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native wrote:"If" Obamacare passes today, which is better for Republicans, a sweeping win with a large margin so that a larger number of Democrats in swing districts can be targeted in midterm elections, or a narrow victory so that those Democrats in swing district who vote "yes" can be more directly and personally targeted as having provided the margin of victory?

FargoBison wrote:

native wrote:"If" Obamacare passes today, which is better for Republicans, a sweeping win with a large margin so that a larger number of Democrats in swing districts can be targeted in midterm elections, or a narrow victory so that those Democrats in swing district who vote "yes" can be more directly and personally targeted as having provided the margin of victory?

Narrow, it makes the bill look even worse if a decent number of Dems won't vote for it.

As if liberals need more motivation to push health- care reform, Rush Limbaugh, in a profoundly patriotic move, said last week he'll be "leaving the country" if health care passes. VOTE YES ON REFORM. SEND RUSH PACKING! It's a bumper sticker with the virtue of no reference to "cost curves" or pre-existing conditions.

Progressives are so dispirited—and, like the rest of the country, so sick of talking about sick people—that they can't wrap their heads around the reality that this is the Big One, the Super Bowl, for all the marbles. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner can scowl, but Republicans are now nearly irrelevant to the process. The only real question is if Democrats are in the mood to slit their own throats. The bill is complex, but the politics are simple: if health care doesn't pass this spring, Obama's domestic presidency is finished. The Democratic Party will be, to borrow a phrase from Nixon, a "helpless, pitiful giant." By contrast, if the bill gets signed, Republicans are setting themselves up for a "repeal the bill" campaign that will likely backfire in November's midterm elections. That's eight months away, but if the bill passes I'd bet on the GOP winning only a few new seats.

This is Politics 101, a class that many Democrats apparently flunked. The House Democrats who voted for the bill at the end of 2009 have no choice but to vote for it again if they have any clue as to what's in their political self-interest; the he-was-for-it-before-he-was-against-it ads write themselves. And the more conservative Blue Dog Democrats who voted against it need to understand that no matter how toxic health care is in their districts right now, things will be a lot worse if they have to run under the banner of a failed president. Voters won't reward them for being fake Republicans—they'll vote for the real ones instead.

The fate of the bill now rests mostly with the House. (The 51 votes in the Senate needed for reconciliation won't be a problem, but procedural hassles lie ahead; Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin is about to become one of the most powerful people in Washington.) So I'd like to single out the "Suicide Six": Democrats—besides abortion foes like Bart Stupak—from districts Obama carried who are threatening to withhold their votes and blow up everything.

Eliot Engel—a Ben Nelson wannabe, it appears—is holding out for New York to be "treated fairly." He may be right on some of the merits, but when he told me, "I can't vote for something that makes my state worse off," I prayed he was bluffing. Worse off for whom? Not the uninsured. Note to Eliot: your district went 72 percent for Obama. Do you really want to break the president? Brian Baird of Washington state, John Barrow of Georgia, and Melissa Bean of Illinois want more cost containment. I'm with 'em. I'd like to see a Medicare commission with teeth. But if they don't get what they want, their vote still shouldn't be a close call. Don't blow it, guys; the status quo on costs is worse. Larry Kissell of North Carolina says health care is "badly needed," but his "line in the sand" is Medicare, which he promised not to cut. But experts say that, eventually, Medicare will be chopped much more severely for the elderly in need without the cost-control pilot programs in the current bill (especially phasing out fee-for-service medicine). Then there's Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, whose district went 59 percent for Obama. One question, Dennis: if it's good enough for the socialist senator, Bernie Sanders, what's your problem?

These members all know that, according to a Harvard study, 40,000 people a year die for lack of health insurance. Do they want that on their consciences? It's hard to imagine they do. This is their moment of truth as Democrats. Let's face it: if they vote to cripple a Democratic president now, they ain't real Democrats. It's like a Republican voting against Bush's tax cuts. In 2001 no House Republican did.

Ironically, this is not as hard a vote for Democrats as it looks. Sen. John Cornyn, the Texan who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, says the midterms should be a "referendum" on repealing the health-care bill (if the bill fails, the Republicans will run against it anyway). Because the insurance-industry reforms kick in immediately, this means Republicans would be running against protections that even those queasy about health-care reform are not going to want stripped away. Whose side will candidates want to be on? The insurers—or average people happy that they have the security of not worrying about their health if they lose their job? Even the lame message mavens of the Democratic Party can handle that one. Can't they?

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

hank scorpio wrote:This was written a couple of weeks agao, but the ending paragraph is the important part.

A Losing Strategy
The GOP will run against health care.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/234862" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As if liberals need more motivation to push health- care reform, Rush Limbaugh, in a profoundly patriotic move, said last week he'll be "leaving the country" if health care passes. VOTE YES ON REFORM. SEND RUSH PACKING! It's a bumper sticker with the virtue of no reference to "cost curves" or pre-existing conditions.

Progressives are so dispirited—and, like the rest of the country, so sick of talking about sick people—that they can't wrap their heads around the reality that this is the Big One, the Super Bowl, for all the marbles. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner can scowl, but Republicans are now nearly irrelevant to the process. The only real question is if Democrats are in the mood to slit their own throats. The bill is complex, but the politics are simple: if health care doesn't pass this spring, Obama's domestic presidency is finished. The Democratic Party will be, to borrow a phrase from Nixon, a "helpless, pitiful giant." By contrast, if the bill gets signed, Republicans are setting themselves up for a "repeal the bill" campaign that will likely backfire in November's midterm elections. That's eight months away, but if the bill passes I'd bet on the GOP winning only a few new seats.

This is Politics 101, a class that many Democrats apparently flunked. The House Democrats who voted for the bill at the end of 2009 have no choice but to vote for it again if they have any clue as to what's in their political self-interest; the he-was-for-it-before-he-was-against-it ads write themselves. And the more conservative Blue Dog Democrats who voted against it need to understand that no matter how toxic health care is in their districts right now, things will be a lot worse if they have to run under the banner of a failed president. Voters won't reward them for being fake Republicans—they'll vote for the real ones instead.

The fate of the bill now rests mostly with the House. (The 51 votes in the Senate needed for reconciliation won't be a problem, but procedural hassles lie ahead; Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin is about to become one of the most powerful people in Washington.) So I'd like to single out the "Suicide Six": Democrats—besides abortion foes like Bart Stupak—from districts Obama carried who are threatening to withhold their votes and blow up everything.

Eliot Engel—a Ben Nelson wannabe, it appears—is holding out for New York to be "treated fairly." He may be right on some of the merits, but when he told me, "I can't vote for something that makes my state worse off," I prayed he was bluffing. Worse off for whom? Not the uninsured. Note to Eliot: your district went 72 percent for Obama. Do you really want to break the president? Brian Baird of Washington state, John Barrow of Georgia, and Melissa Bean of Illinois want more cost containment. I'm with 'em. I'd like to see a Medicare commission with teeth. But if they don't get what they want, their vote still shouldn't be a close call. Don't blow it, guys; the status quo on costs is worse. Larry Kissell of North Carolina says health care is "badly needed," but his "line in the sand" is Medicare, which he promised not to cut. But experts say that, eventually, Medicare will be chopped much more severely for the elderly in need without the cost-control pilot programs in the current bill (especially phasing out fee-for-service medicine). Then there's Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, whose district went 59 percent for Obama. One question, Dennis: if it's good enough for the socialist senator, Bernie Sanders, what's your problem?

These members all know that, according to a Harvard study, 40,000 people a year die for lack of health insurance. Do they want that on their consciences? It's hard to imagine they do. This is their moment of truth as Democrats. Let's face it: if they vote to cripple a Democratic president now, they ain't real Democrats. It's like a Republican voting against Bush's tax cuts. In 2001 no House Republican did.

Ironically, this is not as hard a vote for Democrats as it looks. Sen. John Cornyn, the Texan who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, says the midterms should be a "referendum" on repealing the health-care bill (if the bill fails, the Republicans will run against it anyway). Because the insurance-industry reforms kick in immediately, this means Republicans would be running against protections that even those queasy about health-care reform are not going to want stripped away. Whose side will candidates want to be on? The insurers—or average people happy that they have the security of not worrying about their health if they lose their job? Even the lame message mavens of the Democratic Party can handle that one. Can't they?

Baldy wrote:

hank scorpio wrote:This was written a couple of weeks agao, but the ending paragraph is the important part.

A Losing Strategy
The GOP will run against health care.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/234862" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

*sigh*

Another leftist opinion piece.

hank scorpio wrote:

Baldy wrote:
*sigh*

Another leftist opinion piece.

Sure, but the point is still valid. The reforms made can quickly spure the typical reactions you would see from people when there is talk of taking away social security, medicare, medicaid, etc.

Skjellyfetti wrote:And here's a good one David Frum wrote last night that's in agreement:

Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections. But:

(1) It’s a good bet that conservatives are over-optimistic about November – by then the economy will have improved and the immediate goodies in the healthcare bill will be reaching key voting blocs.

(2) So what? Legislative majorities come and go. This healthcare bill is forever. A win in November is very poor compensation for this debacle now.

So far, I think a lot of conservatives will agree with me. Now comes the hard lesson:

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: unlike, say, Democrats in 2001 when President Bush proposed his first tax cut, we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

Could a deal have been reached? Who knows? But we do know that the gap between this plan and traditional Republican ideas is not very big. The Obama plan has a broad family resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. It builds on ideas developed at the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s that formed the basis for Republican counter-proposals to Clintoncare in 1993-1994.

Barack Obama badly wanted Republican votes for his plan. Could we have leveraged his desire to align the plan more closely with conservative views? To finance it without redistributive taxes on productive enterprise – without weighing so heavily on small business – without expanding Medicaid? Too late now. They are all the law.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours.

http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Baldy wrote:
*Triple Sigh*

And yet again...another Leftist opinion piece. Right on queue.

hank scorpio wrote:

Baldy wrote:
*Triple Sigh*

And yet again...another Leftist opinion piece. Right on queue.

David J. Frum (born June 30, 1960) is a Canadian American conservative journalist active in both the United States and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush, he is also the author of the first "insider" book about the Bush presidency. His editorial columns have appeared in a variety of Canadian and American magazines and newspapers, including the National Post and The Week.[1] He is also the founder of FrumForum.com (formerly NewMajority.com), a political group blog.

Baldy wrote:

hank scorpio wrote:
David J. Frum (born June 30, 1960) is a Canadian American conservative journalist active in both the United States and Canadian political arenas. A former economic speechwriter for President George W. Bush, he is also the author of the first "insider" book about the Bush presidency. His editorial columns have appeared in a variety of Canadian and American magazines and newspapers, including the National Post and The Week.[1] He is also the founder of FrumForum.com (formerly NewMajority.com), a political group blog.

Dude. It was tongue-in-cheek.

David Frum is a RINO...

hank scorpio wrote:

Baldy wrote:
Dude. It was tongue-in-cheek.

David Frum is a RINO...

Must be low on batteries.

houndawg wrote:

FargoBison wrote:
Narrow, it makes the bill look even worse if a decent number of Dems won't vote for it.

Passed with three votes to spare.

Republicans Vow Repeal Effort Against Health Bill

WASHINGTON — As jubilant Democrats prepared for President Obama to sign their landmark health care legislation with a big ceremony at the White House, Republicans on Monday opened a campaign to repeal the legislation and to use it as a weapon in this year’s hotly contested midterm elections.

“We will not allow this to stand,” Representative Michele Bachman, Republican of Minnesota, promised Monday afternoon as the House reconvened.

Democrats said they would focus on explaining the measure to their constituents and on highlighting some immediate benefits, and called on Republicans to ease off the attacks now that the legislation had passed.

hank scorpio wrote:Sure, but the point is still valid. The reforms made can quickly spure the typical reactions you would see from people when there is talk of taking away social security, medicare, medicaid, etc.