Can Obama Salvage Healthcare Reform? Or Have DCCC Wrong-Headed Candidate Recruitment Policies Killed His Chance To Win On This?

Obama isn't Bush-- and Obama isn't unredeemable. Yesterday Matt Taibbi posted that "there are rumors all over the place that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is about gone, and I’ve even heard some gossip indicating that Rahm Emanuel might have to start watching his back." I would like nothing more than for Obama to come around and abandon the terrible advise he's been getting from Wall Street shills like Emanuel, Summers and Geithner. Yesterday he spoke at Lorain County Community College in Elyria, Ohio, primarily about jobs. And he addressed healthcare reform as well:

I had no illusions when I took on health care. It was always going to be hard. I knew from the beginning that seven Presidents had tried it and seven Presidents had failed. But I also knew that insurance premiums had more than doubled in the past decade, that out-of-pocket expenses had skyrocketed, that millions more people had lost their insurance, and that it would only get worse.

I took this up because I want to ease the burdens on all the families and small businesses that can’t afford to pay outrageous rates. I want to protect mothers, fathers, children from being targeted by the worst practices of the insurance industry.

Now, we’ve gotten pretty far down the road, but I have to admit, we’ve run into a bit of a buzz saw along the way. The long process of getting things done runs headlong into the special interests, their armies of lobbyists, and partisan politics aimed at exploiting fears instead of getting things done. And the longer it’s taken, the uglier the process has looked.

I know folks in Washington are in a little bit of a frenzy this week, trying to figure out what the election in Massachusetts the other day means for health insurance reform, for Republicans and Democrats, and for me. This is what they love to do.

But this isn’t about me. It’s about you. I didn’t take up this issue to boost my poll numbers or score political points-- believe me, if I were, I would have picked something a lot easier than this. No, I’m trying to solve the problems that folks here in Elyria and across this country face every day. And I am not going to walk away just because it’s hard. We’re going to keep on working to get this done with Democrats, Republicans-- anyone who is willing to step up. Because I am not going to watch more people get crushed by costs, or denied the care they need by insurance company bureaucrats, or partisan politics, or special interest power in Washington.

Seems to me the only thing he can do now is lead and Americans will be happy to be led towards expanded Medicare that starts at age 50. It would be a big win for Obama and if the GOP extremists and obstructionists oppose it... it could turn into a catastrophe for them.

Thursday, New Jersey Republicans were claiming to be shocked-- just shocked-- that one of their millionaire congressional candidates, Scott Sipprelle, has been donating lots of money to conservative Democrats. The 5 Democrats he donated to, all mangy Blue Dogs-- Allen Boyd, Jr. (FL), Charlie Melancon (LA), Heath Shuler (NC), Baron Hill (IN) and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD)-- are among the Boehner Boys who cross the aisle and vote with the GOP over and over on core, substantive issues. Boyd, for example, was the only Democrat Bush got to join the Republicans in a plan to gut Social Security. This year, in fact, Boyd (44.62%), Herseth Sandlin (37.88%), Hill (32.31%), Shuler (30.30) and Melancon (21.54%) have voted with their own party less than half the time, in Melancon's case less than a quarter of the time-- and while he's running, putatively as a Democrat-- for the Louisiana Senate seat.

The Democrats bring this on themselves. Today DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen was whining about how horrible some of these Supreme Court judges are. Well, they are-- but the DCCC bolsters these kinds of conservative, anti-working family politicians. Look at the Democratic slobs who guaranteed corporatist whore Sammy Alito would sit on the Supreme Court with the express intention of voting the destroy campaign finance and confirm his corporate masters' unassailable position in the political drivers seat. Of the 18 Democrats who voted to cut off debate and allow Alito to win confirmation, 10 of them were in the House before they were elected to the Senate. Even this week the DCCC was up to it again-- working diligently to undermine a grassroots progressive Democrat, Doug Tudor, on behalf of a reactionary Blue Dog corporatist, Lori Edwards who is being sponsored by the Blue Dog Caucus and the aforementioned anti-Social Security fanatic Allen Boyd. Help Blue America and Doug Tudor fight back against DCCC Insider, conservative perfidy. And while you're there, keep in mind that last year Barack Obama stepped in and saved Blue Dog John Barrow's neck in the Democratic primary. Barrow repaid him by voting against almost everything Obama has tried to accomplish since then. In fact, since Obama was elected, Barrow has voted 31.82% with Democrats and the rest of the time with the Republicans. Regina Thomas-- who supports virtually all of Obama's pro-family agenda-- is running against the untrustworthy Blue Dog again.