Keeping The Churlish Blue Dogs Off Balance
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-by Doug Kahn
Oh, c’mon folks. If we’ve learned anything about Congress and health care reform, it’s that you can’t really believe anything they say in public. I just hope you’re convinced now that you can do amazing things. I don’t mean the impersonal ‘you’, as in ‘one can do anything’. You, I mean.
I really think you have the Senate on the run. You rattled Harry Reid, and enabled Chuck Schumer. Chuck doesn’t say much. When you hear he’s made a statement, that means he wants you to know something about the reality of the situation. He said that a bill without a public option wasn’t worth a damn, and that was a public challenge to the other Democratic Senators. If they go up against a public option, they’re going up against Chuck Schumer, who’s going to be the next Majority Leader in the Senate. In effect, that’s what he is now. You heard him praising Harry Reid as a great vote-counter and an all-around jolly good fellow. This is someone asserting that’s he’s in a superior position, and it must be the way he’s acting in the private meetings. Result: Harry Reid has to prove to his herd of cats that he’s still in charge, so he’s acting in a way that shocks everyone. I believe they’ll end up passing a bill with some form of public option; didn’t Schumer say he could accept the opt-out version? That’s what it’ll be, then.
As to why this is possible all of a sudden, the answer is: you. It’s actually helpful that Chris Bowers and Open Left people have a strategy that differs from Mike Lux or Digby or McJoan or Jane Hamsher. Markos. Josh Marshall. HCAN, Governor Dean’s group, everyone else whose name I can’t remember, and the even larger number of people I’m too dull to have noticed.
I don’t know 1% of what the aforementioned have done over the past 5 or however many years, It’s a few of the people I pay attention to, in no particular order. I have a weakness for Hullabaloo and Crooks and Liars. Hell, I’ve been known to read Howie Klein’s stuff.
Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. They’re showing weakness, something they avoid at all costs. I claim to know more about politics than I really do, but I’m pretty certain of this: now is the right time to stomp. Do not let them get up off the floor. It’s not the time to thank anyone, not yet. Don’t try to analyze exactly what worked, just do more of it as soon as you possibly can. More ads, more petitions, more opinions, more threats, more demonstrations, more hyperbole, more.
Don’t you think the House is the place to pressure now? Repeatedly counting votes seems to be good, it’s helping. The so-called moderates are trapped by circumstances beyond their control, forced to actually do something that will significantly change society. Some of the Blue Dogs weeks ago made it publicly clear they’re going with Pelosi wherever she goes, but most of them are twisting and turning in an effort to save face, claim they can still say no, without actually saying so. They definitely want to avoid your personal attention, I’m convinced of that. Otherwise, they’d just say no, because it puts them in a better bargaining position.
For god’s sake, even the village idiot Mike Ross has been trying to say nice things about reform and Medicare without actually committing himself to anything in particular. They see what you’ve done to Blanche Lincoln, Olympia Snowe, Ben Nelson, Landrieu and others. If you can lay waste to Senators, even temporarily, what happens when you focus on a member of the House? I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea just to pick a Blue Dog and start running ads, just hammer one in particular, and see what the rest of them do. I suggest picking someone who isn’t a solid no vote, because it’d stop every single Bad Dog from thinking he/she is safe just because there are worse or more vulnerable colleagues. You think that’s harsh, I guess. It helps to imagine them as the worst kind of non-thinking humans yelling This is Sparta! and kicking Nancy Pelosi into the pit of doom.
UPDATE: Poll at Daily Kos
We want to know who your least favorite Blue Dog is. Vote at Kos.
Labels: Blue Dogs
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 10:00 AM
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7 Comments:
"Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. They’re showing weakness, something they avoid at all costs."
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There are some who would claim that the sudden resurfacing of Bayh and Liberman's outburst over the public option have less to do with fighting back than they do with kabuki theater--that they were expected to scuttle things for progressives, and oh, darn, we did our best, but I guess we'll just have to go with the opt-in plan, after all! It's suuurre better than the trigger, though, isn't it?
No, we don't have anybody on the ropes, because we don't know what's going on. I'll gladly continue signing (and occasionally contributing) to try to get the best progressive deal we can, but let's not kid ourselves. We don't need pep talks. We need a continuous dose of straight-hitting reality, so we can deal with whatever comes.
Just to be clear in the above, I desperately want at least the public option--hell, the insurance industry was able to gut so much else, it's the very least we deserve. But at this point the rumors and leaks are flying everywhere, the so-called moderates who are in fact political hacks looking for favors are resurgent, and that smell in the air isn't the one normally associated with triumph over one's foes.
We have a long row to hoe, here, and even if we succeed, we'll have to continue pushing, and pushing, and pushing, just to get some good provisions added in to make a barely bearable law better over time. We can do it, but it will take unrelenting effort from all of us, not claims of "the evil ogres are on the ropes!" when they plainly are well-funded, well-organized, and willing to do anything to succeed.
Tim Holden D-PA-17.
I talked with his office Friday and they refuse to commit. I told them the netroots would fund a challenger if Tim voted against a public option. They're scared.
I thought it was clear that the reason for my post in the first place was to say we need 'unrelenting effort from all of us'. As in 'do not let them get up off the floor' etc.
I thought I was seeing various people musing about which strategy had 'won over' Harry Reid, prompting me to say in paragraph one that you can't believe anything they say in public.
But you have to recognize that he said it, he wouldn't have said it without pressure from somewhere, and it's not coming from the White House. It's coming from people like you, Balakirev, and since you're making them do things I want them to do, please keep it up. More of the same.
Yes, they're willing to do anything to succeed. You have to stop them. Work harder.
I sense that you perceive me to be congratulating myself for accomplishing something. I promise to examine my attitude, see if you might be correct. I think not, though.
I'm not sure you realize I'm in this to get a result next November, deliberately and publicly defeating at least two Blue Dogs, even if it means Republicans win. I believe it's the only way to have a lasting effect on the rest of that crew, prove to them that opposing progress brings real consequences. Anything short of that, like getting them to vote one way or another at any particular time, is failure.
It's obvious just from the few paragraphs you wrote that you favor realism. Give me some advice on who to target and how to beat them.
Nice one: I never made myself out to be an authority, but you ask me to offer you advice in an effort to catch me flat-footed. Nice switcheroo. Try again.
Let's get back to subject. What you wrote was:
"I really think you have the Senate on the run. You rattled Harry Reid, and enabled Chuck Schumer."
and...
"Whatever you’re doing, it’s working. They’re showing weakness, something they avoid at all costs. I claim to know more about politics than I really do, but I’m pretty certain of this: now is the right time to stomp."
So since you're the person who claims to be the authority, how about you tell us all those obvious signs of weakness you wrote about? How did we rattle Reid, from the conservative state of Nevada, where his challenges are from the right? How did we provide all the mainstream press to Schumer? Please, enlighten me. Show me all this concrete evidence of we've done to people like Reid and Schumer. And before you say, "Well, how can I show you anything solid, it's all DC, it's behind the scenes," remember, you're the one who made claims about what we did to the Senate Majority Leader. Is Ben Nelson paying attention to us? Bayh? Joe the Lizard?
I'd dearly love to believe those petitions I sign really did help wobble Walmart Blanche, or strike fear in Reid's heart. But where's the evidence to back your statements up?
I don't like being called dishonest. And when I say I don't like it, I mean I really, really, really don't f***ing like it. If you have anything positive to say, anything helpful, do it. I don't lie, I don't make things up, and I don't try to deceive people. On your way.
Well, you don't like being called dishonest--even when you're only being accused of a standard debate tactic; and I don't like being ordered about. So I guess we're even.
Except, of course, that you're still ahead, because you haven't backed up a single one of your claims about how we have Reid on the run, "enabled" Schumer, etc. I can't say I really expected you to address these directly, but I had a bit of hope.
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