TheMillerCircle.org

It was supposed to happen like this: Ted Kennedy, the acknowledged lion of the U.S. Senate, dies while serving in the Senate during the year in which his signature issue of a national healthcare plan passes and looks like it might actually become law (even though there is some doubt how much he would have approved of the bill that the Senate has actually passed). But the healthcare drama wasn’t over. The Senate still needed a 60 vote majority to prevent a possible filibuster when the House-Senate conference bill comes back for a final vote. But the Massachusetts election laws require that an election take place to fill the remainder of Kennedy’s term and one would think, given Kennedy’s passion for healthcare legislation, that the voters of Massachusetts would genuflect and turn out in droves to elect the candidate that the Democrats decided to run, thereby retaining the 60 seat majority. This is what Massachusetts was supposed to do. The state has a 3:1 registered Democrat to Republican ratio. The Teabagger Republicans of Massachusetts obliged by making the decision seemingly easy for voters, as their candidate, Scott Brown, was described as a male Sarah Palin and seemed to have the credentials to prove it rhetoric and all. A Piece of cake, or so it seemed.

A few weeks ago, about the time that the yawning began to become a factor in the Massachusetts Senate election, with Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley enjoying a comfortable lead in the polls, I tuned in to watch one of her campaign efforts and came away shocked to see how ineffective she was as a candidate and how passive she seemed to be about her future role as a Senator. So, I imagined that many voters in Massachusetts felt as I did–very disappointed. If you are going to elect a replacement for a lion, why would the Democrats run a mouse? Of course, she did run and win in a primary, but who were all the other candidates? And, as Coakley continued to stumble and hesitate, voters got increasingly pissed off, many Democrats stayed home and voila! Massachusetts elected a substitute Sarah Palin!

I believe that most of the political pundits, anxious to expand on the deeper meaning of the Massachusetts election, have interpreted the results to represent a referendum on Obama’s Presidency. Even level-headed Barney Frank seems willing to throw in the towel and sue for a new healthcare bill that will pass with some Republican votes. Imagine what that bill will look like.  Democrats would be making a foolish mistake if they interpret the Massachusetts election that way. First and foremost, it was a “local election” and the Democrats opened a wide door with their candidate who ran an ineffective, passive campaign, with many slips and hiccups.  Martha Coakley may be a fine Attorney General, but she did not campaign as if she belonged in the Senate, particularly in the Senate seat voided by Ted Kennedy. Kennedy had conditioned the Massachusetts voters to grand rhetorical displays and they had imprinted to his voice. If Coakley had been a better candidate, there wouldn’t be a discussion about an Obama referendum. But, more importantly, if the election in Massachusetts had any national overtones, it was not for excessive liberalism in Congress, but rather giving in too much to the conservative few: the polls have shown for months, in consistently 3:2 numerology, that the public wants a public option plan in the healthcare bill and the fact that the Senate took it out because they were captives of three conservative Senators, including Joe Lieberman, has angered voters across the country. Last night Democracy for America conducted a poll of voters in Massachusetts immediately after the election and registered a public preference for the Public Option plan with the 3:2 majority that has existed nationally for quite some time. The Democrats have committed an error of omission, not one of commission. Only a fool would assume that the country is ready to give Congressional leadership back to the Republicans after eight years of GWB and conservative Republican rule.

The Senate has always had the option of using “reconciliation” to pass the healthcare legislation. Now is the time to dust that option off, put back the public option in the form a national plan and pass the new bill, needing only  a 51 vote majority under the reconciliation rules! That will be the surest way for the Democrats to free themselves of their own trap for the 2010 election. But, who will be smart enough to see it that way? Stay tuned. ON the health care bill, the Democrats moved too far to the right, not the left. Thanks to those kinds of moves, this year will probably be a more contested election year than it had to be and if Obama is going to be of any assistance to his Party, he will have to stop trying to steer a course that triangulates between Republicans and Democrats and oblige the Republican Party by opening the trash can of history and making it easier for them to all jump in. Obama needs to stop emulating a corporatist Democrat!

RFM

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If you listen to the Democrats boast about their healthcare bill, most notably Barack Obama, you might have the impression that the Democrats have generated a strong running platform for their own re-election prospects against their Republican opponents in 2010. But, perhaps not. Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake (FDL) reports on a poll run last night, asking which issues of the current healthcare legislation trouble you the most? For each question, they polled more than 14,000 people. Each was  asked “Please rank the importance of the following statements for you to support the health care reform bill.”  Seven questions were posed to each respondent to judge them as a) not very important; b) not important; c) neutral; d) important; e) very important. In the following summary, I have listed the top five questions and added the important and very important responses together:

1. Must  remove anti-trust exemption for insurance companies (>92 % voted this number one priority).
2. Must include a public option (92% voted this number one priority).
3. Must remove restrictions on abortion access and coverage (>80 % voted this number one).
4. Must remove tax on middle class health care plans (>79 % voted this number one).
5. Must have a national exchange of insurance plans (75 % voted this number one priority)

You will note that each of the top-rated issues from the FDL poll are components of the healthcare plan that were stripped out of the bill, not by Republicans, but by Democrats catering to their own conservative members, some of whom, like Bill Nelson in the Senate, exercised dictatorial power over provisions, like the abortion issue and the public option. Even though the final healthcare bill has not been passed, the powerful preferences of the public for things like the public option, support for abortion and antitrust exemption against insurance companies, could give a sizable opening for Republicans to run against Democrats if they select those portions of the bill that are left out, but rank high with voters.

Right now, the teabaggers are trying to get ultraconservative candidates to run in state primaries to make their party move further to the right if that is possible. But if the Republicans truly wanted to reshape their party into a new alignment based on a more sensible correspondence  with public preferences, they would stand a much better chance of running against the Democrats for leaving out those components that truly make a difference with voters. Many Democrats feel betrayed by the current iteration of our healthcare bill. The bill is only acceptable to many of us if it gives us a Trojan horse, an initial step to have sweeping changes in the future (because the healthcare bill we are going to get will not solve our major healthcare delivery problems) through a single-payer plan that strips healthcare out of its current connection with  employment, where it was placed originally because of failed policies of the past.

What the teabaggers might really want to worry about is this (see map)–it’s what the electoral college of 2008 would look like if only the 18-29 year olds ruled the nation. Perhaps someday they will. Doubt this? Then read “The Emerging Democratic Majority“ by John Judis and Ruy Teixeira. The faux issues Republicans have used to keep the South aligned with the Republicans and Reagan Democrats is coming to an end. The issues that once united them are of little appeal to the generation that will inherit the global climate change of the industrial revolution. But with the Democratic failures on the healthcare bill, moderate Republicans could make a case for a better healthcare system if they followed the formula of public preferences, not those of the insurance industry and corporate America. But, how likely is that? It is more rational if liberal Democrats run against conservative Democrats in the 2010 primaries. Look for that possibility in some key races. Then too, we must make sure we support re-election of those that have served well, such as Representative Alan Grayson of Florida–a good, quick witted man unafraid of challenging Republicans in areas where their arguments are indefensible. But then, the risk for him is that he’s from Florida.

RFM

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Stephen Hall stated that the $ billions of bonus money now being distributed within Wall Street firms was not generated by the work of genius, but in many cases resulted from “simple arbitrage” in which Wall Street firms got money from the government at very low interest rates and then invested in U.S. Treasury bills and turned a profit by the volume of that investment and the interest rate difference. Imagine what we could do with $ billions given to us from the government without much interest, which we then invest in treasury bills, getting back $ billions in profits, all from the same source and then demanding that the word genius be applied to our good works–God’s work really.  But would everyone agree that we were a financial genius or might some consider this to be one category of deviant behavior? A better question might be: how does that restore the economy of a country?

RFM

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