The Daschle Counterfactual
I think it’s hard to deny that health care reform would, in some sense, be going more smoothly had not the Tom Daschle nomination wound up getting derailed. But I don’t think people should put too much stock in that. It’s true, as Josh Marshall says, that “there’s just no getting around the fact that the senate is where this legislation is going to live or die. And Daschle knows all of those people, knows the place, knows its inner dynamics.”
It seems to me that thus far the biggest problem that’s arisen is that Max Baucus’ bill writing process has moved far too slow. Consequently, health reform has become subject to tons of attacks before we even know what health reform is. But one can hardly say that the problem here is that somehow nobody in the White House knows Max Baucus. Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina’s previous job was as Baucus’ chief of staff.
I think there’s something perverse in the very strong desire I see among liberals to make problems in congress be about anything other than congress. It’s just not in the power of Barack Obama to make the senate anything other than what it is. To pass a bill, you need sixty votes. To get sixty votes you need Ben Nelson or Olympia Snowe to back your bill. Neither Nelson nor Snowe is especially liberal, and the President doesn’t have a great deal of leverage over either of them. You can try to change the rules, or you can accept that you’re at the mercy of Nelson and Snowe and maybe a few other moderate members. And it’s crucial to remember that these people—each and every member of congress—is an adult human being, capable of making up his or her own mind, responsible for his or her own decisions, and possessed of moral agency. These are men and women who have amassed a great deal of power, and who ultimately need to decide on a daily basis what it is they want to do with that power. If they choose to use it for bad ends, then blame them for that, not Obama or his team’s alleged lack of familiarity with the United States Senate.
70 Responses to “The Daschle Counterfactual”
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August 17th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I know Matt is going to get a lot of grief in the comments for this post, but of course he is exactly right. And the logical conclusion is that if you want to get more progressive outcomes out of Congress, you need to make it so that you don’t actually need the votes of people like Baucus or Nelson in order to pass legislation.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
That’s right – don’t blame Obama for a lack of familiarity with congress.
Blame him for for being a waffling, timid tool of the establishment – who answers to his big contributors rather than doing the right thing.
But don’t blame him for being unfamiliar with congress. Only someone who wants to muddy the water would do that.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Yeah, that’s right: the executive branch is just a sidelines spectator, left out of the sausage-making process. Gelded, really. Reminds me of Bush’s passivity in all of his dealings with Congress, that frail, impotent president, unable to take charge of the agenda . . . oh, wait.
Wasn’t a moment like this the point of Rahm? Wasn’t he brought in to move legislation forward? Didn’t he woo something like twenty-five GOP moderates just before the stimulus vote, boasting he’d bag the votes of the majority of them? And you wonder why liberals aren’t buying your or Ezra’s arguments.
But hey, teh incrementalism is awesome!
August 17th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
I confess, I’m not exactly clear how Super Daschle would really have made a bit of difference.
Mike
August 17th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
I don’t mind people complaining about Obama, as long as they also complain about their congresscritters. The more complaining the better. Preferably in the street.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
To pass a bill, you need sixty votes.
No, you don’t. You can pass a bill with 51 votes and decent leadership.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Yeah, that’s right: the executive branch is just a sidelines spectator, left out of the sausage-making process.
Constitutionally, the President can propose things to Congress and veto things subject to their override. That is it. As with so much of our Constitution, that makes the President much more powerful if he wants to defend the status quo, rather than if he wants to change things.
Reminds me of Bush’s passivity in all of his dealings with Congress, that frail, impotent president, unable to take charge of the agenda . . . oh, wait.
Bush failed to privatize Social Security, failed to make his tax cuts permanent, failed to get immigration reform, and generally didn’t accomplish any lasting legislation without a lot of bipartisan support. And for all his trouble, he set up his party for two crushing defeats. So that is definitely the right model to follow.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
You can pass a bill with 51 votes and decent leadership.
More precisely, you can pass a bill with 50 votes in favor of being able to pass bills with only 50 votes. Unfortunately, I’m not sure you can get those 50 votes.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
1) Let’s see — the Democratic grassroots worked on their own time and gave their money to put Obama in the WHite House and to give him a Congress with House controlled by an overwhelming majority of the Democrats and with the Senate controlled by an overwhelming majority of the Democrats (60-40).
In response, Obama has:
a) Joined with George W Bush in helping to life Goldman Sachs share price from $50 to $160 per share by putting $24 TRILLION of the taxpayer dollars at risk (didn’t hear anything about “filibusters” during that sellout, did we?)
b) Obama has also maintained US business confidence by refusing to go after any of the Wall Street manipulators responsible for the near collapse of the US economy
c) Obama has also maintained Senatorial comity by refusing to criticize the Republicans for the disasters they have heaped onto this country
d) Obama has let the small Republican minority Dictate the framework of discussion for healthcare reform by refusing to refute their deceit. Witness how Sarah Palin etal can accuse Democrats of “rationing” health care and not a single fucking Democratic leader stands up and points out that Republicans have been rationing healthcare for the past 14 years by ensuring 45 millions Americans don’t have any
2) We are not criticizing Obama for lacking familiarity with the Senate. We are complaining that he seized the banner of the Democratic Party — yet every time we join battle with the Republican enemy, Obama hops off his horse, gets down on all fours and assumes what monkey researchers call “The Submissive Position”.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Daschle is a corporate whore. Behind the scenes, he’s doing all he can to kill reform, as a lobbyist. See this article in… Business Week:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_33/b4143034820260_page_4.htm
There are enough corporate whores in the White House as it is, so Daschle is not missed. The one guy who is missed is Senator Kennedy, sadly.
But Matt is right: it seems lobbies and special interests are now all powerful in Washington, and elections don’t mean anything anymore. Or at least that will be the logical conclusion if real health care reform fails (whether or not a bill passes).
August 17th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Re DTM at 7: “Constitutionally, the President can propose things to Congress and veto things subject to their override. That is it.”
——–
That, of course, is utter bullshit. The President and his allies in Congress can turn the Great State of Nebraska into a
motherfucking wasteland that even the prairie dogs will shun.
Does anyone think Lyndon Johnson got his bills passed by being a sissy boy? Lyndon would have stuffed Ben Nelson’s balls in Nelson’s mouth before the fucking sun went down.
We are seeing a boxer throw a fight. Taking a Dive.
It’s that simple.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
BrklynLibrul is absolutely right. Of course congressmen’s votes are their own to do as they will, but George Bush got literally everything he wanted from Congress with the exceptions of social security privatization and immigration reform. Obama can play hardball to get congress to do as he dictates: he can make certain that no DNC or DCCC/DSCC money goes to anyone who’s unhelpful, he can fund a meaningful challenge to Baucus or Grassley, or at least see that one is funded as he’s doing with Sestak.
This talk of congressional agency is just masking the fact that George W. Bush was highly competent at enacting his agenda, even after he became very unpopular. Whereas thus far, Barack Obama is incompetent, despite his popularity.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
and generally didn’t accomplish any lasting legislation without a lot of bipartisan support.
Gee, why don’t we think about this for a moment. Hmmm, how come Bush got so much bipartisan support? Could it be because he succeeded in scaring the shit out of any Democrat who crossed him?
August 17th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
This is a joke, right?
August 17th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
The deeper problem is that there is no way to get the public to pressure congress on this issue. Part of that is because of the misinformation, but part of it is that people tend to resist dramatic change. IF Obama did anything wrong it was no focusing on just covering people under 25 but done it in a way that was medicare like. There is no reason why health care reform has to be done in one big bite.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
No, you do not need 60 votes to pass a bill. You need 60 votes to stop debate on a bill. You’ve argued before that this distinction is important. Don’t conflate the two.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
“Does anyone think Lyndon Johnson got his bills passed by being a sissy boy?”
Surely not. Johnson gets a bad rap, but he knew how to get things done. Of course, he knew the Senate better than any president in history. But more importantly, he was willing to play hardball. Less diplomacy and more “Johnson Treatment” would really help us out. The starting point should be to close all the military bases Grassley’s, Conrad’s and Baucus’ districts. If they want those bases back, they can start cooperating. If not, the other states will be happy to have their bases expanded. As commander in chief, Obama has the authority to move troops wherever he wants. He should use that as a weapon.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Does anyone think Lyndon Johnson got his bills passed by being a sissy boy?
LBJ got his bills passed because his maximum vote total was in the mid-70s in the Senate, thanks to a bunch of liberal Republicans more than offsetting the Southern Democrats. Give Obama a bunch of liberal Republicans giving him a possible mid-70s vote, and it would be a very different situation.
George Bush got literally everything he wanted from Congress with the exceptions of social security privatization and immigration reform.
And permanent tax cuts, which were the three major things on his second term domestic agenda. An entire wasted term is not exactly a rousing success story. And as for the first term, just like with Johnson, in fact, Bush could only get things done with bipartisan support (NCLB, the two AUMFs, the USA-PATRIOT Act, Medicare expansion, and so on: all bipartisan efforts).
August 17th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
No Ben you really only need 50. 50 Senators can vote to abolish the filibuster or else to make an exception to it in this case.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
It’s been said in the Beltway there are whores and there are whores and then there is Tom Daschle. After his pink tutu performance as Senate leader he was successfully branded as the most liberal man in the world and he lost an election. Which was the best thing that ever happened to him. You might think he planned it. By design or stupid accident his late career as Beltway insider was built upon a foundation of humiliation and the total embrace of no principal. Little wonder he’s so well paid now. A giant and exemplar of our political class.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
That’s right, Marshall. I started saying the word “incompetent” to myself back in July. As one who voted enthusiastically for Obama twice, as a volunteer for the campaign, as a supporter (mostly) of the administration’s policy goals, I’m dismayed. He just can’t seemed to execute or re-calibrate the way Clinton could and did — and just wait until after the Republicans pick ups seats in Congress next November.
A pattern has emerged, I fear.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Could it be because he succeeded in scaring the shit out of any Democrat who crossed him?
Bush didn’t scare anyone personally. What scared (or enticed) Democrats was their estimates of their electoral chances.
Which in fact would be working on the blue/purple-state Republicans too, if not for how insane their base is. That is why so many of those Republicans are retiring or changing parties: their base has put them in an impossible situation.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
There is a very simple explanation for this: One can’t play three-dimensional chess on a horse, silly.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Plus we are not even SEEING a filibuster. We are seeing Obama cave in a major way on the mere HINT of a filibuster.
If you mount a public defense of healthcare reform, then the fucking Republicans would Dare to filibuster to sabotage that reform. But if you let that lying bitch Sarah Palin lie to the country about “Death Panels” then you let the Republicans know that they can get away with anything. Because you are too cowardly to challenge them.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
correction: “then the fucking Republicans would NOT dare to filibuster…”
August 17th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
He just can’t seemed to execute or re-calibrate the way Clinton could and did . . . .
You mean like how Clinton failed on health care reform so he “re-calibrated” by getting welfare reform?
You think that sort of triangulation in the face of defeat would make this crowd happy?
August 17th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
RE DTM at 26: “You mean like how Clinton failed on health care reform so he “re-calibrated” by getting welfare reform?”
————–
I guess that was why Clinton was invited to expound on Progressive Principles at Netroots Nation this past weekend.
To be an exemplar of Democratic integrity.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
We know what health reform is; what we don’t know is whether the bill coming out of Congress will be a reform bill or not. Being able to recognize that distinction is the difference between being a reformer and being a partisan hack.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
I admire how all those progressive bloggers/activists were able to keep their “self-congratulation to a decent minimum”.
[snicker]
August 17th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Actually, a question just occurred to me, and I’m not sure what the answer really is: For a filibuster to end, do you need 60 votes to end debate or do you need 41 votes to continue debate? For all this talk of needing Ben Nelson, is it possible that he could just not show up for that particular vote, or do they need him to show up and vote to stop debate?
And for that matter, I still don’t understand why Democrats can’t just get their moderates to vote against the bill but for cloture. Let Ben Nelson rail against this thing all he wants in the press. Let him proudly proclaim that he’s against this bill and everything in it. Then let him make a principled vote to allow the bill an up or down vote and then vote against it. I’m not missing something, am I? You don’t actually need 60 votes for the bill. You need 60 to end debate and 51 to pass it.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Nelson & Snowe and a few other moderate members?
Bayh, Baucus, Conrad, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson I, Nelson II, Warner, Wyden, and the Senators from the WalMart State
There goes the majority if these Corporacrats go with Repugnican’ts. So much for the Nelson (blue) & Snowe (red) agency.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
men and women who have amassed a great deal of power
Power corrupts…Tom Daschle is a perfect example of such. There are enough foxes in the health care chicken house already, Nancy-Ann DeParle.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Why don’t the “moderate” Democrats cut to the chase and become Republicans? It would vastly improve both parties simultaneously.
This isn’t ideology, it’s bribery. As Democrats, these guys and gals are more useful to organized wealth, which will support their campaign funds and other ventures in the style to which legislators are accustomed.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
The deeper problem is that there is no way to get the public to pressure congress on this issue.
Of course there is, and Obama & crew know how it’s done. They were elected in a landslide.
It is called demogoguery. It can be dangerous but it also can be amazingly useful.
If Obama asked for 5 million people to come live on the Mall (pitchforks and guillotines optional) we would get single-payer.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Re Alan at 32: “There are enough foxes in the health care chicken house already, Nancy-Ann DeParle.”
————-
Yep.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy-Ann_Min_DeParle
“On March 2, 2009, she was named by President Obama to serve as “health reform Czar”, or director of the new White House Office of Health Reform.[1]…
…DeParle has drawn criticism for her lucrative service on corporate boards after her tenure in the Clinton administration. Msnbc.com reported that she was paid more than $6 million, and served as a director of half a dozen companies that faced federal investigations, whistleblower lawsuits and other regulatory actions. Many of these companies have a stake in the health care reform that she is leading.[6]
She served as a director of Accredo Health Inc., Boston Scientific, Cerner Corp., DaVita, Guidant, Medco Health Solutions, Speciality Laboratories, and Triad Hospitals. She was a managing director of CCMP Capital.[7]”
—————-
ha ha ha ha
August 17th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
That and no Kennedy.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Well at least Obama ended the wars.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I know Matt is going to get a lot of grief in the comments for this post, but of course he is exactly right
Way to stick up for your little buddy Skipper.
You were more interesting when you were whoring for Goldman.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
This is off-topic, I think (if the “topic” is, Which Democrats should we blame?), but CNN has a great piece by an ex-astroturfer saying, in so many words, “yeah, this is astroturf, and the tea-partiers’ slogans are all written by insurance PR people like myself.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/17/potter.health.insurance/index.html
Not a huge surprise, but it’s nice to have a confession.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
so you are saying that the only way we will really know if Saddam has weapons of mass destruction is if we let Bush invade?
August 17th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Slightly O/T, but I read that reform opponents are now showing up at Obama’s town halls carrying assault rifles. Can you imagine how those wackos would react if a really liberal president was ever elected? He would be killed in about ten seconds.
I fear for Obama’s life with those nutjobs around, and he’s not even trying to really change things!
August 17th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
If I hear another liberal pundit/blogger say 60 votes are required to pass anything in the Senate I think my head may explode. The routine use of the filibuster is very new, as Matt has written about himself quite a bit. So, it does not take 60 votes to pass a bill. It takes 60 votes to bring the vote to the floor. It takes 51 votes to pass a bill.
Lots of pressure needs to be put on the people who have, without any discussion, decided that the Senate need a super majority to pass any legislation. We on the left have to fight against that every chance we get, not lend credence to the notion. The filibuster should either be returned to it’s pre (I don’t know) 2006 state of being used very rarely, or obliterated entirely. I am apoplectic at how casually the establishment has internalized the super majority requirement in the Senate that was never really debated and has been a standard practice for all of like 2-4 years (so, it’s not like it’s some time honored practice or anything).
August 17th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Ted got this right at #5:
“I don’t mind people complaining about Obama, as long as they also complain about their congresscritters. The more complaining the better. Preferably in the street.”
I’m fed up with the “Obama is a tool of the corporate devil because he isn’t horse-whipping Blue Dogs on the steps of the Capitol and forcing them to become single payer advocates” school of progressive criticism, but Matt’s post here seems to wander off toward the opposite extreme: “President? We have a President? I thought Prime Minister Baucus was responsible for setting our legislative agenda!”
I say give ‘em all hell. It’s too early to panic, but it needs to be made crystal clear, to all parties, that an individual mandate without an optional public plan is not acceptable. They will lose our support, our donations, and our votes if they deliver a “reform” bill that simply forces people into a windfall-profit scheme for the insurance industry and calls it universal health care. And let them know that corporate lobbyists and right-wing loons aren’t the only ones who know how to raise hell.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Neither Nelson nor Snowe is especially liberal, and the President doesn’t have a great deal of leverage over either of them. You can try to change the rules, or you can accept that you’re at the mercy of Nelson and Snowe and maybe a few other moderate members.
That may be true but your conclusion doesn’t necessarily proceed from that fact. A NHS or a single-payer system would “liberal” reforms to health care. Abolition of all government regulation and Medicare would be “conservative” reforms of health care. The proposals with traction, including the public option, are not especially liberal or conservative. By some estimations, they’re quite moderate. So the question that I have (and Matt has asked previously) is why the “moderate” Democrats (and Republicans) never believe that any moderate bill actually starts out as moderate. They always have to change it to maintain their image as forces of moderation, and their changes almost invariably make legislation less good. So, although neither Obama nor LBJ nor any other president might be able to convince or bully a moderate senator into supporting a liberal bill, the question remains why those senators can’t be convinced to support legislation that’s already moderate.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
“Bayh, Baucus, Conrad, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson I, Nelson II, Warner, Wyden, and the Senators from the WalMart State”
As a minor point of order, I’d just like to point out that Blanche Lincoln is, in fact, one of the two Senators from Wal-Mart, the other being Mark Pryor.
But yes, those purple-staters are all a bunch of corporate whores, so the rest of your point remains valid.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Am I missing something? Obama is not a potted plant. He’s the first President in recent memory that seems to get a pass on the question of leadership. Why? What’s his job if not to lead? On issue after issue, he says what the audience in front of him wants to hear. If the audience changes, so does the message. If Obama wants health care reform, he could state in no uncertain terms what he wants, support the people who champion his cause and punish the people who get in the way. That’s how it’s done. Instead, Obama can’t commit. He’s for a public option but he’s not willing to fight for it. What else isn’t he willing to fight for? Not DADT, not warrantless wiretapping, not Wall Street Reform. Obama will eventually get a watered down, hapless bill that he’ll call reform. He’ll declare victory and Chris Matthews will wet his pants but the insurance companies and HMO’s will be the winners.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I see no reason not to let the Reps filibuster. Instead of avoiding it, the whole strategy should have been to make them do it. First, you design a popular healthcare change, not an overall change – one that the GOP would filibuster, and one that would make them look extremely vampiric. The filibuster would break when the few GOP people outside the south saw that they were heading into next year with the albatross around their neck. Then – having actually devised a good public option healthcare bill, and certainly without mr corruption, Daschle, getting anywhere near it – you roll it out. The healthcare bill should be Obama’s invasion of Iraq thingy – the bill that breaks the GOP. Instead, so stupidly has it been rolled out, so confused is the message, that the GOP is coming back. Amazingly bad politics.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Barack Obama: the new Jimmy Carter. One and done.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
The real interesting question about Matt’s claim that each Senator is a grown, independent, recalcitrant adult who will not easily go along to get along is this: Why does Matt’s claim not apply to Republican senators with a Republican executive?
Matthew’s point would be a little more persuasive if this was a symmetric situation with administrations of both parties finding it hard to bring Senators of the same party along for legislative rides. It is not — not even close.
When Bush was President, the Democratic faithful constantly had to worry about Democratic senators bowing to the administration on various issues of importance to progressives. Predictably, Republicans never raised even a faint murmur of protest. Are Republican senators not also independent adults who operate by the same traditions and culture of the Senate? Now that we have a Democratic administration, it seems again it is the Democratic senators that stand in the way of their own party consolidating its electoral gains of 2008.
Sorry Matt. There is something singularly annoying about Democratic senators. All politician twist themselves into pretzels to remain in office, but I simply see no coherent philosophy or core values that drives a Kent Conrad or Max Baucus or Ben Nelson to block the “once in a generation” opportunity to do something good for the American people in a quintessentially Democratic way — using smart Government initiatives. Find me a Republican who stood up to a Republican President since the 1980s on an issue of importance to the Republican party. Like unicorns, I don’t believe they exist.
Regards.
Swamy
August 17th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
NO! You need the same number of votes Bush passed most of his hard right ideology on! 51!
Stop playing along with the change of rules when Democrats hold the majority Matt, what is wrong with you?
51 VOTES! SAME AS BUSH!
August 17th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Vince what you say is true, but that will take time. Right now, to pass health care, they can put it through the same way bush put his shit,a nd I mean shit, through.
Reconcilliation – majority vote. Period.
51 VOTES! SAME AS BUSH!
August 17th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Predictably, Republicans never raised even a faint murmur of protest.
Never? How about when they killed immigration reform?
Generally, this revisionism about Bush and his dealings with Congress really amuses me. The guy was a frequent failure, but in an effort to make Obama look bad in comparison, people treat Bush as a roaring success.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
> Yeah, that’s right: the executive branch is just a
> sidelines spectator, left out of the sausage-making
> process. Gelded, really. Reminds me of Bush’s passivity
> in all of his dealings with Congress, that frail,
> impotent president, unable to take charge of the
> agenda . . . oh, wait.
>
> Wasn’t a moment like this the point of Rahm?
Personally I think Obama has displayed weak leadership to this point. But let’s be clear: the week after his inauguration Cheney showed up at the Senate Republican’s weekly strategy caucus, and attended every key meeting of the Senate Republican leadership thereafter. If anyone asked he said it was only natural because he was after all President of the Senate (we didn’t learn about the Fourth Branch until later). No doubt the Senate Republicans were far more in alignment with Cheney/Bush than the Democrats are with Obama, but it is pretty clear from every account I have read that they were also **afraid to ask Cheney to leave those meetings**. That of course raise the question of _why_ they were afraid to ask him to leave, but they apparently were.
I can’t imagine VP Biden forcing his way into any Senate meeting where he wasn’t invited, and whatever it was that Cheney used to make people afraid of him Obama and Biden don’t have it. Nor do I as a Citizen want them to have it, but it does put them at a disadvantage.
Cranky
August 17th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Well, Bush won more states, so what did you expect? Obama has to compromise, the Left didn’t win the mandate, you all thought he did.
Don Williams–what in hell do you have against Nebraska? They didn’t do anything against you, did they? I got a speeding ticket there in ‘79 and still don’t hate them. The cop was real nice, took my bond card at let me go.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
I see no reason not to let the Reps filibuster.
Umm, I hate to keep repeating myself, but the dems have a fillibuster proof majority. The republicans can’t fillibuster alone.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
This “sixty votes” business is crap. There are a bunch of
spineless senators who are reluctant to stick their neck out
on anything. These so-called “centrists” like Specter,
Landrieu, Nelson, Lieberman aren’t going to lead the charge
on any progressive legislation. But that doesn’t mean they
would actually join a Republican filibuster to stop such
legislation: doing that means sticking your neck out in a big
way against your own base, against the President, and against
the rest of your caucus. And they’re way too spineless to
risk that. Heck, these idiots wouldn’t filibuster against
any of Bush’s terrible legislation: what makes anyone think
they’ve grown a spine in the last couple of years ?
We don’t need reconciliation. We don’t need 60 votes in favor
of the legislation. We need 50 votes in favor, and 10 who
don’t want to risk their necks by crossing the White House.
Time for Rahm to get each of them alone in a room and describe
in graphic detail and colorful language the certain
consequences of joining a Republican filibuster of the
administration’s major legislation. If he can find a few
more primary challengers like Sestak to keep them honest, so
much the better.
The other tactic I would suggest is to float a simple
alternative proposal of opening Medicare – if the current
legislation doesn’t pass, then the alternative would be
making Medicare coverage available say to everyone over
45, for a premium (dependent only on age) that covers the
cost. That proposal would put the fear of god into the
insurance industry, and they’d be twisting arms like crazy
to avoid it.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Why don’t they get Joe Biden to crack some skulls up there in the Senate? You know, Senator for 30 years, “nobody messes with Joe” if he can’t get it done noone can.
Sorry, couldn’t help myself.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
When Bush was President, the Democratic faithful constantly had to worry about Democratic senators bowing to the administration on various issues of importance to progressives.
The best general rule here is that every senator, regardless of party, can be peeled away from the caucus on specific issues where the state has a kind of arbitrage interest over other states, and a specific industry lobby has a big influence. It can be corn or tobacco or credit cards or finance houses; even Obama was beholden to the bullshit corn-ethanol lobby in Illinois.
There are a few Dems who are just useless in every regard, such as Mary fucking Landrieu, who’d vote for flooding New Orleans again if the GOP threatened to run ads against her. But there are lots who are single-issue sellouts. The GOP doesn’t really have that problem.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Are there really fools on this thread accusing Obama of being a corporate whore, while at the same time idealizing LBJ?
Are you serious?
LBJ, the most corrupt corporate whore of them all!?
The president who became the wealthiest president ever, exclusively through his shady deals while serving in public office? The President who became rich of f of the Vietnam war?
Hello Haliburton, anyone?
Sure he could twist some arms to get some things done, but he also greased a lot of palms to get even more things done.
So I call bullshit. You are comparing apples to rocks.
If you think reconciliation is the solution, fine, if you want to fight for the public option i’m all for that. but again, who are the 50 votes?
Any of you whiners been to any of the town hall meetings to take on the teabaggers? hell no, just setting at home whining . . . what you thought Obama had magical dust?
no we are losing this thing because we have left the field to the teabaggers. anyone getting those emails from Organizing for America, begging for people to show up at events and canvass? yes i’m sure all of you are, but I know you are doing nothing.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Richard Cownie,
As I have repeatedly stated, I really doubt when push comes to shove that any Senate Democrats will join a Republican filibuster attempt of a conference report on health care.
But that doesn’t render them impotent: first you have to get a Senate bill passed, noting their ability to amend it with Republican help, and then you also have to get a House bill past their Blue Dog buddies, and then you have to get something decent out of conference.
All of which I expect to happen, but they are still going to have an influence on the outcome.
August 18th, 2009 at 1:16 am
I was sitting at a circular bar the other night. The guy to my left whispered in my ear, “single-payer or death, pass it down.” I turned to my right and whispered to the next person, “single-payer or death, pass it down.”
I watched the message circumnavigate the bar, all the way around to the guy on my left. After hearing the message, he stood up, grabbed me at the elbow, and said “they are trying to kill granny. Lock and load -we are off to the Town Hall. No prisoners.”
August 18th, 2009 at 3:41 am
@DTM # 1
“You need to make it so that you don’t actually need the votes of people like Baucus or Nelson in order to pass legislation.”
And you also need to repeal Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle so that you can actually SEE the electrons!
What fatuous dreaming! Is there a snowball’s chance in hell that the US Senate — which has to be a party to proposal of any amendment — is going to allow ANY change to its composition or rules? Of course not.
Since we don’t have the Initiative at the Federal level, we are stuck with an upper house in which 10.26% of the population of the United States can thwart the desires of the other 89.74%, just because they don’t like Libruls.
Now of course both Senators of the twenty smallest states don’t always vote the same way. Vermont, Delaware, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire and West Virginia all have two Democratic Senators (Bernie Sanders is in the caucus) as do #22 Connecticut (hold your nose and say “Joe Lieberman”) and #24 Oregon so you’d have to go up to #28 (Louisiana) to get 40 Senators of one party. But that’s still just 20.73%.
One fifth of the country holds the other four fifths by the squeakies.
So don’t be thinkin’ you gonna’ change nothin’, boy. ‘Cuz you AIN’T!
August 18th, 2009 at 3:47 am
@Richard # 56,
I like your 45 and Medicare proposal. But your analysis of the industry’s reaction is 180 off the mark. I think the carriers would LOVE IT! It would off-load even more of the expensive folks to the government program and allow them to milk young people for a pretty much non-existent risk.
Such a deal should not be passed up!
August 18th, 2009 at 4:16 am
THERE IS NO 60 VOTE RULE
Harry Reid invented it.
The filibuster is a delaying tactic. Proper behavior by the Senate Majority Leader is to simply wait it out on important bills. After a while, the Republicans have all spoken; they don’t get to speak twice, and the filibuster ends.
He’s just not willing to take the three weeks it requires.
August 18th, 2009 at 6:30 am
“It’s just not in the power of Barack Obama to make the senate anything other than what it is. ”
Americans will always back a president who displays vision, purpose and strength. Obama is not even coming close to giving that impression. He is afraid of the corrupt old boys club and looks like a wimp.
August 19th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
[...] that he deserves some of the blame for the failure of the “public option.” Matt Yglesias makes the typical case for shielding Obama from any responsibility: I think there’s something perverse in the very [...]
August 20th, 2009 at 4:39 am
[...] that he deserves some of the blame for the failure of the “public option.” Matt Yglesias makes the typical case for shielding Obama from any [...]
August 20th, 2009 at 9:56 am
One merely needs to go over to Greenwald’s blog right now to see the difference between the Beltway “progressives” like MY and the true blue progressives like Greenwald. It is so easy to see the elevated analytical quality displayed by someone like Greenwald who actually doesn’t get phone calls from inside the White House on a regular basis. His analysis is more cogent and he knows what he is talking about. I rarely read MY anymore; too much towing the party line around this place, at the expense of giving progressives the good information that they need.
You need 60 votes to pass a bill? Seriously? And Obama doesn’t have any influence over the Senate? Seriously? And you think that having appointed a health care lobbyist in HHS would have made this whole process go more smoothly? Seriously? Tom Daschle? Are you nuts?
Way to publish the White House CYA talking points. Apparently MY has become part of the infrastructure that Rahm is building to try and absolve the White House of any blame when the health care bill ends up sucking.
August 20th, 2009 at 10:23 am
“the President doesn’t have a great deal of leverage over either of them”
As pointed out on FDL and Taunter Media, The President does have leverage, if he wanted to use it: the farm bill. Nelson, Baucus, Conrad, the Blue Dogs in the House: what do their states need? Ridiculous agricultural subsidies that the President could veto. He even ran on cutting the kind of waste that the farm bill represents. But Obama doesn’t want to threaten the farm bill (http://tauntermedia.com/2009/08/17/right-idea-wrong-place/), because (just as with healthcare) he doesn’t want to alienate major corporate constituencies.
There’s a big difference between not having any leverage and not wanting to use any leverage.
August 20th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
I vote Don Williams poster of the month… Nobody has said it more clearly or more accurately! …. “the submissive position” LOL dude you crack me up!
Obama is a corporate owned stooge who was hired to carry on where Bush left off. His incompetence is thinly veiled cover as he has absolutely no intention of ever signing real health reform legislation. That’s not his job. Instead what he will do is what all fascist scum do and that is forge back smoke filled room deals with the criminal class for their mutual profit at the continued and ever accelerating expense of ordinary Americans. When you get right down to it its all spelled out in the CAFR we’re not supposed to know about and who really own what via wall street “institutional investors” including the for profit rape pillage murder and maim health care industry. Obama more specifically, Obama’s owners’, fates are inextricably link with those same corrupt institutions in desperate need of reform. And so it won’t happen. Obama was hired to prevent it from ever happening! Wakey wakey ye sleepy naive good Americans This is fascism… America is now fascists and I suggest you all adjusts your TV sets accordingly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOm1G_OOzvk