Ben Nelson Threatens To Kill Health Care Reform Because Activists Ask Which Side He's On

If you're a DWT regular you certainly know-- and have known for years-- whose side Ben Nelson is on... and it's never been our side. He's always the "Democrat" most likely to cross the aisle, especially on crucial and substantive matters. He makes Lieberman look like a flaming progressive. He 's always the first to declare his opposition for anything progressive or anything that could be possibly construed as helping ordinary working families. Even though Arlen Specter was a genuine, card carryin' Republican until recently, when you match his ProgressivePunch score on crucial votes up with Nelson's (for the current year), Specter gets a miserable 42.22 (just better than Blanche Lincoln's 46.67) and Nelson gets a 33.33. That's out of a possible 100.

In 2006 when I suggested to my fellow bloggers that we make an example of Nelson's reactionary stance, I was voted down (to put it mildly). He wasn't behaving as badly-- they never do right before an election-- and people were scared that an even worse reactionary than Nelson (a Republican) might win the seat. "Don't rock the boat," I was told. I didn't. Now I'm sorry. Now we're all sorry. So now bloggers and progressive activists are attacking Nelson. But Nelson isn't up for re-election this year. Or next year. Or the year after. In 2012 who's gonna remember? Will the ads being run against him now make him change his behavior? I doubt it-- though there's as much a chance he'll get worse (which is what he's threatening) as him getting any better. Watch the ad; it's really excellent:



The PFA-PCCC campaign is very smart too, asking the Senate to stay on duty and not allow Nelson-- who is doing the bidding of his Insurance company donors-- to slow the reform bill down enough to kill it, their goal (and his)-- to do the Republicans' dirty work for them.

Why would Nelson be so against health care reform? Follow the money-- which is exactly what he always does. The Insurance Industry has showered him with $1,222,799, more than any other current member of the Senate-- corporate shill Rick Santorum took slightly more before he was defeated in 2006-- other than presidential candidates. And on top of that, the Medical-Industrial Complex and their lobbyists have given him another $1,034,266-- 83% of it from outside Nebraska, of course. And he's been worth every dime of it to be the voice inside the Democratic Party than will stand in the way of working families until the cows come home.

For someone who takes so much money from special interests from outside Nebraska, it was ironic to hear Nelson screeching about the ads and calling the small businessman in the ad-- a real person, not an actor-- "an outside special interest group!" Straight from the Lee Atwater-Karl Rove playbook! He's demanding this guy stop "telling [Nebraskans] what to think" and he threatened that if the grassroots keep pressuring him like this, "health care reform may be dead by the end of August.” And now he's got a shill blogger defending his reactionary politics. If you're feelin' flush, please help the DFA-PCCC campaign out with a contribution so they can increase their ad buy. Remember, if Nelson has a coronary or a stroke, he's and Diane have great taxpayer funded health care-- and lots of friends in high places inside the Insurance Biz.

If, on the other hand, you want to show reactionary Democrats who consistently vote with Republicans on crucial issues that progressives will make them pay a price for their perfidy, there is one who is in a tough re-election battle right now: Blanche Lincoln. Help us retire her from politics. Let's make sure Arkansas voters are aware of the insidious role their "Democratic" senator has been playing in helping Big Insurance water down the reform legislation. Let's run this ad in Arkansas TV as a follow up to the 1,000 spots we already ran there:



UPDATE: Nelson In Turmoil

Nelson just announced, as though he were some kind of Republican trying to show how bipartisan he can be once in a blue moon, that he's going to bring himself to vote to confirm Sotomayor. DFA and PCCC just announced they are tripling their ad buy against him because of his reactionary anti-family stand on health care reform.