New Ad From Progressive Group Blasts Harry Reid: Is He “Strong Enough?”
It had been reported to be in the works, and here it is: An ad from the left taking direct aim at Harry Reid, featuring one of his female constituents demanding he prove “strong enough” to make the public option a reality.
It’s a tough, effective spot, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee will announce in an email this morning to supporters that it will start running Wednesday in the Las Vegas media market on both broadcast and cable:
In an interesting twist, the constituent who speaks out against Reid — Lee Slaughter, a nurse with two broken hips whose family is being bankrupted by health care costs — identifies herself as a “swing voter” who has backed Republicans and Reid.
The ad’s message: The public option is not just a preoccupation of the left, and the failure to include one could (contrary to conventional wisdom) result in an inadequate reform bill that could actually end up hurting Dems in swing districts.
“I’m watching to see if Harry Reid is strong, and effective enough as a leader, to pass a public health insurance option into law,” the constituent says. “Nevadans want the choice of a public option.”
The spot reflects the debate roiling Dems over how much blame Reid bears for failing to engineer the unity Republicans had little trouble mustering while in the majority. It’s likely to rankle Reid’s staff, who insist he’s pushing for the public option and claim such pressure threatens the delicate political operation required to unite his fractured caucus.
The PCCC, however, is unchastened. In its email to go out today it asks for donations to keep the ad running. We’ll be tracking this here today.
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Update: HuffPo had this up first.
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Not for nothing but having a woman ask if Harry Reid is “strong” is powerful powerful stuff. Might as well have asked”Where your nuts at Senator?” He won’t be happy about it thats for sure and that makes my heart smile
How about it Reid? Man enough to support your constituents?
Great ad, and quite effective. I do wonder whether this is a youtube press release, or if they will actually air the ad in NV. A 1-min ad isn’t cheap to get up on the airwaves.
I bet Sen. Reid sure wishes the it was Sen. Schumer’s decision too.
Good. Reid won’t commit to a robust public option, so this is exactly what PO supporters need to be doing. I’ll be sending PCCC a check today.
Krugman: “Annoying liberals, on the other hand, feels transgressive but has historically been safe. The rules may be changing … but it’s been that way for a long time.” It is changing. They won’t get a free ride anymore, as Reid and the WH and the Freakanomics clowns are finding out.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/superfreakingmeta/
This is waaaay off topic but I don’t think a lot of people realize this.
Koch industries, who is funding all the craziness coming from Americans from Prosperity and Freedom Works, the guys who organized the opposition to Obama has a connection to the craziness that was directed at Kennedy.
David Koch’s father, Fred Koch, was a founding member of the John Birch Society and he served on its National Council.
Mark Ames brought up the similarities in a recent article. He brought up the link between the tea party people and the Birch Society in an article a few days after Santelli from CNBC did his rant that triggered the first rise of the tea parties.
I wonder if Koch and the John Birch Society view Democrats as an enemy of the state enough to fire up people enough in the hopes they try something violent.
Harry Reid needs to get one thing clear: Lieberman MAY vote in the Democratic Caucus but on health and other critical issues he will side with the Republicans. There are several other goof balls. The Republicans know how to unite. the Democrats know how to place “I” before “WE”or “US”.
Does the party have 60 without Lieberman? Didn’t Specter cancel out Lieber? What’s the arithmetic, Greg?
It’s 60 with Lieberman unfortunately. I did read something over the weekend that he’s leaning toward a vote on cloture but not committing yet. I think he just likes everyone fawning over him and feeling all important and mavericky.
Freehold
Here’s a bit of info. on the Gates Foundation and their eradication of polio in Nigeria that’s having some problems. I haven’t substantiated all the details yet but you might find it interesting anyway.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/10193
Regarding the Ad, I love it. I wouldn’t want to be in Reid’s shoes unless I knew I was going to do the right thing anyway. His hesitancy is what sets him up as a target from the Progressives. The woman with two broken hips seems immeasurably stronger that Harry “the boxer” Reid.
I never quite understood how he ever got to be Majority Leader in the first place. Reminds me of the typical bureaucrat willing to go along to get along. No “oomph” in his pencil to be sure. I would rather see a rabid partisan in the post than this milquetoast.
anyone having site problems? (working on the math, alan)
Harkin’s been saying we have 52 members of the caucus that are for the PO, and only 5 who are against, and that those 5 should bend to then rest of the caucus, at least on cloture (I agree). My question: Who are the 3 that apparently have no opinion? And how the bleep not?
@Greg:
No issues so far today.
@alan:
The 60 votes includes Lieberman. There’s no way around him, unless Dems get a Republican (see: Snowe) to vote for cloture. The thing is, Lieberman is going to lose re-election, there’s no way he makes it back in the Senate next time even if he votes for HCR. So he has nothing to lose right now. That’s why he’s a difficult vote. Everyone else, if you brought it to the floor, would vote for cloture. No Democrat will ever get re-elected being a fillibuster vote against HCR, no matter how red a state they are in.
They should tell Lieberman that if he votes with Republicans, they’ll strip him of his chairmanship and his seniority. They went easy on him after Obama won the election, and it’s time to cash in that favor. If he’s not willing to vote for cloture on this, then he’s not worth having in the caucus, you boot him out and leave him with nothing.
In the end, this is all just for show anyways. Every Dem, including Lieberman and Sanders, will probably vote for cloture, and probably vote for final passage. The “maybe I won’t” is nothing more than a negotiating tool to try and get some deals. If Sen. Reid had more control over his caucus, and more “strength” then he’d realize this and get us a good bill. Put a strong bill on the floor and tell those that waver they have two choices – vote for cloture and earn some favors down the road, or vote to fillibuster and he’ll organize every way he can to strip them of any power they have.
Oh Snap! I will be dropping them a few coins for this ad.
note to Reid staffers:
simply, clearly state the Majority Leader is in favor of a robust PO, no triggers, no co ops, or opt outs and we’ll make it stop period
I never quite understood how he ever got to be Majority Leader in the first place.
That’s easy. Choose a weak majority leader and the real power lies with the committees and especially with the committee chairs.
If you were a senior senator in charge of a committee what would you prefer to have: power or less power?
The tents in BOTH parties are getting a little to tight for everybody to fit! This is nothing new for the Dems who have always had a big tent and lots of dissension of the type illustrated in this Reid ad.
But if you saw Lindsey Graham’s disastrous town hal meeting last week and this video I’m linking…it seems as if the right is now joining the left in eating their own. This seems to be a new development in the continuing demise of the Whig excuse me..Republican Party….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/19/david-keene-to-john-ziegl_n_325663.html
New financial regulations in the UK .. as the US Federal government provides a large and increasing fraction of funding for home mortgages
Homebuyers could be forced to provide detailed information about the amount of money they spend on alcohol each month to qualify for a new mortgage under a new clampdown on reckless lending.
In a sweeping review of the mortgage market published today, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said lenders needed to be far more rigorous about their financial checks of potential borrowers.
It said lenders should delve deeper into homebuyers’ personal spending including the amount they spend on alcohol and tobacco.
Spending on shoes, clothes and childcare could also be assessed under a new, industry-wide “affordability test”.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6880612.ece
Freehold working hard to support Right Wing lunatic fringe claims that we are becoming too much like Europe.
Thanks BBQ. Lieberman’s chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee has been a joke. The seating mixes up Reps and Dems. Pure BS theatre. Why he was given that seems obvious: to keep him on the Dem side. He repaid Reid with votes against Dem issues. I read somewhere Reid was a boxer. Bantamweight??? May explain his ineffectiveness.
Alan,
The Democrats were going to strip Liberman of that position, for having campaigned for McCain. President Obama intervened against that move. Leiberman kept that position because President Obama asked the Democrats to not punish Joe.
@Freehold…OT but what the heck…Two thoughts my friend. First you are correct there needs to me more over site of mortgage underwriters. By the end of the bubble they weren’t even doing drive by appraisals. I had a friend who worked in a large office building in Tampa doing appraisals for underwriters all over the U.S. He had no local knowledge of various communities and the economic forces drving them. He simply did a down and dirty sales comparison approach which of course simply fed on itself. This problem was not caused by minorities getting bad loans…small potatoes.
The bad mortgages in and of themselves and the housing bubble they produced however was just the tip of the iceberg! We’d already be on the road to recovery if they were the only problem.
The REAL problems began when the shrewd Wall St Boys began packinging these subprimes into investment products and then made it exponentially worse by insuring crappy, risky investment products with the notorious Credit Default Swaps not really worth the paper they were written…well actually that was exactly what they were worth…the paper..since they were unregulated and it was unsecuritized insurance.
You really crack me up Freehold with your comparisons to the UK. It’s not quite like comparing apples to oranges, but at least like comparing Granny Smiths (Monarchy) to Galas (new hybrid).
If you’re really worried about our mortgage companies doing something similar I would suggest paying cash for booze and smokes.
This ad makes no sense.
If Harry Reid isn’t strong enough to get a public option passed, who is she going to vote for? A republican who’s even more opposed to the public option?
The left has absolutely no leverage over Democrats because they have no one else to vote for.