I’ve been saying this since last night, and now Brian Beutler has picked it up, but the media has decided to run with the “health care reform is doomed” message, when the fact of the matter is that, in the two races where people will vote on health care is concerned, the supporters of reform won. It’s fairly stunning that traditional media outlets can overlook the fact that public option and single payer supporter John Garamendi won in California, and health care reform and public option supporter Bill Owens won in New York.
Nancy Pelosi, speaking to reporters about the races, seemed to understand this.
“From my perspective, we won last night,” said Pelosi (D-Calif.), referring to the New York special election for the House seat previously held by Republican Rep. John McHugh. “We had one race were engaged in.” [...]
Pelosi said she saw a win for her health care plan, noting that Owens mentioned the health care legislation in his victory speech.
“In his remarks last night he said it was a victory for health care reform and other initiatives,” Pelosi said.
In her statement on both victories last night, Pelosi said that “I look forward to welcoming Congressmen-elect Owens and Garamendi to the Congress this week and working with them and my colleagues to reform health insurance and continue America’s economic recovery,” a clear indication that both will be sworn in before any voting on health care commences. This gives Pelosi a 40-vote cushion to pass the bill, rather than 38.
If there’s any hedging on health care reform, it’s coming from Blue Dogs who don’t want to vote for health care at all, or anything else in the Democratic agenda. They’re trying to use the election as an excuse not to vote for any of it. But they were no votes anyway, and they’re taking the exact wrong message from the election results.
The fact that Pelosi and the House leadership released their health care bill last night, in anticipation of a vote as soon as Friday, shows that they’re fairly confident of passage. They should be more so, given that they just picked up two votes.
UPDATE: Dennis Moore, a Blue Dog from Kansas, just came out in support of health care reform and the public option. This of course means that health care is dead forever.
UPDATE II: David Axelrod addressed this just now with Andrea Mitchell, taking the experience of Bill Owens in NY-23 as a model:
If the Blue Dogs welcome their new colleague, Congressman Owens, and remind themselves he’s the first Democrat to hold that seat, and he ran on the Obama agenda, I think they’ll think, “Y’know, we’re onto something if we stick to this.” [...] I think that this should be reassuring to Democrats, and I think it will.”
UPDATE III: Republican House leadership aides are trying some dirty tricks by claiming Owens might oppose health care reform, based on dated material from his website, but I’ll go with what he said in public at a debate last week about the actual bill.
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Somone stupid said last night on MSNBC that the entire Virginia and New Jersey delegations would now be voting against the health care reform bill. Not sure who that was, at racist Pat Buchanan’s face appeared next, so I clicked off the teevee.
But when the final vote happens, I will be interested to examine that hypothesis. I predict not a single vote in either state changes.
Both Democratic House candidates ran on support of Obama’s health care plan. Both were elected, in historically GOP districts. Democrats swept the House races yesterday. Nancy has two more votes in her caucus, which means health care opponents need two more votes to stop it.
The train accelerated down the tracks yesterday, although TradMed argues that health care reform was derailed.
The media has their collective villager heads in the dark opening of their butts about the implications of the 2009 elections. I just heard Chris Mathews say that the Virginia Governor’s race results should strike fear into the hearts of “moderate” Democrats and move them toward opposing the PO and Health Care Reform. Why? Because Deeds, who opposed the PO and other issues supported by progressives, like environmental regulations, lost by nearly 20 points! Hopefully people like Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson will realize that they will meet the same fate as Deeds if they try to act even more like Republicans and vote against the PO. I’m not sure they are wise enough to read the handwriting on the wall, but I know they can’t win their states if the base doesn’t show up at the polls. This is a point that needs to be driven home to the Blue Dogs everyday, and perhaps to President spare change himself.
Number One: Nearly ALL the Blue Dogs are suspect in their voting records and rhetoric as they are merely corporatists. These are the same people who say disappearing jobs can never return.
Number Two: Every one of them who are up to bat this election cycle will likely lose unless the Republicans continue their maniacal march into conservative He!! Good Riddance. May the door hit you in the arse on the way out.
1) I agree
2) The Right doesn’t understand what they are doing and seem to think if they move more toward FAR Right, that somehow will get them more seats. Maybe in traditionally Republican Districts but not in most races and it will make the them even smaller.
What stinks is that people like Nelson will look like liberals when they aren’t and keep their seats.
I like this from kos at the Daily Kos for his list of lessons learned.
1. If you abandon Democratic principles in a bid for unnecessary “bipartisanship”, you will lose votes.
2. If you water down reform in favor of Blue Dogs and their corporate benefactors, you will lose votes.
3. If you forget why you were elected — health care, financial services, energy policy and immigration reform — you will lose votes.
I hope Democrats stick to these three rules. I really, really do.