Democrats Between Barack And A Hard Place
by Big Dog on Jan 20, 2010 at 16:59 Political
The Democrats suffered a huge defeat last night, a defeat that could spell disaster for them because it leaves them between Barack and a hard place. Their leader, Barack Obama, is determined to press on with his health care takeover plan. Fortunately for him he does not have to worry about being reelected for nearly three years unlike every Democrat in the House and many in the Senate who will face the public in ten short months.
Some Democrats have expressed that maybe, just maybe, they need to slow down on this health care issue. Maybe they need to scale it back, involve some Republicans and work things out rather than just ramming through a poor bill.
This is because they know what happened in Massachusetts can happen in any state in the union. They are aware that they can be defeated and lose their cushy, all expense paid jobs.
The problem the Democrats now have is that they forced a vote before Christmas which means it was before the election in Massachusetts. In their haste to pass something, anything, before Obama’s State of the Union Address they shot themselves in the foot. Why would they have had anything to worry about? Massachusetts is considered a very blue state and an easy win. Looks like they took Massachusetts and its people for granted.
The Senate Democrats rammed this through in the dead of night and forced it upon us. The people saw this and decided that electing a Republican would take away the filibuster proof majority and put some checks in place. That is how Scott Brown, a virtual unknown, came out of nowhere to beat the name recognition candidate on the left.
Democrats have spent quite some time telling us how wonderful this bill is and that they are looking out for us and they would not vote for it if it were bad blah, blah. Now they might have to decide if they really want to vote for it. Those who did then but don’t now will lose credibility because the public will see that they were lying about how wonderful it was. The public will see that when they said they were willing to lose their jobs to pass it they really did not mean it. And if they do not pass the bill it will be perceived as a failure by the left wing base.
If they decide to pass it with no regard for what took place in Massachusetts then they will be siging their own political death warrants.
Make no mistake, this was about health care. A lot of things can be said to have played in on this such as Coakley being a poor candidate or running a poor campaign but the reality is that Brown campaigned on being anti this legislation. He signed autographs with the number 41 indicating he would be the 41st vote and would end this mess.
Barack Obama flew up to Massachusetts like Mighty Mouse to save the day and he did not once mention health care in the speech he gave (neither did Coakley). If the health care was so wonderful and Obama wanted it passed and people loved it so much, why did they not mention it?
They did not mention it because people are not in favor of it. People do not want the mess they are peddling and Obama knows this and that is why he did not mention it. Any other time he is talking about it and the need for it. He did not discuss it here because it was the defining issue in the campaign.
Perhaps the voters of Massachusetts noticed that he failed to speak about his signature legislation and figured that there was a reason.
Whatever they felt, the people of Massachusetts did a wonderful thing for this country by driving a stake through the hearts of the blood suckers in the Democrat machine.
Hey Washington, can you hear us now?
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Tags: brown, coakley, health care, Massachusetts, Obama
It looks like the Democrats will fold like a cheap suit under the awesome power of the 41 member minority in the Senate. I hope they know what they’re getting into when they delay this thing. If they think passing the thing before Brown is seated is going to hurt their chances in November just wait until the Republicans crush the reform entirely and then remind the public how the Democrats wasted two years on it and got nowhere. That’s really going to get folks to vote Democrat. Cowards.
Congressional majorities are going to come and go. What the Democrats are doing is risking a once in a lifetime chance for passing significant health care reform in the name of playing it safe and covering their asses against a minority GOP that has won 1 congressional seat in the last 4 years and is hell bent on preventing any success by the Democrats in passing the agenda they were voted into office on. Remind me again why Harry Reid being behind in the polls is a bad thing?
Right now it looks like they are not going in the direction you predicted but they might pull some cheap stunt to pass it.
I think you and they have misread why they were put in office. A lot of people voted for him after Bush fatigue and out of white guilt. They did not vote for this kind of health “reform.”
People are showing this now and Obama is stunned. My how the Mighty [One] has fallen.
So I suppose the Democrats won sweeping elections in 2006 and 2008 but they shouldn’t dare work on their major agenda pieces or risk losing their seats? That’s wrong and you know it. The Democrats won seats on more than just anti-Bush fervor and it’s time they got a spine and stopped taking advice from those people who want nothing more than to see them fail.
I feel confident the Democrats understand that they will hurt themselves more by not passing the bill than by passing it, but it appears they want to start again trying to convince the public that they are working with the GOP when the GOP wants nothing more than to obstruct, delay and derail the Democrats entire agenda. They have one chance to get this right if they’re smart about it.
A successfully passed health care bill and a continued recovering economy will protect them in their re-elections this year, not some foolish attempt at bi-partisanship that gets the Democrats nowhere every time. If either part of that equation fails then they can kiss their majorities goodbye and I’ll be telling my grand kids about how we were THIS close to changing direction on health care…
I seem to remember you praising your party when they obstructed Bush at every turn. Nuclear option would be wrong then, they are considering it now. When I wrote posts about not trusting Democrats because they would do it as soon as they needed to you mocked me.
My comment less about the merits of obstruction and more about the Democrats realizing the GOP wants to obstruct, not help them with their agenda. The GOP knew better than to trust the Democrats advice on how to work their agenda when the GOP had the majority so I don’t know why the Democrats seem to still want to seek bi-partisanship that just waters down the work they are doing and then gets 0 votes from the GOP anyway in the end.
Adam- Sometimes, doing nothing is a positive step, and it sure would be in this case- but do the Progressives understand this?
I really doubt it- they couldn’t find their own butt with two hands and a GPS.
And I definitely still think the nuclear option is a bad idea. The only people who want a nuclear option are people who are too stupid to realize it’s just going to prevent them from leveraging any minority power in the future.
So you admit that leveraging minority power is a good thing. Then quit whining when the Republicans do it. Both parties do it.
What amazes me is Barney Frank wants the Senate rules changed to allow a simple majority to decide and he is NOT in the Senate. He said it was not Constitutional but it clearly is. The Constitution says each chamber may make its own rules.
If they change this just to get what they want now it will come back to bite them in the future and would be no different than what Massachusetts did with regard to appointing replacement Senators. You can’t keep changing the rules when they do not benefit you.
I’m not whining about GOP leveraging minority power. That’s fine with me. Yet, is it too much to ask for the 59 person Democratic MAJORITY in the Senate not to cower to the 41 person Regressive Party? Get real, Democrats, you spineless, gutless cowards. I’m going to mail Harry Reid a cardboard box to clear out his desk with…
Harry Reid has just a few more weeks left to prove himself with a health care bill that gets to Obama’s desk. Otherwise I hope he likes spending more time with the grand kids…
Harry has grandkids? Does he have to stay 1,000 feet away from them? He sure looks like he might.
Harry Reid’s son is running for governor of Nevada so Harry might drop out so as not to drag his sone down. One of them needs to be in government because the corruption is how they make money.
They are not cowering to the 41 person minority, they are worried about the millions of voters who are not happy with them. The MA election was the warning shot.
They can proceed but they do so at their own peril, which they now seem to realize.
They want to keep their jobs more than anything. When it comes down to it, that is ALL they are concerned with.
“They are not cowering to the 41 person minority, they are worried about the millions of voters who are not happy with them.”
Here’s a news flash for the Democrats. There’s always millions not happy with them. Yet, if they pass a health care bill and the economy stays on track to recovery then they’ll find the anti-incumbent sentiment muted in the areas that matter most. They can’t protect the seats they won only because of anti-Bush sentiment but they can protect their majority and protect their precious older seats in red areas like Sen. Lincoln in Arkansas.
Yes but Brown got 22% (or so) of the Dem vote in MA and the Dems are losing independents so the people they have to worry about are not the ones who would have opposed them regardless.
Lincoln will have a hard time being reelected.
Economy is not on track to recovery though the Dems are now talking jobs and economy (which I think was the plan all along so they could drag it into the election year).
DOL:
In the week ending Jan. 16, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 482,000, an increase of 36,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 446,000. The 4-week moving average was 448,250, an increase of 7,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 441,250.
I told you this in December indicating that seasonal jobs would be gone after the holidays. Why was this unexpected by the experts?
“Economy is not on track to recovery…”
Don’t kid yourself. There will not be a strong recovery this year but there will be a recovery. The problem is when businesses start adding jobs then people will return to looking for work and the unemployment rate will go up even more before it starts to go down for real. If the Democrats can keep the GOP from hammering them on a growing rate despite job growth then they’ll do alright.
“Yes but Brown got 22% (or so) of the Dem vote in MA…”
McCain already got 11% of the Dems in 2008 and 40% of the independents. You can’t draw much of a conclusion from this one race as to how the rest will go.
If the Democrats take care of business then the voters will take care of them. If they listen to the Republicans (What is it folks say about Greeks bearing gifts?), essentially taking the advice of a group of people sent into exile already for their own incompetence, then the Democrats will get what they deserve. They’ll get more time with their families and then a nifty job as a lobbyist a few years later when that gets old.
Jobless numbers went up AGAIN- the double dip recession I warned about will happen, but the descent will be slow- simply because we already have so many people out of work, that the numbers must, of necessity, slow- like the last bit of water going down the drain.
There’s always a chance for a 2nd or 3rd dip. This was a bad recession.
I made this point last year and was accused of wanting it to happen. It is a bad recession made worse by government interference.
“It is a bad recession made worse by government interference.”
Not that you have an ounce of evidence to back that up.
Only the history of recessions and government interference. Only a stimulus that was supposed to keep unemployment below 8% and did not. Only the fact that we keep going deeper in debt with nothing to show for it.
“Only a stimulus that was supposed to keep unemployment below 8% and did not.”
Is that the best you can do to attack it? Unemployment was higher than predicted even before it passed. Job losses have declined greatly and they are still reporting we added jobs in November. CBO and a survey of economists agree: the stimulus has had success so far in it’s first year. But yeah, sure. Unemployment is higher than they predicted so the stimulus has made the recession worse…
If you’re accused of wanting it to happen perhaps it’s because you insist it will happen with 100% certainty as an attack on Obama and Democrats. As for me, I hope it doesn’t but I know it’s a possibility. I’m sure that’s how you feel too but how you feel and how it looks from a partisan standpoint is two different things.
Adam, I would love to see the country do well but I believe the current agenda will not do that. Interestingly, Obama might end up in good shape like Clinton did if Republicans take control of Congress this year. Once that happened Clinton was forced to be more centrist and Republicans put forward things he got credit for, things that made us better. If this happens again Obama will have to be more moderate in his approach and things will get better.
I am a realist, each time we have tried what is going on now things have gotten worse. In any country that has tried it things have gotten worse. Government interference is what made a bad recession the Great Depression.
Bigd: “Obama will have to be more moderate in his approach…”>>
DAR
Obama has been very moderate and centrist in his approach. Consider the case made in these excerpts by Nate Silver.