Democrats Discover Their Base
How to Stop the Bleeding
More Nonsense About the Public Opinion
In the Financial Times today, S. Ward Casscells, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense in George W. Bush’s sterling administration, and pollster John Zogby have an op-ed calling for Congress to start over and draft a bipartisan health care bill. “It is possible a Republican leader could yet emerge and resolve the healthcare impasse,” they intone. And oh yes, it is possible, too, that aliens could land is Oshkosh and take over city hall. READ MORE >>
How to win
I have always believed that the key to getting health care reform through Congress lay with President Barack Obama, not with Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid. Obama had to win back public support for health care reform so wavering Democrats wouldn’t feel they were risking their jobs by voting for it. Well, it may be too late, and those of us who favor reform may have to rely on Pelosi’s skill to get this through, but there are signs that Obama’s health care summit has changed some minds. READ MORE >>
Round Two
In his speech today in the White House East Room, President Obama clearly indicated that he is going to press for a comprehensive, and not a piecemeal or “skinny,” health care reform bill. He also made it abundantly clear that he will accept, if necessary, a party-line simple majority vote in the House and the Senate in order to get the bill through. Reconciliation here we come. READ MORE >>
Labor and Delivery
Where Was Barack?
I have assumed that the real purpose of today’s health care summit was to rally public support for comprehensive health care reform – the kind of reform sketched out in the president’s own proposal this week – and that by rallying the public, the administration hoped to allay the fears of wavering Senators and House members that they would suffer retribution in the fall if they voted for the bill. It was part of what I’d like to call the White House’s “outside” game. But I wonder whether the White House really gets it. READ MORE >>
