Who Runs Gov

In today’s closed-door caucus meeting, President Obama urged House Dems to grasp the magnitude of the historical moment, telling them they were on the cusp of an achievement as momentous as Social Security and Medicare, a House Dem who was there tells me.

“He said, `This is it. This is the moment,’” Dem Rep. Jan Schakowsky said in an interview.

Standing behind a podium as many members snapped pictures on their cell phones, Obama urged members to look beyond self-interested political concerns.

“He asked people who are worried about what’s happening back home to remember why we came to public service,” Schakowsky recounted. “He said, `It is a privilege to be able to do this for the American people.’ He used that word.”

“This is a Medicare moment; this is a Social Security moment,” is how Schakowsky described Obama’s message, adding that he noted that both those programs were greeted by scary language about socialism and the end of capitalism. “But these are the moments people are so proud to have been part of.”

To illustrate the point, Obama singled out Dem Rep. John Dingell, who held the gavel during the passage of Medicare, earning Dingell a standing ovation.

Separately, Sam Stein reports that Obama delved into the politics a bit by pointing out that Republicans would continue to attack Dems no matter which way they voted. Schakowsky adds that he told them Dems are all in this together.

It was only a matter of time before Obama — whose election was itself a world-historical event — stepped in to play the role of historical conscience, and to urge nervous Dems preoccupied by parochial politics and GOP attack lines to think big and bold.

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Update: One other interesting tidbit: Obama didn’t mention anything about the current standoff over abortion, the anti-abortion amendment going into the bill, or what comes next on that front, Schakowsky says.

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Fun times! At a GOP health care presser today, GOP Rep. Mike Pence appeared to veer sharply off topic, publicizing a pending visit with World War II veterans — and suggested House Dems who vote No on health care will be akin to World War II vets who “risked their lives for freedom.”

Pence, the House GOP conference chairman, made the comparison in the course of informing reporters of an apparent non sequitur: After the presser, he said, he was set to pay a visit to the World War II memorial with veterans from his home state of Indiana…

Pence:

“There’s a group of Hoosiers that are making their way to that memorial as we speak, some of whom are making their first and probably only visit to a memorial that was built in their honor. I will take all the time they need to shake every hand and thank every hero for what they did for freedom. They risked their lives for freedom. We will find out today if enough conservative democrats are willing to vote No for freedom.”

Note Pence’s profoundly solemn expression as he exited upon making this pronouncement.

By the way, Pence’s claim is interesting not just for its apparently lopisided historical comparison between health care reform and the Nazis/Japanese as equivalent threats to freedom and Democracy. Via the Department of Veterans Affairs, World War II and other vets, of course, enjoy government-run health care.

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Update: I’ve got audio of a new robocall that Republicans are pumping into dozens of districts of House Dems who are said to be undecided on the health care bill. The call bashes the bill as “dangerous” twice, and refers to it as “Nancy Pelosi’s” measure three times.

You can listen to the version that hits Dem Rep. Dennis Cardoza of California right here.

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So where are we on health care?

* First, the abortion standoff: The anti-abortion amendment to the health care bill will likely pass with GOP support, a GOP aide predicts.

As you may have heard, House Dem leaders temporarily resolved a standoff last night by agreeing to allow a full vote on an amendment to prohibit the government-run insurance plan created by the bill from covering abortion. Anti-abortion Dems had been withholding support for the bill.

A senior GOP aide tells me only a handful of Republicans will oppose the amendment, and a majority will support it. So if the 40 or so anti-abortion Dems expected to support it don’t change their position, it’ll almost certainly pass.

Then what? Either it ends up in the final measure, or it gets dealt with in conference negotiations, when the House and Senate merge their bills into the final product.

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* The abortion amendment secured for the bill the critical endorsement by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. You can read their letter to members right here.

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* Now, the immigration standoff: The GOP leadership hasn’t decided whether to insert language banning undocumented workers from buying insurance.

The issue is whether the House bill will end up with language banning those workers from buying insurance thourgh the marketplaces created by the bill, as favored by the White House and some in the Senate. That could cause some Hispanic lawmakers to consider opposing the measure.

House Dem leaders have apparently assured members that such language won’t be in there. The question is whether Republicans will attempt to insert such language via a parliamentary maneuver. A House GOP aide tells me that hasn’t been decided yet.

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* How close are Dems to securing the 218 votes they need for passage of the health care bill? According to one count, they had 205 votes as of last night.

* Here’s the most up-to-date rundown I can find of which members remain undecide and which way they’re leaning.

* The argument Obama is making privately to House Dems wavering on the health care bill: “The only two options are failure or move the ball down the field.” One imagines Obama’s also arguing how catastrophic “failure” could be for House Dems in 2010.

* Interesting: Some vulnerable House Dems appear to be interpreting the losses in Virginia and Jersey as a sign that Dems need to tend to their base.

* Dem Rep. Tom Perriello, in the above link: “People aren’t showing up for Republicans or Democrats: They are showing up for people who are giving them something to vote for.” And he’s in a red-leaning district.

* FactCheck.org debunks the widespread claims that the health care proposal amounts to a “government takeover” of health care — a claim that’ll only grow louder in the days ahead.

* And Sarah Palin is back to talking about the death panels again.

What else is happening?

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* Joe Biden has been working the phones in a last-ditch effort to round up support among moderate House Dems for the embattled health care bill.

A senior White House official emails: “He’s calling moderate Democrats and talking up the cost-containment and premium-reduction aspects of the bill — issues that matter a lot to moderates.”

* With vulnerable Dem freshman abandoning the bill, House Dems need 10 more votes.

* Must watch: Dem Rep Steve Israel, in keeping with Dem efforts to elevate the nastiest Tea Party images to tar the GOP as hostage to extremists, has cut a new video calling on Michele Bachmann to apologize for tea party signs displaying Holocaust imagery:

Congress is already on edge because of the closeness of the expected health care vote, and with members expected to be around the Capitol this weekend, this won’t do anything to calm tensions.

* Eric Cantor, taking a risk, pushes back on Rush and the Holocaust imagery.

* Taegan Goddard looks at the growing support for gay marriage among the young and concludes: “Just a matter of time.”

* Robert Gates is pretty well regarded, even among Republicans, which could make the Afghanistan decision a bit easier.

* Conservative writer says Fort Hood shooter acted on orders from Muslim Brotherhood.

* New word in the Urban Dictionary: “Scozzafavaed!”

* Obama took heat for skipping the election returns, but Bush didn’t watch them in 2006.

* And Sarah Palin is reluctant to set foot outside the Real America.

Got anything else?

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Here come the tweets.

In the latest frontier of new media mobilization for health care reform, Obama’s political operation is now calling on supporters to deluge members of Congress via … Twitter.

Organizing for America has just rolled out a new device that allows you to enter your address and get directed to your Representative’s Twitter feed.

“All signs point to it being incredibly close, possibly coming down to a small handful of representatives or even a single vote,” says OFA’s new device, which will be distributed to supporters today via social networking tools. “You’ve called. You’ve written. Now, you can `tweet’ your representative and ask them to vote in favor of reform.”

OFA unleashed a similar wave of Twitter atttacks on Senators earlier this year, but this one is coming on the eve of a crucial vote.

Hard to imagine that a hailstorm of tweets will do anything that some old-fashioned arm-twisting from Obama and Dem leaders couldn’t accomplish, but on the other hand, it can’t hurt to exert pressure through every conceivable channel. It can’t hurt to keep everyone energized by looking like you’re doing everything in your power, either.

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The White House is strongly denying a story claiming that White House officials privately threatened to retaliate against a Democratic strategist for appearing on Fox News — a claim generating a big stir on the right as the latest example of the White House’s victimization of the network.

“While we have our disagreements with FOX, administration officials appear on the network and we have no issue with others who choose to do so,” White House senior communications adviser Dan Pfeiffer emails me.

The Chicago Tribune got this ball rolling today by reporting that “at least one Democratic strategist” had “gotten a blunt warning from the White House” never to appear on Fox. The strategist, who wasn’t named, said the White House’s warning carried the suggestion that he might lose business if he went on again.

Needless to say, such a claim is gold for those looking to paint the White House pushback against Fox as a Nixonian campaign of intimidation designed to squelch Fox’s legitimate journalistic scrutiny of the administration. Right wing bloggers have been all over the story.

But Pfeiffer argues that the evidence proves the story false. “This is simply not true,” he emails. “At the same time the reporter was writing this story, David Plouffe was appearing on FOX and David Axelrod was on the day before.”

Side note: There are plenty of administration supporters who probably wish this story were true, and would like to see the White House playing even rougher with the network. But the White House is saying it isn’t true. If anything, the claim that officials have “no issue” with anyone who goes on seems like another effort to dial the feud down a few notches.

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Dems are seizing on Eric Cantor’s pledge to the tea party rally yesterday that no GOPers will back the health care bill, hoping to use it to put moderate GOPers on the spot by casting a No vote as doing the bidding of extremists.

The DCCC, looking to elevate the nastiest side of yesterday’s festivities, is circulating among reporters some of the uglier imagery seen on signs in the crowd.

Dems have now blasted a release to local press in a dozen GOP districts, demanding that individual House Republicans say whether they agree withpromise to “the extremist ‘tea party’ activists that not one Republican will vote for health insurance reform.”
Cantor’s
Yesterday, Cantor told the tea party crowd: “We are committed to making sure that not one Republican will vote for this bill.”

Dems say they are pushing local press to put GOP moderates such as Mary Bono Mack of California and Joseph Cao of Louisiana on the spot by asking them if they will honor Cantor’s pledge to the tea partiers.

Obviously, this is unlikely to change the votes of any of these GOPers, and in any case, the GOP vote isn’t important to the outcome of the final vote on the health care bill, which is now in doubt because of Dem defections.

But this shows Dems are intent on using yesterday’s festivities to bolster the Dems’ larger long-term strategy: To use the most lurid tea party antics and imagery to drive a wedge between moderates and conservatives, to staunch defections among independents, and to define the GOP as hostage to extreme elements in hopes of limiting Dem losses in 2010.

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Update: Post revised slightly from original.

Update II: Cantor’s office responds that he has called on the GOP to be more inclusive. “The Republican Party in its roots is a party of inclusion and we ought to be promoting that and making sure that voices are heard,” he said in an recent interview, adding that he doesn’t condone use of Hitler in any discussion of politics.

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Michele Bachmann’s tea party yesterday may have left her with an inflated sense of her influence and popularity — at least, judging by the fact that she put the number of tea partiers who showed up yesterday to five times the estimate in some news accounts.

Bachmann went on the Mark Levin show last night and claimed that the total number of attendees was “20,000 minimum.”

“This was word of mouth, this was word of mouth, Mark,” she said excitedly. “And it was minimum 20,000. minimum.”

You can listen to audio here.

That, incidentally, is the number that has been decided on by right-wing media. Earlier in the show, Levin cited that figure without sourcing it. Sean Hannity did the same thing last night. And now Bachmann herself.

The source for this figure is unknown. MSNBC cited Capitol Police yesterday afternoon putting the number at 3,000-3,5000. Later MSNBC revised it up to 4,000, also citing police sources. Politico estimated 10,000, based on unclear sourcing.

One other interesting tidbit from the interview: Bachmann said yesterday’s tea party is the sole reason House Dem leaders are now worried they might not have the votes to pass health care reform.

“The only reason why they wouldn’t think they have the votes is because of you and all the people that came out today,” Bachmann reasoned.

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Republicans, not unexpectedly, are seizing on the news of the 10.2% unemployment rate to fuel the meme — first initiated by Tuesday’s electoral results — that independents are preoccupied with the economy and will continue to desert Dems lest they slow down on health care reform and other priorities.

The GOP responses also have a common thread: The unemployment numbers show the need for more bipartisanship and less Dem-only rule. The NRSC:

“Instead of ramming another massive spending bill through Congress, the President should encourage Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to work with Republicans to come up with a real bipartisan health care solution that will lower costs for Americans instead of putting government bureaucrats between patients and their doctors nationwide.”

Eric Cantor:

“With millions of Americans desperately seeking work, I ask the President put the economy first, and sit down with Republicans to develop bipartisan solutions that will change the direction of this economy and get people working again.”

Obviously this is good timing, politically speaking, for Repubicans, because it helps them develop the narrative that the electorate wants more of a focus on the economy than on health care, and that the White House and Congress’ preoccupation with the latter is mistimed.

Also: The GOP calls for more bipartisanship right now seem like a less-than-subtle effort to emphasize that Obama and Dems own the high unemployment numbers without appearing to politicize or capitalize on them.

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* New CNN poll: For the first time, the number who think President Obama is doing enough to cooperate with Republicans has dropped below 50%. It’s now at 49% — the same number who think he’s not doing enough.

* Flip side: Less than a third think Republicans are doing enough to cooperate with Obama. More than two thirds think they aren’t doing enough.

* The Fort Hood shooter had become “very disgruntled with the mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, voiced that to one of his colleagues,” GOP Rep. Michael McCaul told ABC News this morning, per The Note.

* He was “mortified” by the idea of having to deploy.

* Sean Hannity claims 20,000 Tea Partiers showed up, sourcing unclear.

* Politico claims 10,000 Tea Partiers showed up, sourcing unclear.

* In the wake of the Fort Hood shooting, Obama has postponed his scheduled trip today to the Hill to rally Dems and will instead hit the Capitol on Saturday.

* Some 25 House Dems are hard No votes on the health care bill right now. Nancy Pelosi can afford to lose no more than 40, so Dem leaders, though optimistic, are working furiously.

* Moderate House Dems Dan Boren, Jim Marshall, Ike Skelton and Bobby Bright are all among the No votes. More No votes here.

* Also from CNN: concerns about the economy are up to 47%; concerns about health care are down to 17%. Clue to the meaning of Tuesday’s results?

* Aravosis hits the DNC again over Maine gay marriage loss.

* And here’s the Shocker of the Day: The AARP endorsement of the House health care bill “did nothing to ease the concerns of House Republicans or conservative protesters who descended on the Capitol.”

What else is happening?

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* Obama addressed the Fort Hood shooting moments ago. As per the pool report, he decried the “horrifying” and “horrific outburst of violence,” promised to “stay on this” and get answers to “every single question” raised by this “horrible incident.”

Update: Full transcript of Obama’s remarks here. CNN identifies shooter.

* Michael Steele, on the tea partiers: “We’re walking this walk with them.”

* Christina Bellantoni witnessed some of the arrests of demonstrators. One man shouted at the cops: “Thugs from Chicago.”

* House GOPers hear Tea Partiers chanting “throw them out,” nervously wonder whether this also includes them.

* Joe Lieberman has privately schemed about a health care filibuster with GOP Senator Jon Kyl, Sam Stein reports. Sources tell me Lieberman will immediately face discipline from Democratic leaders. Kidding!

* To Olympia Snowe, the more universal and affordable reform makes health care, the further out of the mainstream it really is.

* One other interesting number from this morning’s Gallup poll: Fifty-eight percent of Republicans think Sarah Palin is qualified for the presidency.

* Conservative group goes up on the air with national ad tying government takeover of health care to government willingness to give swine flu vaccine to Gitmo detainees.

* Brutal takedown from Politifact of Charlie Crist’s claim that he didn’t endorse Obama’s stimulus.

* And Doug Hoffman may have cost Repubs a longtime House seat, but he’s still a GOP hero, and he’s not done with politics. Heck, he could run anywhere, right?

Got anything else?

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Looks like the demonstrators really are serious about storming the Congressional barricades.

A dozen people were arrested this afternoon in or just outside of Nancy Pelosi’s office, some for unlawful entry and others for disorderly conduct, the Capitol Police confirm, adding that some of the arrested were throwing papers around.

Four demonstrators were arrested for refusing to leave her office in the Canon House Office Building, and eight more were arrested for unlawful or disorderly conduct, Capitol Police spokesperson Kimberly Schneider tells our reporter, Amanda Erickson.

Apparently those who were arrested outside her office were also throwing papers in the hallway, the spokesperson says. It couldn’t immediately be determined what sort of papers the demonstrators were tossing or why the paperwork ticked them off.

This is less serious than arrests at Pelosi’s office in the Capitol itself would have been, but a dozen for unlawful entry and disorderly conduct is definitely noteworthy. More soon.

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Update: Pelosi spokesperson Drew Hammill confirms that the demonstrators were Operation Rescue people and that they were shredding copies of the health care bill.

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The news today that the American Association of Retired Persons endorsed the House health care bill is obviously huge, and Obama made a surprise visit to the White House press briefing room to amplify it and add to its momentum.

Interestingly, Obama seized on the news to ratchet up pressure on Congress to pass reform. Per the transcript:

We are closer to passing this reform than ever before. And now that the doctors and medical professionals of America are standing with us; now that the organizations charged with looking out for the interests of seniors are standing with us, we are even closer.

I want to thank both organizations again for their support, and I urge Congress to listen to AARP, listen to the AMA, and pass this reform for hundreds of millions of Americans who will benefit from it.

Dear Congress: Listen to doctors and representatives of the elderly, and get this done.

Obama’s political operation is also mounting a big push on members of Congress, and he’s coming to the Hill tomorrow. With Republicans and some moderate Dems urging caution in the wake of Tuesday’s results, it seems like Obama’s subtly wheeling into a more aggressive posture in terms of pushing Congress to get this done.

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Just got back from watching a bit of the Bachmannalia — many thousands are now amassed outside the Capitol — and here are a few quick thoughts.

* Michele Bachmann now appears to have a genuine national power base of sorts. When she was first announced as speaker, there was a throaty outpouring from the crowd, one of the most emotional of the afternoon. Maybe it’s because of diligent efforts by Dems and liberal media to elevate her on a regular basis. Maybe it’s largely due to her own notoriety and antics. Maybe she shrewdly seized the historical moment.

Whatever the cause, there’s no denying that Bachman has built a respectable following of sorts that hails from all corners of the country, judging by the crowd. As of today, she’s genuinely a national figure.

* Bachmann genuinely believes she’s a direct political descendent of the American revolutionaries. She’s not a huckster in any sense. Watching her speak leaves no doubt whatsoever that she genuinely believes she’s locked in a death struggle with tyrrany and that the fate of global freedom and Democracy hangs in the balance.

* Large chunks of Bachmann’s base are still culturally stuck in the 1960s. Perhaps the most interesting speaker of the day — one that drew loud, emotional cheers and boos — sounded tones that were completely indistinguishable from the hippie-bashers of 50 years ago.

The speaker was John Ratzenberger, a.k.a. Cliff Clavin (sigh). He told a tale that dripped with still-fresh resentment about how he was a techie building the stage at Woodstock — Woodstock! — when the rains came and the National Guard had to be called in to save the day. Clavin, still visibly angry, excoriated all the love children for bashing the military even as they relied on the military to save their precious, America-hating festival.

Clavin then drew a direct line from the sixties longhairs right to Nancy Pelosi and Obama, saying that our current leadership is culturally akin to “Wavy Gravy.” Gives you a strong sense of the cultural roots of today’s strain of angry, resentful Bachmannalia and Tea Party-ism. Are we really still fighting this battle?

I’ll have quotes for you soon.

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I just got through watching Nancy Pelosi’s weekly press conference in the Capitol, and get this: Reporters didn’t ask a single question about the massive Michele Bachmann/Tea Party rally massing outside the building today. Not one!

Reporters asked a dozen questions, and for some reason, they only were interested in talking about the first major health care reform bill in legislative history to get within striking distance of law.

This outrageous media conspiracy to black out legitimate dissent on behalf of The One just shows you how corrupt and out of touch these elites really are. They’re in for a shock this afternoon, though. By my rough, eyeballed count, the Tea Partiers have massed at least 1,000 people on the west side of the Capitol.

More of this soon, but for now, a quick taste. Most prominent and visible sign in the crowd: “Get the red out of the White House.”

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