Via Benen, Mark Kleiman reports that even Diane Feinstein’s office has noticed all the callers asking her to Pass The Damn Bill*. Of course I don’t know whether or not Kleiman’s information is accurate; you guys should call and double check.
Meanwhile, several Kos diarists such as Femlaw have written exhaustively about why PTDB Now is really the only way to go. I don’t have the time or skill for that kind of writing, so go read and give her your support. McJoan’s front page piece about contacting the Senate also deserves a read.
(*) In her case, Fix The Damn Bill With Reconciliation, or FTDBWR.
***Update***
Another Comment Of The Day, at Benen’s.
***Update 2***
If they ask whether you’re part of an organized campaign, just tell them that this is blogs. We don’t do organized campaigns.
Joe Beese
It seems the President doesn’t share your sense of urgency.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/25/congressional-frustration_n_435524.html
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/gibbs-on-whether-theres-a-new-health-care-deadline-not-that-i-know-of.php?ref=fpblg
demkat620
Pass the Damn Bill.
Fingers crossed.
BruinKid
Yeah, that was similar to the response I got when I called her office.
Interesting that the staffer did suggest that our club write a formal letter to the Senator, as he suggested it would carry some more weight than a phone call. So I hope to do that too at our next meeting.
Jorge
Called Jim Marshall
Let’s not hold our breath
valdivia
PTDB!
Ana Gama
Tim, thanks for the update!
flounder
wtf:
The rest of this comment is a fail, but if this is true it is excellent news.
NEVER MIND. HE MEANT 1 FLOOR VOTE AWAY.
Brian J
As Steve Benen notes, Democrats tend to run from their successes, or at least not be out in front of them. But if they pass a bill that accomplishes most if not all of what they wanted to do, that needs to be front and center of every single campaign in the country, but as a way to remind voters that this is merely a first step and that Republicans would not only bring us back to square one, they’d make things worse. My language here isn’t very uplifting, but I think it gets the idea across. The communications shops can work on that.
As I see it, there are about nine months to election day. Several polls have us down in various races, but if a week is a long time in politics, nine months is a light year. Unless things get so much worse for Democrats that there’s just no hope, which certainly doesn’t appear to be the case, it looks like there’s more than enough time to turn things around. Part of that can be defining the Republicans as the enemy of health care reform, but it’s easier to do that now rather than in August. And the sooner we pass the damn bill, the sooner we can start putting up billboards in Colorado, Missouri, Delaware, and North Carolina, among other places, making it so that when someone sees Jane Norton’s face, they think that she’s going to single-handedly take an axe to health care reform.
Brian J
@flounder:
Would that include people like Kucinich, who didn’t vote for it the last time supposedly as a protest vote because single payer wasn’t on the table? If not, I wonder how many phone calls him and the few others like him are getting and exactly what threats are being tossed around.
Pam C./femlaw
Thanks for the shoutout. I’ve been watching the posts and comments for days – can I say I’m really fired up to see the energy of people actually doing the work to PTDB?
You guys are great, keep it up. And who says blogs can’t be organized? I’m an organizer first and a blogger second, and this looks pretty damn organized to me.
RS
Better than that, say that a friend sent you an email. “Blogs” is a scary word in some offices.
JL
I finally called today. The Feinstein staffer I talked to seemed annoyed to be taking the call, but that could have been his deal. Glad to hear they are getting the message. Called Boxer, too but it was a voice mail. Called my Congressman, Howard Berman, and his staffer assured me he was on board. Told him a voter was very happy to hear that.
I called my California State senator and assemblyman as well. SB-810, Single Payer for CA passed out of committee and is once again up for a vote.
rikyrah
Pass the Damn Bill….
ICAM.
keep on saying it.
metricpenny
Tim,
I am attending the MoveOn rally in Smyrna, GA tomorrow. I was thnking last night that at some point we should chant “PTDB!”.
Got a chuckle seeing the title of this post.
KCinDC
I’m still bothered by the language about “assurances from the Senate” in Benen’s memo. It may be too late now, but it seems like it would be easier to win over House members if it had something stronger — perhaps about Pelosi holding the passed bill until the Senate did its part with the reconciliation fixes.
If I were a House member, I imagine my reaction on hearing about how I should trust assurances from the Senate would be to laugh in your face.
Am I missing something?
rootless_e
It’s interesting how “the base is demoralized” is said in a passive voice as if 1 year of wailing and minimizing any accomplishment has not had an effect.
Violet
@RS:
Agreed. Don’t say “blogs.” They’re terrified of blogs for some reason. An “email campaign” sounds much less threatening, but somehow sort of organized.
beltane
@Pam C./femlaw: Glad to see you here. I hope the badly treated Mahakali Overdrive shows up here one day as well. GOS has dropped the ball, Balloon Juice is what motivated me to call my rep on Friday.
beltane
@rootless_e: When it comes to discussing their own flaws, many of the A list progressive bloggers retreat behind a whiney “but we have no power” type of excuse, which kind of flies in the face of that whole “crashing the gates” meme. What is it? Are they crashing the gates or are they on the outside, standing on a street corner shouting at clouds in complete obscurity?
Violet
@beltane:
Me too. I started calling on Wednesday and have called every weekday since. GOS may be bigger, but it doesn’t seem to have motivated people to pick up their phones.
beltane
@Violet: They haven’t asked anyone to pick up their phones, and the FDL diarists still want the Senate bill killed along with all the uninsured Americans who will likely die as a result.
I guess I have too many economic anxieties to be a good progressive.
Jc
PTSB –
really, if democrats don’t get this passed, nothing Obama says will be believed, and every single important promise, from health to dastardly to addressing global warming, to clean economy, won’t be believed.
The next three years plus reelection rests on passing the bill.
Citizen_X
Organized? Hello: Democrats!
Zach
Two year ago I would say this doesn’t matter, but after candidates spent millions jockeying to get the highest number of friends and raised much more than that from online organizing (and, sadly, the tea party), it might be worth joining the PTDB Facebook group.
After calling, that is.
Leelee for Obama
My Rep. is Bill “Birther” Posey, so that’s a waste of time. Then, there’s LeMieux, same story. Think Bill Nelson is worth a long-distance phone call? I will if you think so, but, since he says the Left is to blame for the problems, I gotta say….
mandarama
I got the mailer today from the DNC asking me to pay my annual dues and “give generously for this year’s elections,” blah blah. I took a page out of jenniebee’s book (I think it was?)–wrote “You want my support? I want health care reform!” in big red Sharpie letters and mailed it back. I know it won’t mean much, but it felt good, anyway.
Will call Cooper again tomorrow to tell him to grow a pair, and will call crazy Marsha, Lamar!, and Corker to tell them it’s too bad they don’t have any ideas with so many TNeans suffering from lack of insurance.
Pam C./femlaw
@Beltane and @violet
I’m really glad you are motivated to call. But you should know that there are a lot of us at DK who are putting out the call to action, too. And if you look at the comments of my diaries, and those that Populista and Elise and others have posted in the last few days, you know that there are a lot of members of the DK community doing their part.
It’s a big place, and makes me crazy, but there are good folks and important voices there and I am committed to making sure those voices get heard.
We are seriously inspired, though, by what is going on here.
Tomlinson
@KCinDC:
Those assurances would be nice, but any house member who tanks HCR for “assurances” is one I will act to primary.
Let’s put it another way. Let’s say the house passes the Senate Bill as-is. Just up and takes it, no assurances, no nothing. They act like adults. I know, I know, I’m dreamin’.
Now all the house members and all the senate members are in exactly the same boat. Exactly the same one.
So now they work together to patch the holes.
That strikes me as both fair and realistic – and good for the country.
Ivan
Better yet, quote Will Rogers:
“I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat”
Jenn
As I was finishing a stint of train-the-puppy, I was thinking that it’s really the best way for progressives to train their congresspeople.
1. When they do something right (even if it’s something as basic as not piddling on the damn floor), give them praise and a pat on the head. Then they WANT to do things that will please you, and their good behavior gets more frequent.
2. Recognize that when you start yelling, they don’t hear nuance, all they hear is yelling. You can be yelling, “get out of the street before you get hit by a truck,” and all they’ll hear is “loud voice, I’m in trouble,” and they want to run away.
3. Censure them at the same time they’re doing something wrong. Once it’s over, it’s too late. At the same time, the degree of censure must be commensurate with the failure – e.g., no nuking the doghouse because one of your shoes has chewmarks. Similarly, if your dog pees on the floor for the second day in a row, getting twice as angry really isn’t going to help (see #2). A firm no, followed by lavish praise when they do something right, is a hell of a lot more effective.
It seems to me that if we applied these rules to our congress critters, we’d have a lot better results. Of course, that requires constant engagement, not just bitching online about Reid!Fail, Congress!Fail, Obama!Fail. Participatory democracy’s a bitch, huh.
ericvsthem
From TPM–
I live in Joe Sestak’s suburban Philadelphia district but have not yet had a chance to call his offices (dealing with recovery from thyroid cancer treatment this past week).
ominira
@ericvsthem:
I wish you a speedy recovery from the cancer treatment; calling Sestak can definitely wait.
SiubhanDuinne
The nature of my job requires that I regularly call a lot of Congressional offices about a host of issues unrelated to HCR. Today I had to phone half a dozen offices, fairly late in the day, and it was almost funny how *wary* the phone-answerers sounded. They must be getting really slammed with calls about HCR and sounded kind of relieved when I merely requested an appointment with the district director :-)
skippy
fixed.
DougL
FWIW, if you don’t have a fax machine, you can send a FAX via email using a specially formatted To address.
http://www.tpc.int/faxbyemail.html
The service doesn’t cover all area codes and exchanges, but there is a link on the page that allows you to check if the destination FAX number that you want to send to is covered by the network. I’ve already checked, and my congresswoman’s DC office fax number is covered, so I’m going out on a limb and guessing that all of the congressional offices in DC are covered.
Mahakali Overdrive
You rang?
Beltane! Such a big hello to you and to femlaw as well. Many blessings to you both.