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Obama v. Blue Dogs: Who Will Win?
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
It seems that Obama is bringing the fight to the Blue Dogs' home turf.
Personally, it's about time. The only way the Blue Dogs will stop being a barrier to progress is if they actually feel threatened, and this should be a good move to get them out of their comfort zone.
Late Friday night Organizing for America and the Democratic National Committee announced the expansion of the "It's Time" ad purchase, which uses personal stories of health care struggles to drive home the need for reform. The initial purchase was on national cable and in eight states with critical Democratic and moderate Republican Senators.
Now the scope of the campaign is expanding. The ad will appear in the media markets that overlap with the congressional districts of 15 members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Twelve of those districts belong to Democrats, including Rep. Zack Space (Ohio), Rep. John Barrow (Georgia), Rep. G.K. Butterfield (North Carolina), Rep. Jay Inslee (Washington), Rep. Mike Ross (Arkansas), Rep. Bart Gordon (Tennessee), Rep. Baron Hill (Indiana), Rep. Charlie Melancon (Louisiana), Rep. Mike Doyle (Pennsylvania), Rep. Jim Matheson (Utah), Rep. Bart Stupak (Michigan), Rep. Jerry McNerney (California).
The three Republican districts belong to Rep. Fred Upton (Michigan), Rep. Mary Bono Mack (California), and Rep. Greg Walden (Oregon)
...
No representative is named in the ad. But every one of the aforementioned members will know that the spots are airing in their districts. The markets where the ad will run, according to the OFA/DNC press release, are: Savannah, Palm Springs, Seattle, Nashville, Bloomington, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Little Rock, Columbus, Marquette, Grand Rapids and Medford.
Personally, it's about time. The only way the Blue Dogs will stop being a barrier to progress is if they actually feel threatened, and this should be a good move to get them out of their comfort zone.
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AngelHedgie on
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Look at Sanford's stance on state spending related to travel expenses...except when it comes to his.
Fiscal responsibility is a stance for 99% of the politicians who espouse it, not an actual belief. It plays well for voters because it sounds great. They don't actually care about the money being spent, they care that its getting spent in a way that doesn't assure them jobs in their district like the F-22 stuff does and the subsequent elections those jobs help win. Its the same with the voters: the fiscal responsibility stuff is great - until its taking away jobs where they live.
Blue Dogs believe spending is evil unless it benefits big corporations. Especially with employees in their districts, and since the F-22 is a gigantic fucking boondoggle specifically designed to be uncancelable for that very reason (parts made in 47 states I think, and some absurd number of districts) ... they looooove it.
The funny thing about the health care thing and the Blue Dogs is that the CBO score shows the House tri-committee bill would save six billion over 10 years. Of course I think that's slightly gamed by the 2013 start date for the public plan and actually why the public plan wouldn't start til 2013, but whatever.
Obama's not going to "confront" the Blue Dogs, because he is one. The only difference between this and the rest of his bullshit is that now he's distracting people with the centrists instead of the Republicans.
"I got nothin"
You want something constructive they could do? They could try to get this atrocious bill killed. Instead Obama's just leading everybody by the nose, again, so that all the health care lobbyists he practically let co-write this new example of "reform" end up happy.
I'm honestly disturbed no one's caught on to the pattern his administration uses of stirring everyone up with tribalism to pound through shitty legislation. It's a tactic he's been perfecting ever since the primaries. Remember all the Hillary shitstorms that kept getting thrown around? It's gone from that, to McCain, and then to everyone who might keep the latest corporate agenda from getting pushed through, inadvertently or not.
This isn't a confrontation. This is just more rah-rah crap that's going to end with a few minor concessions being made, Obama saying some stirring words and then more of our money getting snatched with absolutely nothing to show for it.
I mean, maybe you're right. But nothing you've written here would change anyone's mind.
I don't understand the thought that since everything didn't come out perfectly then even having tried at all was the product of some nefarious motives.
The bill is empirically worse than what we have right now. It doesn't cut costs, it just increases the burden on the lower classes, and the public plan's criteria are so narrow that Reuters estimates only three goddamned percent of the population will be on it by 2019. Everything about it, from its donation-drenched concession to the final tepid outcome, suggests it's just a veiled handout to insurance companies subsidized with taxpayers' money.
But no, whenever Obama's around there's got to be a silver lining. After all, if there weren't then all that time you spent getting worked up over him in the primaries would be for nothing, right? Your own sense of rightness is at stake here!
From http://www.slate.com/id/2222840/
"Premiums for the public option will vary regionally according to the cost of living in different geographic areas and must be sufficient to cover the program's costs. That's been a given for some time. Payments to doctors and hospitals will correspond, at least for the program's first three years, to payment rates under Medicare, which typically are lower than payment rates under private insurance plans. Doctors already participating in Medicare can charge an additional 5 percent, as can doctors (like pediatricians) who have never provided services covered by Medicare. Even with that sweetener, doctors, hospitals, and insurers will likely hate this provision—doctors and hospitals because it will reduce their per-patient income relative to what they charge private insurers, and insurers because they lack the financial clout to demand comparable volume discounts. The House bill does not, as the American Medical Association feared, compel doctors who participate in Medicare to participate also in the public option, but if these doctors choose not to participate, they must alert the government. The same goes for hospitals. Prescription drug prices will be negotiated by the secretary of Health and Human Services—a privilege famously denied HHS when Congress added a prescription benefit to Medicare in 2003."
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
Obama doesn't have a hand, at all, in crafting legislation. Study up on your branches of government, dude.
Calm down, Chicken Little. You're entering into 'meltdown mode' rather quickly here. Take a step back, breathe in a few times and come back calmer.
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See now you could have gone two ways with this post. You could have told him why that bill wouldn't work or you could just tell the opposition he is an idiot for having his own opinion. You went with the latter of course. More productive?
You call that explaining your position?
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
Right, because Baucus and Emmanuel don't answer to him at all. Checks and balances are also as firm and well-defined as ever, even despite the Bush administration policies that Obama's been so desperate to hold onto!
You're welcome to keep pretending that he's just a babe in the woods who's trying to fight for your rights, it'll just make you wrong.
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
Which ones would actually help him in this case? Even signing statements can only do so much.
Yeah backing up arguments with citations, or hell, actual information and discourse is such a crazy standard to have on D&D.
Crazy!
Okay, Emmanuel isn't a member of congress either. 0 for 2. You managed to get one right with Baucus, but I'm not following how his opposition to health care reform is all the fault of Obama.
Here is the health care bill in it's entirety. What text in it supports your claims?
I'm not disagreeing with you, I want to know, but I won't just take your word for it.
I would think the Washington ads would be aimed more towards Cantwell than Inslee.
--is literally all you've said about the health care bill in this thread. Then you posted an avalanche of invective. For the life of me I really have no idea what's in the health care bill, I'd like to know, and if you'd summarize your objections in a rational fashion I might be convinced that it's a bad thing. But for the time being you just look like a crazy person.
AFAIK this is paid for by a tax on households making >$350,000 a year; how is that a burden on the lower class?
Here are the two summaries I found that provide a good start. Already posted the first one in the last thread.
And another, with later confirmations added by me:
And all of this is supposed to be before the bipartisan paring-down, in what's supposed to be the most favorable progressive climate we've had in decades. But no, blame the Republicans, blame the Blue Dogs, Obama's got nothing to do with it, he'll fight for us and wants us to have the best because that's what he said in the primaries and politicians never lie. The man and Axelrod built up a huge marketing campaign on him rather than his policies, and at points it's turning into a cult of personality. It's fucking creepy.
The only bright spot is that Kucinich proposed an amendment that would allow for state-by-state implementation of health care plans, which is basically how Canada got their current system (province by province). It passed with enormous bipartisan support - even a few of the heavier right-wingers voted for it. I have no idea why, probably something to do with states' rights. But with our luck it'll get pared down by the Senate and neither Obama, nor his handlers, nor the media will make a peep about it. Instead the airwaves will be flooded by things like this moronic anti-Blue Dog ad campaign.
I'm in his district, and even the Republican that ran against him sounded like a Democrat.
I've heard concerns about Cantwell not being confirmed as being on board with the healthcare reform, so that is what makes me suspect that she is a more likely target for Seattle ads, as the Puget Sound area would be her main base of support as well. Murray is on one of the committees shaping the bill in the Senate, so I doubt it is aimed at her.