Happy Hour Roundup
* David Axelrod is making an interesting case to Dem lawmakers: Your fate in 2010 rests heavily on the President’s standing — which is why you should pass heath care already!
* RNC chair Michael Steele has lost his communications director, Trevor Francis, the RNC confirms. The chatter today is that it’s related to Steele’s media missteps, but the RNC says he was merely on “hiatus” with them.
* Howard Dean says Dems have run out of good options on health care, and that using “reconciliation” is their only hope to stave off a 2010 bloodbath.
* The coming war among Dems over Afghanistan will make the health care debate look like a 1960s love-in.
* The AARP and the AMA launch new ad campaign telling seniors not to be scared by all the fearmongering.
* Jane Hamsher keeps up the pressure for reconciliation, hangs it all around Harry Reid’s neck.
* Reid begins exploring potential public option compromises behind closed doors.
* Good question from Jed Lewison: If the Senate Dem leadership insists the health care bill absolutely must pass, why take reconciliation, which makes passage more likely and exerts more pressure on moderate Dems, off the table?
* Yglesias dissents on Obama’s China trip.
* Charles Franklin ably challenges the now-common claim that Obama is losing independents. In fairness, the GOP’s main case is that Democratic Party overall and its agenda are losing indy support, not that Obama is.
* And Jim DeMint’s new role as the influential Pied Piper of the Tea Party brigade may be vastly overstated.
Got anything else?
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” Jane Hamsher keeps up the pressure for reconciliation, hangs it all around Harry Reid’s neck.”
At least it’s not Obama’s.
Anything else? Yeah – new homes sales hit a 2.5 year high.
O yes I do have something else. Y’all really really really have to see Shawty dropping it like she ain’t got manners:
http://bossip.com/182321/in-white-folks-news-katie-couric-gets-loose-as-a-goose-on-the-dance-floor/
Wow. Thanks. I think.
Links! Links! Links!
Comments should be fixed, with no more disappearances…let me know pls…
Here’s a pretty good quote from Charlie Crist on being a conservative.
“It’s hard to be more conservative than I am on issues — though there are different ways stylistically to communicate that — I’m pro-life, I’m pro-gun, I’m pro-family, and I”m anti tax.” … “I don’t know what else you’re supposed to be, except maybe angry too.”
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/crist-its-hard-to-be-more-conservative-than-i-am.php?ref=fpblg
Sorry Greg, had to refresh twice for comment to show up. FYI
Dammit, lmsinca, I’m sorry. It was supposed to be fixed by now. Is anyone else having a problem having comments show up?
“If the Senate Dem leadership insists the health care bill absolutely must pass, why take reconciliation, which makes passage more likely and exerts more pressure on moderate Dems, off the table?”
Because you never expose your fall back position before you have to. Harry should have never mentioned it, in the first place. Why show your hole cards to the opponents of any reform, so they can plot how to defeat your fall back option.
Threatening to use the reconciliation(nuclear option) before he had the sixty votes lined up, to move to debate, was a stupid thing for Harry to have done. I expect that he got an ear full from some moderate Democratic Senators about having gone public with the threat, because it hung them out to dry, just before they were being asked to vote for cloture.
It became harder for them to claim that they were just voting to move to debate, if their leader was saying, at the same time, that he was going to do and end run on them, down the road.
It was a surprisingly inept political move by Harry Reid.
It is times like these that I miss Senator Kennedy most of all.
“Jane Hamsher keeps up the pressure for reconciliation, hangs it all around Harry Reid’s neck.”
Yeah, and I’m sure Harry Reid is really worried about an irrelevant blogger 99.99999% of Americans have never heard of and 99% of Americans disagree with.
“David Axelrod is making an interesting case to Dem lawmakers: Your fate in 2010 rests heavily on the President’s standing — which is why you should pass heath care already.”
If they want to improve the president’s standing they will deal with unemployment first. You could pass a dozen health care bills, if unemployment keeps going up, it won’t matter.
And you have to be completely oblivious to how unpopular this bill is becoming to actually argue passing it will be a boon to you politically. How many polls does it take to demonstrate to you that the American public does not want this bill? How far does Congressional and Presidential approval have to sink?
Furthermore, when I filibuster this thing, I won’t care less about the Obama presidency and Democrats in Congress. Obama should have thought of that before he insulted me after I endorsed McCain, and the Dems should have thought of that before Ned Lamont challenged me in the 2006 primary. We would not be in this filibuster situation if Lamont had been told not to run. But as they say, revenge is a dish best served with a filibuster. And I can’t wait to serve it up.
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments.
Aww. Whudda CUTE widdle twoll.
[[why take reconciliation, which makes passage more likely and exerts more pressure on moderate Dems, off the table?]]
Because that’s what Congressional Democrats DO — unilaterally disarm, start compromising when they’re already halfway to the GOP position, and on and on.
Old Joe can’t seem to make up his mind.
“In June, Lieberman said, “I don’t favor a public option because I think there’s plenty of competition in the private insurance market.” That didn’t make sense, and it was quickly dropped from his talking points.
In July, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because “the public is going to end up paying for it.” No one could figure out exactly what that meant, and the senator moved onto other arguments.
In August, he said we’d have to wait “until the economy’s out of recession,” which is incoherent, since a public option, even if passed this year, still wouldn’t kick in for quite a while.
In September, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because “the public doesn’t support it.” A wide variety of credible polling proved otherwise.
In October, Lieberman said the public option would mean “trouble … for the national debt,” by creating “a whole new government entitlement program.”
Except it won’t.
Joe was for the public option before he was against it.
All, morning roundup posted:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/republican-national-committee/the-morning-plum-18/