m hopeful.
Mike from Philly
If Congress actually cared about what we wanted we would be out of Iraq and Afghanistan and would have passed a health care bill with a strong public option a while back. They don’t care what you think.
The Republicans have said boo, time to shit your pants and run for the hills. We can always blame out lack of governing skills on our meager 59 seat majority later.
The Grand Panjandrum
@blackfrancis: Howdy back atcha!
Nicole
Called Rangel’s NY office- the young man on the phone told me to write a letter and not to bother calling the DC office. Hmm…
Will
@flounder:
Then it’s pure reaction, and it’s cowardly.
Martin
@John S.: You aren’t playing chess against Obama. You’re playing against Jane Hamsher, and she’s winning.
Elie
@Violet:
I said more or less what you said in my email to the WH.. I have been a stalwart OBOT but am shaken and a bit doubtful right now. I am hoping that he would not sell out so completely and obviously after all this — but who knows right now..
Svensker
The line to the White House has been busy for the last 20 minutes.
I hope the Prez is getting an earful on HRC.
sfp
@Nicole: That’s crazy. Just call the DC office.
Corner Stone
@flounder:
This has been true the entire time.
But I would disagree with the rest of your post. He’s not reassuring the teabaggers or independent nervous nellies.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I like the update. And to go along with it: For all of you who think Dems just have to ram it all through and the people will love you, what about that poll that showed Nelson’s approval rating plummeted after he voted for the watered down deal with a gift for his state? The reason his approval dropped is because he voted for any kind of health care.
kay
@Violet:
I’m not clear on it myself, Violet, so I sympathize. I don’t know what he means.
I’m not completely persuaded that he’s making some distinction between a vote on the bill and the House adopting the Senate bill entire.
If his concern is an appearance of going around Brown, the House adopting the Senate bill does just that. It goes around Brown.
I think this in flux, and if we’re trying to influence the process, now might be the time to do that.
Stroszek
@Violet: I’d suggest sending ping-pong balls.
@Martin: Fuck that. Obama can’t rely on Harry S. Internet Commenter to change the message. If the White House needs a better communications team, they need to hire one. What’s Howard Wolfson doing these days?
Corner Stone
@Svensker:
I hope so too! That damn Sec of State should’ve been doing more!
*Couldn’t resist. As Zifnab says, I am one typo nitpicking bastard.
Mary
@Martin: I know that what you meant to say is that we’re playing against Jane Hamsher and Grover Norquist, both of whom want to kill the Senate bill, even with Labor’s fixes. And Arianna Huffington, she’s the worst.
ellaesther
@ Tim F.: Ok, why are emails not worth the paper on which they are not printed?
I trust you, Tim F, of course I trust you, but inquiring minds want to know — largely because I often encourage people to “write or call.”
RS
A little more advice, from my days as a Hill staffer-
For a day like today, when there is a high volume of calls about particular issue, we used to keep notepads and just keep a tally of people on each side of the issue. If you don’t really care about receiving a form letter response a few weeks from now, don’t bother leaving a name and address, as you’re just distracting the staffer from doing other tasks or answering other calls- just say that you live in the district, you supported the congressman in the last election, but this is something you feel very strongly about and could effect your support in the future (and it’s even better if all of that is true), then let them move on to the next call.
Also, be polite, say something specific about the Congressman (if you do this there’s a much better chance of your feelings getting relayed directly to him), and thank the staffer for their time. Answering constituent calls is a major part of the job for interns, staff assistants, and LC’s, but on days when the office is receiving a lot of calls, senior staff sometimes have to answer calls too, and the best way to have your call completely ignored is to be rude to someone who thinks answering phones is beneath them anyway.
Svensker
@Martin:
Your reading comprehension seems very different from mine. The only people here saying that are Wilfred and visitors from FDL.
Edward G. Talbot
It kind of feels like dailykos on this thread. Calling my right wing rep does exactly no good – if he votes against the bill, he’d beat any democrat by 25 right now, but he’d lose if he voted for it. Lotta people around here like Obama and don’t like the bill – moderate types, so they’re not opposing it from the left. They basically don’t trust it not to be a corporate giveaway and hurt their own healthcare. And the mandate – forget the reality of it, the perception of it is horrific.
Personally, I’d like to see the bill pass because of all the people it would help. However, even before yesterday it seemed pretty clear to me that the bill as constituted was electoral toxic waste for the dems. I honestly think that passing anything other than a modest attempt to end recission and limit pre-existing condition exclusions (banning them is a non-starter for about 20 dem senators and all repub senators unless there’s a mandate to go with it) will cost the democrats and extra 15-30 seats in the House and 3-5 seats in the Senate than they are already going to lose.
So it’s hard for me to justify calling anyone and telling them to vote for it. A majority of people don’t want the bill and telling ourselves that some of it is from the left makes no practical difference.
What energy I have is going to be focused on financial reform. The economy is the biggest reason (out of several) that the dems are out of favor, particularly the perception that they are bought and paid for just like the Republicans. The fact that voting in republicans is LESS likely to address that problem simply doesn’t resonate with people. The lifelong democrat cited in the NYT today who voted for Brown so that the dems will start focusing on creating jobs is obviously deluded. But she is not unique. One of the houses is surely going republican in November if the dems can’t figure out how to get enough blue dogs on board to do something serious about the perceptions about job creation and Wall Street. Blaming the republicans ain’t gonna cut it.
KDP
I’ve called my Rep. Pete Stark to request that he vote for the Senate bill so that we can get something in place that can be improved over time. The very nice staffer promised to pass my comments along, and mentioned that Rep. Stark has been working for health care reform for most of his career (true). I reiterated that while I recognized that the Senate bill was not perfect, it provides a framework upon which future improvements can be made. I spoke to my partner’s loss of health coverage if I lose my job and his inability to obtain insurance himself because of a heart condition.
She did say she had not heard anything on the Hill or in the office about letting health care reform go to which I responded that Barney Frank had been quite open about his willingness to give up. OK, then, I’ve done what I can at this moment in time. *Sigh*
elmo
@Brett: I think we must be neighbors.
Lincoln Davis is my Congresssman, y’all. Everything you need to know about him is summed up in the incredible cognitive dissonance of his name.
I’m not going to waste the dime.
Elie
@Martin:
You have a point — sigh…
But killing this will kill us and kill his Presidency. So while I understand your explanation, this kind of brinkmanship is very dangerous for the President to undertake right now. I would rather he soldier on ala the scenario he painted from George WA at Valley Forge rather than — what? There is no heroid example to capitulation. The people should not always be listened to and in special situations for their own good, throughout our history, they have been ignored. Does it take guts? YES…but I thought he had guts — at LEAST guts to do the right thing.
Please make it so. Please Lord
Tim F.
@ellaesther: Email is easy and cheap to automate. Most Congressional offices have millions of blast-emails from various issue groups and online petition forms and whatnot clogging their inbox every day.
mcc
I don’t see why he needed to say anything.
If saying something was only going to result in everyone from TPM to Politico reporting him saying something you say he didn’t even intend, creating its own little mini-news-cycle and then maybe another one when he “clarifies” tomorrow, and adding to the sense of Democratic confusion at a time they badly need to find their bearings… then maybe not saying anything would have been better.
Pelosi is the adult in the room here.
kay
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I’m going to disagree with that. I think the Senators who wheeled and dealed to insert special provisions made a really dumb political move. It looks like graft, or a bribe.
I think it’s hurting Reid, and it’s going to hurt Nelson.
This was an ugly process. Watching this was watching the worst aspects of Congress: the provincialism, the political ass-covering, the ridiculous pomposity and self-serving bloviating.
Baucus and Nelson didn’t do themselves any favors. Neither did Lieberman, with his egotistical last-ditch fake.
There were Senators who were out there making reasoned low-key arguments during the process, and they voted for the bill, and they’re doing fine.
General Winfield Stuck
Well, I did call Mr. Teague from my district in southern NM. And the staffer I spoke with said Mr. Teague would consider voting for the senate bill as is, if it came to that. But it didn’t sound like to me they are expecting it to come to that, but whatever. He is a blue dog of sorts, and likely a one termer in this right leaning district, so I suppose it was good to not reject my pleas to pass the senate bill if that was the only option left.
My personal opinion is that it’s toast, as are the dems as a governing force. I think the voters of Mass get the prize for forcing the issue, and I think they voted by and large because the economy sucks. All these other reasons likely did have some impact around the edges, that could have helped Coakley win, but barely. I don’t think the progs caused the loss though they sure haven’t helped, but they are the winners nonetheless. Jane’s et al style of issue oriented shrieking activism for political success is now driving the blogosphere bus and the hippies can bogart that joint. Or, get what we want, of let it burn, and rebuild the prog pony like they want it to be. I do hope she and the others who think this way are right. I will be surprised if they are, but who knows.
Just don’t come back after the dems are solidly in the minority and blame we pragmatists. And don’t tell me you are sad about what happened in Mass. Cause I don’t believe you. It’s your show now, so have at it, and drive safely, and take responsibility for your victory and what it wroughts. Good, bad, or ugly.
Clinton/Kucinich 2012 — break out the whiskey
Tsulagi
@Violet:
Geez, that’s kinda harsh.
Leaving aside how we got here, don’t see anything wrong in President Obama’s statement. He’s just expressing reality. May not be what you like, but it is what it is.
According to reports, he, Reid, and Pelosi met this morning in the WH before his statement. Guessing it’s likely Pelosi told him there aren’t votes in the House to pass the Senate bill as it stands. The better House bill only passed by five votes.
Likely they discussed House passing the Senate bill with reconciliation to tweak parts. That could work in the reconciliation process for spending and taxing portions like subsidies and the excise tax. But not for the basic framework, at least not in the Senate. Unless you want to argue areas like the Nelson amendment materially affect spending or revenues. You can make that argument, but then the Senate parliamentarian, not Senate leadership, gets to call bullshit. You could fire the parliamentarian getting one more to your liking as Lott did to grease some of Bush tax cuts through reconciliation. How likely you think Reid would do that is your call.
All reconciliation does is drop the magic number down to 51 and limit debate. But the other guys still have opportunity to drag it out and obstruct. It’s not a magic road. Remember “pass any crap Senate bill and we’ll fix it later in conference adding our goodies!”? That worked out well.
I’m guessing if Obama asked Pelosi to get the Senate bill passed now and reconcile it later, she may have told the president her chamber doesn’t have any faith in the Senate getting that job done, or doing it anytime within this millennium. Would be kind of hard to argue with that.
So, here we are.
Ben JB
Tim,
Who are the key figures and what are their numbers? I’ve got a phone and a dog to walk, so I’m ready to call.
cat48
@Tim Ok, I called Graham, Brown, and Waterloo Demint offices and was told NO! we need more power & we will fix health care. That is frightening! Brown is retiring so that is good. Dem almost beat him last time. How else would you like for me to humiliate myself today?
Cheryl from Maryland
Reached my rep’s office, Chris Van Hollen and was able to talk to a person. I do like Van Hollen’s description of this situation — why would you give the car keys back to the person who drove it into the ditch.
Chris Andersen
I’ve already called my rep and registered my opinion and think everyone else should do the same.
I also suggest we call Pelosi and urge her to schedule a roll call vote on the Senate bill *regardless of whether she knows she has the votes or not*. It’s time for Dems in the House to put up or shut up. If they really don’t want the Senate bill to pass (and thus, no HCR to pass for years to come) then they should be brave enough to go on the record about it.
If the leadership simply tables the bill (thus killing it) in order to save some of them members from having to make an embarassing vote, then the Dems truly are the most gutless political party in existence.
Will
@mcc:
I couldn’t agree with you more. Whether or not people agree with what Obama said today, it was a very confusing thing to say at an even more confusing time for Democrats demoralized after last night. It did not need to be said for anyone’s benefit. Whose benefit? Scott Brown? Mitch McConnell? The punditry? What the hell is the benefit?
John S.
Point taken, but I’m over my earlier angst-ridden outburst. The only thing that sucks is that I don’t have a congressman to call because I’m in FL-19 (Robert Wexler retired 2 weeks ago).
Violet
@Tsulagi:
I hear where you are coming from, but the news media runs on soundbites and what is being heard out there is “Don’t do anything on health care now because Scott Brown is super important and we have to wait for him to be seated.” That may not be what Obama meant. But that’s what’s being heard.
And that statement can even be shortened to: “Don’t do anything on health care now.” Which is not at all the kind of message I had expected to hear from him. I’m shocked at the poor messaging.
Nancy Pelsoi said it much better:
Citizen Alan
As much as I hate this abortion of a bill, I just called my Blue Dog congressman at both his DC and local offices, left my name and contact info said (paraphrasing):
“You need to vote for the Senate bill and get this resolved. Because 2010 will be a base election, and if all those people who picketed you for not supporting HCR last fall stay home in November, you will LOSE! Because no one in North Mississippi is going to vote for a Democrat who always votes Republican when they can just vote for a Democrat. And if you don’t get actual, voting Democrats enthused, you are done.”
And then I come here, read that asinine quote from
CarterObama, and then start scrolling past a half-dozen apologist quotes claiming that because Obama really said “Senate” instead of “Congress” because he was all lawyerly and shit, he wasn’t flat-out announcing that HCR was dead for this year. And all I can do is giggle. I think I’m punch-drunk. Soon, hopefully, I’ll just be real-drunk, instead.ellaesther
@Tim F.: Well yes, and I suppose that they’re not going to be going through it terribly carefully to look for those that aren’t automatically generated?
mcc
The right listens to a bunch of email-forward-style lies about the bill and decides the bill must die. The left listens to a bunch of email-forward-style lies about the bill and decides the bill must die. Since when do we have government by e-mail forward?
valdivia
@General Winfield Stuck:
wow if you are in this frame of mind I guess we are *really* fucked. I am down on my O-Botness today but hoped at least one of us was still all hopey changy,
Corner Stone
And now from the AP:
Take that FWIW.
williamc
@Allan:
WTF are you going on about? That is not what the President is saying, and if you think the Public is going to see Senate and not think Congress, I have years of polls showing you that MOST people in this country don’t even know the names of their US Senator, let alone the bicameral nature of our legislature.
You folks have to stop this making apologies for this man that we all respect (though he is making it harder every day by giving in to the framing of the nutjobs that despise him), and give him hell. His poll numbers aren’t falling and Dems aren’t loosing statewide races because he’s brilliant, its happening because the base is in free-fall and being told to take another hit for a team of losers who have apparently lied to us about what they want and what they believe.
The only person is Washington who seems to not have her head up her arse is Nancy Pelosi, probably because she knows that her job is on the line. She knows this has to be done, now, and she knew way back when that playing footsie with the Republican mouth-breathing cannibals will only result in your foot being eaten off while the media-entertainment complex creates a reality-show about the best Republican foot-recipes and how they are good for you…
We need a snarky thread soon or this place is gonna blow up, someone send John a really great Animal rescue story quick!
Martin
@Stroszek: Um, that’s how Obama won the primaries, by having us change the message that Hillary was the inevitable candidate. That’s how the entire campaign operated – by having us drive the message from the bottom up. That’s what grassroots activism is, and now you’re saying that was bullshit and a top-down approach is what should matter.
But anyone in the middle, who is looking for clues as to whether this is a good bill or not, is looking right and seeing opposition and looking left and seeing opposition. Maddow has been critical, Olberman has been, Kos personally has been and called for the bill to be killed, Hamsher, pretty much everyone on the left with an audience has been critical or dismissive of the Senate bill. The only one that has been consistently if cautiously supportive is Klein.
Elie
Whatever we say about whether Obama can be blamed entirely for the loss of Coakley or not, he can be blamed for royally fucking up the messaging afterwards. THAT is a total disaster and is entirely under the responsibility of the White House. What the hey are they thinking!?
Martin
@Svensker: I cannot count the number of arguments I’ve had here with people if not over the bill in full, then over key provisions of it. It doesn’t matter if you are 95% in support of the bill if you want it to die over that last 5%. And there are a lot of people willing to kill it over that 5%.
Martin
@Elie:
Well, the left should have thought of that before they set out to kill the bill then, shouldn’t they?
maus
Why the FUCK are we expending any effort on trying to get Snowe on board when we can’t even get all Dems to vote for it?
FormerSwingVoter
Looks like there are some reconciliation trial balloons going up:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/77129-clyburn-magic-number-on-healthcare-reform-is-50-not-60
kay
@Citizen Alan:
I have to agree with you Allen. I’m not taking a nuanced message from that quote at all.
All I would add is that he met with Congressional leaders, so this may be a joint message, and they insisted Obama take the heat for it, which is not an unreasonable request.
The House, in particular, have taken some unpopular votes, and been left out to hang there while the assholes in the Senate deliberate and put their fingers to the wind.
Pelosi has to protect her people. I don’t think she’s taking any more risk.
Brachiator
@Martin:
We voted for the Democrats with the expectation that they would actually do something other than run around in a state of confusion like a bunch of stooges.
If the Democrats are taking marching orders from vocal Republicans, then they might as well hang up a “Gone Out of Business” sign. If the Democrats can’t engage the left, who are supposed to be their natural allies and constituents, then what is the freakin point of the party?
And to craft a crappy bill and then cave to critics is way beside the point. The idea is to draft a good bill or to commit strongly to improving it as soon as possible.
The sinking economy is making access to health care more imperative. If the Democrats can’t sell the principle, then they are utterly useless.
I’ve never thought any of the posters here made a compelling argument for killing the bill outright. And I think the bill stinks to high heaven, but that it is still better than doing nothing.
This is just an excuse for the spinelessness of the Democrats.
If the Democrats were governing to the will of the people, scores of bankers would be in prison, banks and financial markets would be regulated, a strong Democratic candidate would have been elected senator for Massachusetts, and I would have my unicorn.
kay
@Elie:
Elie, what if it’s not a mistake? What if he met with Pelosi (he did) and she said we’re not going further and you, President Obama, are going to take the heat for that?
Her House is up in 2010. She’s taken the entire brunt of all this bullshit, and she’s herded those people into line again and again, and her members are suffering for it.
Tim F.
@ellaesther: I imagine that better-staffed offices might dedicate an intern to email, or rotate the job as punishment duty. Even so I wouldn’t count on a swift or fulsome reply.
mcc
I called my rep, and also the rep of the district where I lived until last month (and where I’m still registered to vote… err, I need to fix that soon). I hope I was clear– I said that Congress should pass the bill the Senate passed last month, that it wasn’t everything we wanted but that it was pretty good and one way or another we had to pass something. But I found myself trying to do slip in some hedging language to try to imply I was talking about the situation if the Senate couldn’t pass an improved bill, and I’m not 100% sure the person I spoke to on the phone was aware of the procedural maneuver of the House passing the Senate bill to begin with. (As far as my limited understanding goes they don’t really keep track of individual calls, they just make tallies when lots of calls come in on a single subject? So if a call comes in on a subject they’ve never heard about before I’m not sure they’d be able to process it correctly.)
It seems to me that it might be a good idea to do another round of calls if Pelosi gets a specific plan on the table (i.e. vote on the Senate bill then do Reconciliation patches next month, bring up the Reconciliation patches and the Senate bill at the same time as Weiner suggested, etc) to make sure the message came through as intended.
liberty60
@me:
Even better. Next time there is a townhall or conference call or whatnot, show up and go fucking leftwing teabag on his ass.
You thought the obnoxious townhallers only showed up at friendly GOP venues?
The talking points we hear from the Lincolns, Nelsons, et al is that “I am in a mixed state/ district, and I need to placate the other side and run as a moderate”
HOW COME NO REPUBLICANS SAY THAT?
Yes, your Republican rep needs to be afraid, to know he has constituents who hate his fucking guts if he votes against this stuff. He won’t change his vote based on one loud bastard, but when we all do it, it works.
I have Dem reps and Senators, but I am logging on to a Boxer conference call on Sat and if given a chance to speak, will at least let her know my opinions.
kay
I called, but my House member is a wingnut and his local staffer has already been rude to me on health care, when I called for a meeting at the urging of OFA, and went, and he was late, which pissed me off, so I’m pretty sure they ignore me.
mcc
Elie, what if it’s not a mistake? What if he met with Pelosi (he did) and she said we’re not going further and you, President Obama, are going to take the heat for that?
First off, Pelosi is not a child. Second off, Pelosi was saying the exact opposite thing in public today.
Martin
@Mary: Right. If the left is sending the same message as the right, then the left who aren’t following every last detail of this are going to fall in line. And Congress – at least a Democratic Congress – is going to listen to a public that opposes this. The left has been saying that no bill is better than a bad bill. Well, they may get what they want, because there’s not going to be a 2nd chance at this for quite some time.
This is why I’m not a Democrat. This ideological bullshit is religious. The Senate puts forward a bill that moves the ball forward. Not as much as we want, and we have to give up a thing or two, but forward it goes. It’s progress, we should have been all over it once it was realistically past the point of being improved, giving it 100% support, and when it’s law attack the specific parts we don’t like and ask for a 2nd round of legislation. In the 2nd round the compromises from the first round get mopped up, some new good stuff gets added, some new stuff gets handed back, and you repeat it asking for round 3. But no. The left asked for all or nothing and are now shocked, shocked I tell you, that Congress is saying ‘Ok, if you would prefer nothing, nothing is what we’ll do.’
Crashman06
@Bhall35: He’s my Rep as well, and I wish he had been the nominee, but I suppose it’s partially my fault for forgetting to vote in the primary. Just called up the office to tell them to get the bill passed, or I’d be staying at home during the mid-terms. Maybe it’ll help.
Nora Carrington
I called Jay Inslee’s Shoreline [WA] office and gave the staffer who answered the phone an earful. I said that I could not remember being this angry with the Democrats before in my life (I’m 54), that it was usually the Republicans who earned my ire. I said that it was imperative that the House pass the Senate bill [this was several hours ago]. I said that Jay should tell Barney Frank to shut up. I said that people all over the country had worked their hearts out to give the Democrats the power they need to do good stuff and they were fucking it up [without the profanity]. I said that if health care went down, that every single Democrat in the country would be primaried, and I would be first in line to sign up to help.
She couldn’t get the spelling of my name right [NC is an alias]; it’s German, and not that odd. She did get my email and said she would pass along the message.
Citizen Alan
@Martin:
Well, that’s a good point, I guess. “The left” should never have allowed Max Baucus to dither for 3 months in a quixotic effort to get Olympia Snowe’s vote. “The left” should never have allowed Stupak to insert a poison pill abortion amendment that would represent the worst attack on abortion rights ever countenanced under a Democratic administration. “The left” should never have given such raving progressive-soshulists like Lieberman and Nelson veto power over the whole process. And worst of all, “the left” should never have allowed Martha Coakley to go on a Caribbean cruise for half of December and then come back complaining about how much she hated shaking hands with voters. Damn you, “the left”! Damn you to hell!
Martin
@Brachiator: They did do something. They did a lot actually, but it wasn’t everything, and the left wanted everything. Congress isn’t comprised of 60 Bernie Sanders as much as we want like that, and Senators do have responsibilities back to their states and the people that elected them. Compromises happen when you listen to your constituents, but the Senate bill was 90% of what Obama promised during the election and still the people that elected him shit on that.
Democrats aren’t taking directions from vocal Republicans. They’re taking directions from vocal citizens, the problem is that the Republicans are the most vocal and the left calling for this to be killed are the next vocal. Where is the vocal support for this bill from citizens? There really isn’t any.
And the argument doesn’t need to be compelling. It just needs to be clear. If it’s clear people don’t want the bill, even if the argument is a shitty one, then Dems are only willing to go so far to oppose it. And the argument HAS been clear. How many hours of argument have taken place in opposition to this? These aren’t throwaway opinions – they’re strong and they’re largely resistant to evidence, but they are strong sentiments from the left, from the voters that the Dems need to count on in the next election. Are you saying that they shouldn’t be listened to? That’s crazy.
mcc
No, no, screw this. FDL (who is not by themselves “the left”) gets all pissy that dealing with the conservadems is too haaaard and we should just let everything die. Then you get all pissy that dealing with FDL is too haaaaard and we should just let everything die. This is just masturbatory and none of it has anything to do with the actual political situation of the bill. The building is on fire and you’re trying to get everyone to stop and have an argument about whose responsibility it was to change the smoke detector batteries.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Martin:
For the bill-killer left, that is a feature, not a bug. They want to ruin Obama’s presidency. I think a lot of the animus behind this thinking comes from other issues (TARP, the failure to close Gitmo, torture prosecutions, the continuing of Bush’s wars, DADT/DOMA, etc..), and HCR has become a sort of lightning rod for what is basically an attempt to impeach Obama in the court of public opinion for numerous offences against their vision of progressivism. What happens afterwards if they succeed in neutering him, I don’t think they’ve thought that part through… I guess it will turn out wonderful just like back in 1968 when everything was perfect after LBJ stood down.
Mr Furious
Heath Shuler’s office wouldn’t reveal his intentions… “He doesn’t give statements ahead of time on votes until he sees exactly what he is voting on.”
I reply, “I’m talking about the Senate bill. He should know what’s in it.”
Aide: “He’s waiting to see what comes out of the conference committee.”
Me: “There won’t be a conference bill. It’s vote for the Senate bill as-is or it’s over. I expect him to vote for the Senate bill and fix any concerns later.”
Thank you, name and zip code, etc…
williamc
@Citizen Alan:
Thanks Alan. Someone besides Glenn Greenwald needed to say it (since apparently he pays himself money from his PAC and is the DEVIL!). It all has to be someone elses’ fault because it can never be the fault of the White House.
Martin
@Citizen Alan: So your point is that because you don’t like some of these Democrats that we are right to wreck this bill regardless of how much good it might do, as some kind of, what, punishment?
I think that proves my point quite well, actually.
Elie
@kay:
I really can only say that if the Democrats do not “bring it” — now — do not have the courage to do this — then I am done with ’em.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for a Democratic legislator — maybe not even once in a lifetime. If you can’t pull up your britches and look risk in the eye, well, not only do you not deserve to be there, but you do not deserve to ever ever criticize anything about things as they are ever ever ever in this country.
This is a gut check for Obama, for the Congress and for the American people. Hamsher and the purists and the right wing teabaggers will always be there — or something like them. But this — this is what it should mean to be a progressive Democrat to me…
Martin
@mcc: Wasn’t just FDL. Kos said to kill the bill as well, as well as many others. Kos didn’t go nearly as far as Jane, but he was hardly willing to support this, always gambling that there would be another chance to redo it, overlooking a Jan special election (or taking for granted the outcome). I tell you, there’s no limit to the amount of time I could have spent on websites like this one defending the bill against attacks from Obama voters.
Sorry, but the GOP set this stage and Democrats happily performed on it and now want to pass the buck to 11 other groups. If you want HCR, you fight for it in whatever form you can realistically get, and you go back for more later if it wasn’t enough. That’s what the WH plan was – sign what Congress was willing to pass, move on to the next thing, loop back around for a 2nd bite later, but keep the legislation flowing. That’s why they said to give Lieberman and Nelson what they wanted. But the left decided at that moment to throw down the gauntlet and say no, we’d rather punish these guys than get HCR. Well, who’s getting punished now?
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: And I agree it was a feature for some, but nobody who didn’t fight for this bill should now be distraught to realize the full consequence of their decision.
mcc
It doesn’t matter! You are wasting our time with this. Your spat with Jane, Kos, whoever is boring and unimportant. They. Don’t. Matter.
Yes. Now stop whining about irrelevant, fake-progressive blogger/media personalities and do that.
Martin
Ok, but this is systematic of the same problem. Now you’re going all purity on the party. The only way to fix this is to focus on what actually matters to you and support the people willing to move in that direction. Everyone gets hung up on distractions – gutless, corporatist, etc. and is more interested in pushing traits that they dislike rather than actually get important legislation passed.
Brachiator
@Martin:
What is this, government by mob rule? “Give us Barabbas!”
Actually, there hasn’t been any argument at all. On some radio program this morning, I heard some GOP bonehead talk about how the voters in Massachusetts expressed their anger. I suppose you can fill in any argument you like there. But timidly reacting to anger ain’t governing.
There was also talk about voters being angry at Democrats running up the deficit. Odd, then that when Bush was running up the deficit, Cheney calmly told critics to shove it.
So, are you suggesting that the Democrats sign on the the GOP agenda (tax cuts, war without end) because this will make the shouting tea baggers go away?
Loud voices from the left is not the same thing as huge numbers of dissatisfied lefty voters. Nice try.
I’m saying that success engenders contentment. The Democrats ain’t even trying.
General Winfield Stuck
@valdivia:
Harry Reid has thrown in the towel on doing anything more on HCR until Brown gets sworn in and Obama has agreed. If the House doesn’t pass whats been passed by the senate, HCR, as we know it is dead/ And if anyone thinks getting anything short of Health Care Wingnut Welfare Act For Big Pharma out of the Senate now is living in la la land.
My Obotness is still in tact. And that above all else means facing political reality. I don’t assign the dude special powers, I like him because he works with the founders framework of separation of powers, not an all powerful unitary executive. And to prove the progs run the show, now one of them will respond to this comment with a Greenwald approved list of things that Obama is really like Bush with exceeding SOPowers authority. And following that, another prog will show up claiming Obama is weak and feckless and could make the senate do his bidding if he was more like Bush. I have run out of idiot sticks to smart them with.
My comment relates to the blogosphere and the red meat it provides to the MSM food fight mavens of dissent meme rock and rollers. The joke is, there are only a relative handful of Obots and pragmatists in the netroots huddled together in a handful of left leaning blogs, and one is BJ.
There is no “throwing progs on the pyre or under the bus” we obots ARE the fire, and the undercarriage of the bus. I know when I am surrounded by morons with pitchforks led by Saint Jane the Prog Martyr, and her pure hordes of true believers. The bill is likely Kilt. They win, and it was never really in doubt, given their numbers and willingness to destroy to get what they want.
I am still an Obot, but I suspect it will only be until Jan. 2013, and then we will all pull together and develop a righteous case PDS. And you can guess what the P stands for. Rinse, cycle, repeat. Dems are ungovernable for common cause, and therefore cannot be expected to govern a country, despite an overwhelming majority.
Bhall35
@Crashman06: Yeah, shamefully, I wasn’t paying much attention during the primary, knowing I would vote for the Dem no matter who it was. That’ll teach me to take primaries for granted, although I’m definitely old enough to know better. Whaddaya know? The quality of the candidate matters!
kay
@Elie:
Elie, I am sorry for introducing doubt in what is an admirable “action thread”.
I try not to parse people’s words, because it trips me up. My ordinary approach is to just read the words.
I don’t know what Obama meant to say.
Martin
@Brachiator:
So Cheney is the new role model of the left? I don’t think you’ll get many takers. Much of the energy that swept Obama into office was backlash against that kind of governance.
You’re suggesting I give in to the GOP, but I’m not. This can be solved, quite dramatically tonight, and make the MA election result ancient history.
Right now the battle isn’t between the Senate bill and the right, but the Senate bill and liberals in the House. If liberals in the House are unwilling to accept the Senate bill, then we’re down to bringing a Republican on board and MA matters. If the House votes on the Senate bill tonight, then MA wasn’t significant in any way, HCR passes, the GOP loses this round, and Obama has something to crow about in the SotU.
So where do you think the pressure needs to be applied and who is willing to apply it? It’s not on the blue dogs but on the liberals in the House to compromise on what the Senate can deliver.
Citizen Alan
@Martin:
All it “proves” is your functional illiteracy. I said earlier in this very comment section that I have already called my congressman and urged him to vote for the Senate bill (assuming he will even be given the chance to do so, in light of Obama’s ridiculous comments made earlier today which are probably the death-knell of HCR for the foreseeable future).
I was merely pointing out how silly it was to blame “the left” for HCR’s imminent demise when “the left” has largely capitulated on everything at every stage of the game (save for a few ultra-left bloggers who have no power at all save to drive up John Cole’s blood pressure). If, as I expect, HCR is now doomed to die, it will be at the hands of the radical-moderate wing of the party, which inflicted a “death by a thousand cuts” in order to burnish their “centrist” bonafides.
kay
@Elie:
Congress is too diverse and fractured to have a “gut check”. The thing is huge, and unwieldy. I was explaining the concept of Congress to a 6 year old the other day (don’t ask) and she said “it’s so many people!” And it is.
I agree with you though on Obama. Not in a short term sense, as in “do or die moment” but in a larger sense.
He’s losing. We haven’t seen how he reacts to losing, yet, whether he can change course or will just plow forward, or bail completely on anything difficult, but we’re about to find out. He can’t actually quit, so he has some choices to make about how he is going to react.
Losing is a lot different than winning, and he’s mostly won :)
Martin
@Citizen Alan:
Once again, you can’t capitulate from a hypothetical. The only position that exists is right now. What is the left giving up from the current reality? I don’t see that there’s much that this bill makes worse from what people already face. How is that capitulation?
What exists now is the Senate bill. The House can either take it or leave it, and that puts reform in the hands of the liberals in the House, not the moderates or anyone in the Senate.
Brachiator
@Martin:
So Cheney is the new role model of the left? I don’t think you’ll get many takers. Much of the energy that swept Obama into office was backlash against that kind of governance.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that the Democrats rightly respond to noise and gas, when Cheney was clearly keeping the GOP lunatic fringe happy.
No. I’m just suggesting that you’re excusing a tradition of craven do-nothingness that the Democrats have been stewing in since Dubya was first semi-elected.
I agree with you that this would be good strategy. Very good.
Isn’t this what the president and the Congressional leadership should be considering? And if this is not apparent to them, then they are playing no-dimensional chess.
cat48
close Gitmo, torture prosecutions, the continuing of Bush’s wars
No one promised torture prosecutions–show me where. Pelosi killed that when she said “no impeachment.”
If you want Gitmo closed, call your Congressman. Obama requested the money to buy the prison in IL. They said NO, not during an election year. He has transferred out every prisoner he can. The Congress has voted to keep the prisoners at Gitmo. If he transfers any here, he’s breaking the law. Call congress or quit whining.
He has given a date for withdrawal in Iraq per sofa agreement. He mentioned everyday DURING the campaign he would send at least 3 brigades to Afghanistan. He said he would increase, not withdraw troops.
Citizen Alan
@Martin:
Ya know what’s funniest about all this (and by funny, I mean disgusting and sickening):
If the Senate bill is passed through the House with no changes, I think it will probably pass with more Progressive Caucus votes than with Blue Dog votes. And when it does, assholes like you will still be out here punching hippies because if only even more of them had bitten the bullet and voted for this shitty, shitty bill to save
Carter’sObama’s sorry ungrateful ass, then more Blue Dogs could have voted No and maybe survived next November.