Maybe it is because I live in Pennsylvania, but I grow weary of reading paragraphs like this that do not include the name of my senior senator.
GOP leaders have begun reaching out to these [Democratic] centrists, hoping they will buck their party on Obama’s two biggest initiatives: healthcare reform and climate change legislation. Now that Democrats control 60 votes, Republicans must peel off a few members of the majority to stage a filibuster. Leading the pack of potential defectors are Sen. Ben Nelson, a pro-business Democrat from Nebraska; Sen. Joe Lieberman, a self-described Independent Democrat from Connecticut; and Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat who represents a conservative state.
Arlen Specter was a Republican until about five minutes ago. He’s hardly a reliable vote for the Democratic Caucus. I mean, seriously.
And there are actually a bundle of other Democrats who rarely get any serious scrutiny. How about Tom Carper of Delaware whose voting record would make more sense if he represented Georgia? Or how about Tim Johnson of South Dakota? You think he’s not in the hip pocket of big business? Has anyone noticed that Evan Bayh has lurched to the right of Rick Santorum ever since his dream of being veepee went up in smoke? Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln are basically owned by Wal*Mart.
It’s not just Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and Lieberman who are a problem. Max Baucus is probably the second or third most conservative Democrat in the Senate, and as chairman of the Finance Committee he’s basically in charge of health care reform. His Montanan colleague, Jon Tester, is a great guy but he’s compiling a pretty pro-business voting record himself.
I like Byron Dorgan a lot, but he’s cast some pretty egregious votes lately, and his colleague Kent Conrad is the chairman of the Budget Committee and a big opponent of using the budget reconciliation process to pass health care.
Frankly, I am not all that impressed with the attitudes of freshmen Mark Warner, Kay Hagan, and Jeanne Shaheen, either. I think all three of them are half in the bag for corporate interests.
There is a basic reality that we all have to face. The United States Senate is a deeply conservative body even with sixty members caucusing with the Democrats. Part of this I understand. Because Wyoming has the same number of senators as California, the Senate has a very distorted ideological make-up. But here’s what I don’t understand. Why is Wyoming crazily pro-insurance corporation? Why do Democrats in North Dakota and Montana feel like they have to do the bidding of Wall Street? I know the electorate in these states are socially conservative. I know they have a libertarian streak. But what the hell do they care about the stock price of Aetna?
I read in my history books about prairie populism. What happened to that? What is the major malfunction?
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“If we create a public option, the public is going to end up paying for it.”
Lieberman
Lieberman said following an hour-long confab with public-health experts at the Ashmun Street community center of the Monterey Homes public housing complex. “That’s a cost we can’t take on.”
Hadassah Lieberman senior counselor @ Hill & Knowlton “health care and pharmaceuticals practice”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."What, because the public doesn’t pay for private healthcare?
I see it as money talks & BS walks writ large.
For some of the smaller state Senators, access by corporate interests is easier to come by, so their “contributions” go that much farther to getting the Senator re-elected and suffocating principled challengers for the seat.
I’m not sure about the climate change legislation, but Specter has come out publicly in support of the public option for health care. I can’t imagine that he would oppose the Kennedy/Dodd bill or anything similar.
As far as I can tell right now, there are 41 senators who have stated their support for a public option, 40 Democrats and Olympia Snowe. Two Democrats who get substantial PAC support from the insurance industry, but have come out strongly in favor of the public option, are Brown and Dodd. Murray, Cardin, Specter, and Stabenow also get a fair amount of PAC money from the industry, and support the public option. On the flip side, Conrad and Baucus get mucho PAC money, and oppose (although they never quite come out and say it) a public option. And Cardin, who also gets mucho PAC moolah and was confronted about it by David Shuster, seems to be lukewarm about the public option.
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight has done some interesting statistical analysis on the subject of the relationship between PAC money and support for the public option.
Both Hagan and Shaheen have indicated support for the public option.
These are the 41 that I have as supporting a public option: Akaka, Bingaman, Boxer, Brown, Burris, Byrd, Cardin, Casey, Dodd, Durbin, Feingold, Franken, Gillibrand, Hagan, Harkin, Inouye, Johnson, Kaufman, Kennedy, Kerry, Klobuchar, Kohl, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, McCaskill, Menendez, Merkley, Mikulski, Murray, Nelson (FL), Reed, Rockefeller, Sanders, Schumer, Shaheen, Snowe, Specter, Stabenow, Udall, Webb. Start calling. Call the 41 to thank them for their support and call the rest of the Democratic senators and ask them to support the public option.
(I also have to admit to disappointment in Dorgan and Tester, and I’ve just about written off Pryor and Lincoln.)
Thom Hartman raised my level of concern yesterday, talking about the special (unprecedented) oral arguments scheduled for September by SCOTUS on whether it’s legal to limit the “free speech” of corporations. It can’t be a coincidence that the GOP is trying to slow walk Sotomayor while Roberts fast tracks a hearing that could create almost unlimited influence for corporations in our election system.
Bernie Sanders has it right, but is spitting in the wind. We now have the votes in the Senate to simply establish a rule that every bill will get an up or down vote in this session (eliminate filibusters.) The public would actually love this; they hate the crap. But of course, it won’t happen because Liebermann, Ben Nelson, et all like their petty power.
Here’s my reading. Small states are inexpensive to propagandize because ad rates are less. Rural states are easy to propagandize because almost everyone listens to the local radio station almost all the time. And the local small businesses can sponsor Rush or the station can be part of money-losing propaganda efforts like ClearChannel and other large radio networks.
In addition, because of the more frequent interaction with a smaller number of people, peer pressure creates more uniformity of opinion in rural areas.
And, unlike Republicans, Democrats do not actively promote Democratic principles on the stump.
Finally, conservatives tend to have much better constituent services operations than progressives. And much more consistent and tighter focused messaging.
The only thing that can change this is Congresscritters being blowtorched from below, from activism in their constituents. Ben Nelson has felt the heat and so has Mary Landrieu. And Max Baucus. Hence the Ceci Connolly false story of Obama asking progressive groups to shut up and the possibly false Wall Street Journal article this morning claiming that Obama has caved on the public option. A classic case of those who don’t know talking.
I agree with this, and see my somewhat similar explanation downthread.
The major malfunction is We keep electing these bozos with big business ties who can’t get re elected without corporate money.
Harry Reid is another major malfunction. Weak and ineffective and doesn’t want to be mean.
Shit like this is a big malfunction-from the WSJ:
It is more important that health-care legislation inject stiff competition among insurance plans than it is for Congress to create a pure government-run option, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Monday.
“The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest,” he said in an interview. “The goal is non-negotiable; the path is” negotiable.
His comments came as the Senate Finance Committee pushed for a bipartisan deal.
I’d say Obama is becoming a major malfunction with his bi partisan dribble; and of course, everyone hates Rahm.
That’s my take.
I read in my history books that the Republican Party supported Blacks against the oppression of Southern Whites – what happened to that?
Things change, and not always for the better…
Man…Delaware IS “Georgia”.
I used to drive back and forth from NYC to DC a number of times a year with mixed-race carfuls of musicians to play in the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, and I came up with the idea of the Manson-Nixon Line. Sort of a modern day Mason-Dixon Line. By common agreement we decided that it traveled from the west through York and Lancaster PA, took a little jog down below most of Philadelphia but was definitely in effect south of the Commodore Barry Bridge.
Wilmington?
Ever been to the Wilmington ghetto?
Slave state-shit.
Balltimore? Despite the desperate attempts at gentrification? Please.
Washington outside of the PermaGov theme park we referred to as “DeeCee Land” and inside the surrounding PermaGov worker bee-dominated suburban ring?
C’mon.
Carper is just doing his job.
Representing the white racists who elected him.
Bet on it.
AG
This country is largely controlled by a powerful oligarchy. Historically, this oligarchy prefers the Republican Party. But when the country elects a Democratic president and the GOP is in disarray as it is now, they can switch to Plan B, and have enough Dem senators in their pocket to screw up the Democratic slightly anti-corporate agenda.
As far as why Wyoming is crazily pro-insurance corporation, etc., I suppose the answer is this. These small (population) states with fairly simple economies, even granted the power-equality of senators, would be fundamentlly weak against the big states like NY and California, except that they cash in on their senate-equality by being reliable supporters of powerful corporate interests IN RETURN for political support for their own home pet projects.
Because ND is so small (and so white) quality of life there is decently high, and doesn’t tend to the extremes on other places. Also there is the Merit Care system which is a more local and not-for-profit health system so there is far less adversarial-ness on health care.
So to there are definite rich people like the Ingelstad Nazi guy, but the income inequality is to a lesser degree.
So homogeneity with decent health options (though of course it sucks for some) and no desire to change anything because it works well enough is what happens.
Well, all I know is that today around noon I’ll finally have real representation in Congress.
Specter is a name that should never be mentioned.
Mr. Michael hits it.
As long as freedom of speech is given to corporations and their money (the means that money controls the election process) there will never be democracy in the USA.
Right, except it isn’t their money. It’s their cost of doing business, which we pay every time we buy some more of their crap. How do you fight an opponent who uses your money to work against your interests? For them that battle is just another profit strategy. For their opposition, it’s a direct cost right out of our pockets. That’s why democracy and the current system will never be able to coexist.
It’s just another harvest from the seeds of the “hate our government” trees that were planted so long ago and nourished so well by Reps and Dems alike. Or, to look at it from a slightly different perspective, what happens when you live in a country with no Left worthy of the name.
He’s probably the most conservative of the rookie Senators. Getting rid of him in a primary should be a high priority for Colorado Dems, they can definitely do better than that guy.
For all his troubles and lies, Roland Burris actually has one of the best voting records there. Sigh.
I think these questions are answerable.
I read in my history books about prairie populism. What happened to that?
You “work within the party” dipshits rigged election laws so only your two corporate parties are allowed to run. That’s what happened to the prairie populists, dumbass.
It’s not about what the people of Wyoming or North Dakota think or want. It’s about how much money it takes to get reelected in Wyoming or North Dakota. It’s always been about getting the dollars to get reelected, the constituents be damned.
I speculate that the cheaper the Senate seat, the easier it is for corporations to buy off the Senator. Of course, that doesn’t explain Leahy and Sanders, but there I think the constituents actually do hold their feet to the fire and can act as a check. I’d be curious to see how Nate Silver would study this and what he might find out.