Time to fight fire with fire.

How so?  What is the argument behind that conclusion?  And do you think the public's views on the bank bailout and health insurance reform play any part in the defections? 

and respect your position. The problem is for this election the liberal base of the Democratic isn't fired up. We aren't fired up because too many people like nd22 are telling us to shut up.

I know us Liberals cannot get everything we want, but it would be nice to get our fair share of the pie.

Bipartisanship is what he campaigned on, but it's also a strategy.  Now that Americans know so well that Republicans want nothing to do with bipartisanship, Obama will have much more leeway in 2010 to strongly and unilaterally address the number one issue this November; jobs, jobs, jobs.  By refusing to work with him on health care, Republicans won a pyrrhic battle (health care will pass), and have set themselves up for losing the battle (2010 and 2012).

I've just finished reading Richard Wolffe's Renegade, and yes, Obama does learn quickly and thoroughly from his mistakes.

those, would they have flown in Mass? I used to not think so, now I'm not so sure.

There is nothing to indicate that a stipend to help pay for health insurance is a benefit at all.  If the government is supplementing the purchase of health insurance with high copays and deductibles and which cannot be effectively used because of the expense, the insured is not getting much of any benefit- especially when it is compared to the public (and private) money the insurance companies are guaranteed.

Furthermore, it is a common phenomenon that any government funding is immediately subsumed by the beneficiary of the funding.  For example, college costs were able to rise so outrageously because the available loan sources increased.  Given the behavior of the insurance companies, there is no reason to expect the same will not happen here. 

If the Dems wanted to help the average American, they would have crafted a more pro-insured bill.  But, let's not forget this is the bill that Obama wanted all along. 

Your 5-year argument is a bad one, and here's why:

THis entire thing, whether it is with 60 votes or whether it is with 50 through reconciliation, is premised on the idea that it is going to be very popular after it goes into effect and people see the benefits. If it is not pretty popular, then it's going to be gone whenever the GOP gets back into power anyway.

It is the popularity of the policy that dictates its staying-power. The GOP has been trying to get rid of Social Security and Medicare for a long, long time, but can't because people like them.

However,

1) the current bill's positive effects mostly don't even go into effect for 3 or 4 years, while the negative effects start sooner, like the taxes to pay for it. That greatly increases the chance that it will be unpopular and is therefore gone sooner rather than later.

2) If it is indeed popular, then renewing it 5 years from now it will be likely, and if it is not popular then there's no real reason to believe that we will get any more time for the positives in this bill than 5 years (which would be 8-9 years from now, since they don't go into effect for years)

3) If there's a chance that the stuff getting through reconciliation would be more popular than this bill (hard to see how it could be less, that's for sure), then there's a better chance for long-lasting reform through reconciliation. At the very least, it could have less of a lag time for the popular parts to start instead of just the unpopular instead of the delay that the current bill has.

sorry, but it's what you get when you run as fast as you can to give into every new demand by people who want to kill real reform while you tell progressives to take a hike.

You decide to givbe lieberman what he wants then what you get is this bill - a furter entrenchment of for-profit companies as the gateway we have to pass through to get our health care, and a lack of enforcement for anything besides the mandate.

It's the opposite of what we need, which would be to move away from private insurance companies. Instead, we force more people to be their customers and throw even more money at them that will then be used to buy even more of our legislators.

I think it is pretty clear we are not going to agree on this. But just know that a lot of us who worked for Obama's campaign see this as selling out the American people to the insurance companies to preserve Obama's "bipartisan" image and to be able to call something, anything, "health care reform"

I'm sure Obama WOULD pass the card check bill if he could, but he can't...  He's not the legislative branch.

BTW, if Brown wins, there dcertainly won't be ANY card check bill ever....  Trumka was predicting a card check bill passed before spring with the HC stuff almost done.  That won't happen with Brown!

from people who just showed up on a blog in the last few days.

You should vote for who you think will be better for your country. That's all that I do.

agreed.

it seems that on this blog, if you dare to criticise the giant giveaways to the very companies that are screwing us over...you get personally attacked with vulgarities.

nice knowing ya...for the five minutes since you showed up here.

nice knowing ya...for the five minutes since you showed up here.

I mean the abuses at Gitmo were worse under Bush.

A real progressive doesn't think only of themselves. There are a lot of people who will be hurt by a Republican return to power and a lot of people who will be helped by even watered down reform, if you can't think of them when you vote, then I'm not sure how you can consider yourself progressive?

I would personally beneft from Republican rule. That estate tax is really eating into my inheritance. Whether abortion or gay marriage is illegal or legal makes no difference in my life, but when I vote, I think of the greater good of society, not whether or not I've been personally attended to. Doesn't sound like you're interested in really helping people, sounds like you're only interested in feeling personally vindicated and victorious in political fights, because if you were really interested in helping people and felt our current crop fell short, you'd be out there fired up for primaries, rather than threaten to committ political suicide.

I never thought I'd see such selfish people touting as progressives.

SCHIP expansion... vetoed by Bush, signed by Obama. Is that waving the middle finger at liberals?

Ya... your life might not be "any better". But this is not about you.

really.

Thanks Jerome

What some do not get is I want President Obama to be the Great President and that is why people like me are demanding more from him. We know President Obama has the ability to be great and our nation needs a Great President in this point of our History.

the polls have repeadidly, clearly, shown that Obama's approval rating is 5-10 points hire than Coakley's share of the vote and his disapproval is 5-10 points LOWER than Brown's share of the vote, meaning there is a big overlap of Obama supporters who are voting or Brown. Another words if Obama's disapproval in Massachusetts is 57% and Brown is getting 47% of the vote as Rasmussen showed last week, that means there's at least a 4% overlap. 100-57=43, meaing 43% is Obama's disapproval/unsure rating, assuming Brown is getting all those votes, which even isn't certain, he's getting at least 4% of the 57% who approve of Obama. Nate Silver even talked about this.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/01/massachusetts-its-not-just-about.html

The Rasmussen poll that just came out -- one which shows Coakley's lead shrinking from 9 to 2 points -- also shows Barack Obama with a 57 percent approval rating (versus 41 percent opposed) among likely voters, and the health care bill favored by 52 percent of likely voters (versus 46 percent opposed).

According to the poll's internals, right now about 8 percent of the electorate both (a) favors health care reform, and (b) has not been brought into Coakley's column. This includes 5 percent of the electorate which favors health care but is planning to vote for Scott Brown, 2 percent for the independent candidate, and 1 percent who favor health care who are undecided.

In addition, about 11 percent of the electorate approve of Barack Obama but are not planning to vote for Coakley.

If that isn't clear enough, here's a letter to Andrew Sullivan from an Obama supporter who is voting for Brown;

I was a very early supporter of Obama. I was living in New Hampshire two years ago. I signed up to go door-to-door to talk to people about his candidacy and in contrast to Hilary. I trudged through feet of snow in the week before the primary. I entered homes and had great discussions with my fellow residents. I went to Claremont, NH and shook Obama's hand. I rallied the night before the primary in Concord. He lost the state but I knew we were on the right side of history.

I'm with you in thinking that Obama is the best thing the Democrats have going for them right now. But I also think that in having the supermajority, they actually undercut him. They don't have to compromise and so they don't try to. Instead, what passes as legislation is a horrid mismash of corporate interests and traditional, not progressive, balms of the Democratic Party. I know this country can do much, much better. And I think Obama needs a less powerful Democratic party to make it happen, like Clinton did.

For all the reasons you cite about Coakley, I'm voting for Brown. But let me add a few more. I'm a split-the-ballot kind of guy. I don't think the dominance of the political system by one party is ever good for the country. Too much changes too quickly and without the necessary compromises to slow the pace and make it more realistic. We all agree that the GOP is a mess. But we also all agree that we need a stronger GOP. And despite the rhetoric, I can't think of a better candidate to help than Scott Brown. He's not perfect, but if he thinks he can go along with the national GOP and keep the seat in the next election, he's going to be out of a job. In voting for him, I hope he'll moderate that party. And that's what's funny to me about the rush of support he's getting from the Right. If a Republican from Massachusetts isn't a RINO to them, I don't know who is. It also helps that Brown has already voted for a health care plan with a public option. So to someone like Malkin who was ready to toss away a Congressional seat in NY for "purity", I now laugh at their support of Brown

My only hesitation in voting for Brown is how that vote will be spun by the mediots in the Beltway. Let me say emphatically that my vote for Brown isn't a vote against Obama. It's a vote against the Democratic Party, and hacks like Coakley, but also a vote to help moderate the GOP. One more New England Republican is necessary. Of all the places the GOP might find it's path again I hope it's from where it was born.

I was a very early supporter of Obama. I was living in New Hampshire two years ago. I signed up to go door-to-door to talk to people about his candidacy and in contrast to Hilary. I trudged through feet of snow in the week before the primary. I entered homes and had great discussions with my fellow residents. I went to Claremont, NH and shook Obama's hand. I rallied the night before the primary in Concord. He lost the state but I knew we were on the right side of history.

 

How much more proof do you need?