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The quiet confidence among Democratic leaders over the health care bill belies the hardball tactics going on behind the scenes. The millions of dollars which will be spent this week by the Chamber of Commerce and the like is transitory and temporary, although where they’re playing offers a clue into who needs whipping.
But the support that the President offers on those phone calls goes beyond this week:
Mr. Obama is making daily telephone calls to Democrats who supported the health care bill last year, but have yet to decide how they intend to vote this time [...] The health care debate is unfolding against the backdrop of an already difficult political year for Democrats. The White House has signaled to lawmakers that assistance for midterm elections — for example, presidential visits and fund-raisers — will be prioritized for those who support the bill.
Playing bad cop to this good cop is MoveOn.org, promising to raise money for primary challengers for Democrats who vote against the bill.
The group is set to blast out an email to its five million member list Monday asking recipients to pledge anywhere from $25 to $200 (or more) for the purposes of defeating conservative Democrats who help defeat the legislation.
“Health care reform is in serious danger in the House of Representatives: with a handful of conservative Democrats wavering, we don’t yet have the votes to pass the final bill,” reads the email, which was sent in advance to the Huffington Post. “So we’re asking every MoveOn member: will you pledge to support progressive primary challengers to House Democrats who side with Republicans to kill health care reform?
Again, this runs into the problem of filing deadlines. For instance, one state with a lot of members in play is Ohio, which already finalized their primary ballot. But MoveOn dropped some names to Sam Stein who would face potential primary challengers – Scott Murphy (D-NY), Michael McMahon (D-NY), and Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL). McMahon has already been targeted by the local SEIU 1199 in New York.
MoveOn has raised over $1.2 million dollars for Bill Halter to challenge Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas, so they have the ability to fundraise through their membership.
Clearly, House members on the fence face an array of unpalatable options no matter their vote this week.
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O’s support could turn out to be a liability to candidates.
I don’t think the filing deadlines are that important. What is disturbing about the actions of many on the left and some of the progressive groups is that they’re so reductive. Anyone who votes against Obama’s bill is automatically demonized as a right-winger. There are no shades of grey. You’re either with us or you’re with the tea partiers. It’s ridiculous. Progressives aren’t allowed to be against the bill and still be considered progressive. I really thought the progressive left was more sophisticated, but apparently not.
MoveOn just lost my support.
So Rahm doesn’t think that it’s “f—ing retarded” to primary conservative Democrats after all, eh?
Health Insurance Company Welfare aside, Blanche Lincoln needed a primary challenge for any number of reasons as did Stupak. I won’t give any money to support primary challenges to congress critters solely because they oppose this abomination.
Wait a minute, if the votes aren’t there for the bill at this very moment, the whole thing has to be dropped as unpassable. That’s the way it works according to Obama, right? There’s no such thing as whipping or using your influence and power as President. You just sit on your hands and let Congress do their work, right?
Don’t confuse progressive voters with Democratic party establishment. Two separate animals altogether. Daily Kos for example is designed for and thus rife with partisan Democrats. I’m not partisan anything. They would have to move waaaaaay left for me to join their party. WAAAAAY left!
Well I’m seeing signs on the ground of a long-overdue shakeup in Democratic politics. My local county party (Indiana) just passed an official resolution last week urging the Indiana State Democrats to let delegates at convention decide on who our candidate to replace Evan Bayh will be rather than let the party insiders, just coronate their choice. I hear a lot of other county parties are interested in following suit.
Health care is another animal. I’m still not convinced I want the piece of crap Senate bill to pass with the promise that they’ll fix it later – and I suppose they have a bridge to sell me too.
All-in-all I think it’s going to suck in the short term (2010 elections and probably 2012 too) but it’s time the Party insiders realize they can no longer rely on simply “at least we’re not Republicans” to insure our support. The party machine needs to be broken down and rebuilt.
In an OT: has anyone heard much about this National Broadband Plan the FCC is going to drop on us tomorrow? It’s difficult to find much info about it, but what I’m hearing doesn’t make me very optimistic.
They have not lost mine.
Between 2007 and 2008, the members of my extended family paid about $4,400 per month for health insurance.
During that same period, we also paid about $60,000 out of pocket for co-pays, over and above the premiums.
So over 24 months, about $105,600 in health care premiums.
And over that same 24 months, averaging about $2,500 per month from the extended family members going out to health care co-pays.
If MoveOn, ActBlue, or other organizations can help me get a rein on those numbers and – to quote Obama, ‘bend the cost curve’ – then small amounts that I put in their PayPals are well worth it to me.
Good Morning David and Firedogs,
so lemme get this straight – if a pig like Stupak agrees to vote yes, MoveOn wont support Connie Saltonstall ? have I got that right ??
I’ve found Google’s Public Policy Blog to be a good source of info.
I think that this may be the post you want, but you can search their site easily.
The bills before the House and Senate are going to bring down costs how? Get ready to pay more. The only rein here is the continued and expanded reign the extortionist AHIP cartel (who wrote the bills) will have on an expanded serfdom.
Now that’s change I can believe in.
That’s the gist I get from it. My Obama sweat shirt from MoveOn.org is looking more and more like a polishing cloth every day.
Obama should have gone on his trip. He left it all up to Congress until now. Faux “progressives”.
No wonder the people in that restaurant Jane went to were so gloomed out
Tis the season for betrayal, being the Ides of March and all that.
I was encouraged, the group we had at the meeting all seemed a bit riled up and ready to be defiant. I’d like to see a little more of that.
Thanks. That’s a start, but I’m really interested in some informed analysis of what’s in the plan to be dropped tomorrow and how it will impact We the People.
I thinks it’s shameful that we lag behind much of the rest of the industrialized world in connection speeds, and we also pay more for that honor. I suspect, if the pattern of our federal government continues, the new plan will include generous give-aways to corporate America with little-to-no benefit for the people.
I live in a rural area that just finally got DSL as an option this year and of course FIOS isn’t likely to even be available for any price for years to come.
Pay more to get less. It’s the ‘free market’ way.
Maybe Obama, Congress, and Comcast can all sit down and craft a mandate for the purchase of internet access.
On the broadband announcement, they’re gonna bill it as a jobs plan, rather than on its merits. Here’s the opening piece of propaganda from Reed Hundt. Gotta be bad news when the excuse for the plan is something other than the plan itself.
Great idea! If they force everyone to buy broadband (even those for whom it isn’t available) maybe the big telecom and cable companies will make enough extra profit that if they get bored sometime years in the future, they can eventually expand service to some under-served areas… some day, you know, if they feel like it.
They probably already have, but the next year will be devoted to obscuring that.
Jane has a fresh cross-post already in progress: Community Colleges Get Screwed For AHIP
Gotta get Marcy to investigate who the consultants to the FCC are.
The Heath Insurance Reform does nothing to bend your cost curve.
It does bend the employers costs curve becuase the health plan tax enables employers to apply pressure on employees to move to less expensibe Helath Plans, not to less expensive Health Care.
Where, oh where, in this bill is the cost cut to medical providers?
Please explain from where you believe your savings will come?
Everyone will have a provider! (functioning connections will be another story)
Oy! If we really wanted to create jobs, how about the federal government actually hiring people to lay fiber throughout the country? That’s kind of an FDR thing to do – so it will not even be on the table.
Somehow they think it would be more efficient to spend twice as much to give private corporations money that they may or may not spend to expand broadband infrastructure.
Suzanne Kosmas is my rep. Just a few miles away from having a good rep (Grayson). She has been especially inarticulate on health care reform and in the process of trying to please everybody I believe she’s lost everybody. Seems dumb to me. In my view, she’s toast. Put her seat in the R column. If I’m wrong, I’ll………… I dunno.
“… to quote Obama, ‘bend the cost curve’ …”
By the time the provisions of the Senate bill kick in 4 years from now, your cost will have doubled (at least).
That you can bet on. And if you doubt it, watch what happens to Aetna or Wellpoint stock if the Senate bill passes.
But… Nationwide is on our side. The nice insurance salesman told me.
With Obama’s campaigning record over the past year, are you sure he is not using the offer to campaign in their district as a stick to Dems who don’t vote in favor??
In other words, “If you vote against my bill, I’m going to campaign for you in your district.”
That would definitely scare those House members.
How very helpful of MoveOn.org to serve the insurance industry so aggressively. I’ll make sure to never have a dime or a kind word for them as a consequence.
Just left a comment at MoveOn asking when they would be fundraising for primary challengers to blockers of the progressive agenda in the Senate and White House.
Yep. If I were a R candidate I would be hammering away at every rate increase, saying “where are all these premium rate reductions we heard about? Remember all that talk about ‘bending the curve?’ They didn’t tell us it was bending it UP.” That’s really all they need to say. All the stuff about giveaway to the insurance co’s is lost on most Americans. Besides, the R’s are happily owned by the cartel anyway.
It’s like Jane said earlier this weekend: It’s Paths of Glory, and Obama/Rahm is telling the Dem leadership to fire at the guys in the trenches so they’ll back the electoral suicide that is the Senate bill.
I don’t understand why the Veal Pen and the Rahmaniacs are so upset with us. Perhaps if we had a seat at the table as the health reform bills were being drafted, current tensions between proponents from both the Democratic party and the netroots community would not have been so strained.
I think the reason they didn’t include us is that they never took us seriously. They thought that in the end, we would submit to “the experts.” I don’t know where they got that idea, but hey… It’s never too late to consider a good idea.
This strategy of primarying at least needs some modification. If you get someone who wins the primary that’s not much better – or the same, or worse – than the person they’re replacing, it’s a lot of wasted effort.