Republicans Unlikely To Pull Out Of Health Summit, GOPers Say
After talking to a bunch of senior Republican aides and advisers on background, I can report that the chatter in GOP circles is that it’s unlikely that Republicans will pull out of the health care summit, despite GOP leadership hints to the contrary.
The basic view is that the President would have to say or do something dramatic and eye-popping that would give Republicans an unequivocal pretext for pulling out. GOPers doubt Obama will be clumsy enough to do this, given that the White House clearly wants the summit to happen for its own political purposes.
“I don’t see anybody pulling out at this point,” one senior GOP aide says. “You would have to have something serious to point to as a reason to pull out.”
Reps John Boehner and Eric Cantor sent a letter yesterday to the White House, laying out a number of conditions for Republican participation. The letter said that if Obama was unwilling to scrap the current health reform proposals and start over, Republicans “would rightly be reluctant to participate.”
But one senior GOP strategist who regularly advises the GOP Congressional leadership said this move was more about pressuring the White House to alter the conditions somewhat in the GOP’s favor, and putting responsibility for the optics of the event on the White House, than about any real threat to pull out.
“They put the ball squarely in the president’s court,” this strategist says. “But the anticipation is he’s going to do this in the right way.”
A senior GOP leadership aide involved in plotting party strategy added that Republicans were unlikely to pull out because it would make their own intransigence, rather than Obama’s efforts at a course correction, the story. “After a year of demonstrating a commitment to a partisan agenda it’s on the White House to prove otherwise,” this aide said. “We aren’t interested in doing their work for them.”
“We don’t make a habit out of turning down invitations from the President regardless of the merit of the exercise,” the aide continued. “Although we’re not excited about filming an infomercial for the President’s new `bipartisan’ PR campaign.”
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BG re Elizabeth Warren…”agreed on Liz Warren: Harvard prof, charming accent, and soooo smart. I’d love to see her as Sec of the Treasury! Oh how that would twist the GOP in knots.”
What a great idea!!!
ruk,
She sounds cool….well maybe we can start with her as Treasury Sec and go from there!
MORE LIKE THIS PLZ!
Conrad blasts TV coverage of healthcare
“I think the media have done a grave disservice to the American people for chasing every rabbit of an issue that matters very little to dealing with has to be done,” Conrad said Tuesday. “And I’m not talking about — I’m largely putting the finger of blame on network media that has a minute on a half on a story and never has a chance to explain to people what are the things that really matter to this debate. Instead, they obsess on things that are a complete side issue.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/80373-conrad-blasts-tv-news-for-healthcare-coverage
And now I’ll say something nice, after all that complaining:
Elizabeth Warren is hands-down the best communicator about difficult financial issues, ever. The only people who come even remotely close to her are the people from NPR’s Planet Money.
“And now I’ll say something nice, after all that complaining:
Elizabeth Warren is hands-down the best communicator about difficult financial issues, ever. The only people who come even remotely close to her are the people from NPR’s Planet Money.”
totally agree. She’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever seen.
Don’t know that she’s presidential, really. But she’s exceptional at what she does.
Warren should have a TV call-in show where people can ask any economic or financial questions about how the government works, or is supposed to work.
Maybe co-hosted with Dr. Drew.
It could be called “Econ and Psyche.”
Conrad is absolutely right…but people keep tuning into CNN and MSNBC to watch this garbage….DON’T DO IT, I’M PLEADING WITH ALL OF YOU, STOP WATCHING CABLE NEWS!!!!!
Great post from Chait:
“Obama uses a similar approach toward Republicans as foreign enemies like the Iranian regime: take them up on their claim to some shared goal (nuclear disarmament, health care reform), elide their preferred red herrings, engage them seriously, and then expose their disingenuousness”
Read the entire post:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/the-obama-method-and-the-health-care-summit
Pragmatic: when Obama said, during the campaign, that he would engage enemies, we just never realized he meant Republicans!
Prag, that’s accurate, but when Iran doesn’t engage, hte only message that gets back here is “they’re making nukes!” Of course, that’s also a republican talking point. And likewise, republicans will establish the republican talking points coming out of this summit too. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, I mean, at least Obama can say he tried, but there’s gonna be some “death panel” type nonsense that ends up overshadowing everything.
I sure hope you’re wrong SD. From what I can tell, the GOP has gotten no traction for their claims regarding the Baltimore meeting and the general consensus remains that the President exposed them.
Yeah CT, who’d a thunk it?
I hope I’m wrong too. Obama and the dems CAN win this, but they need to be extremely disciplined and fearless. Once one of them weakens, the rest are soon to follow.
I love this discussion. I feel so at home…I am beeming. After reading so many anti-dem posts on other articles, I find you all are helping me to know that indeed I a not alone. I too am a very loyal O-bot. hehe. Love that by the way.
I think that many folks will watch this summit. I for one will be getting my popcorn ready for that event!! I just hope Fox doesn’t decide to quit covering it; we all know Mr. O is going to make the repubs look like the uneducated, do nothing peeps that they are. I think this whole idea is genious.
Wow, the happy hero worship going on around here is frightening. Don’t get me wrong. I support the president, but geez. I guess I’m more in line with CT Voter.
Back to health care reform.
Spread the word; Keep on repeating this, day and night.
All We Are Asking For Is A Straight Up Or Down Vote. The American People Deserve That.
Raise up your voices. Let me hear you: What do we want?
All We Are Asking For Is A Straight Up Or Down Vote. The American People Deserve That.
Shout it from the rooftops. Let me hear you.
All We Are Asking For Is A Straight Up Or Down Vote. The American People Deserve That.
I’ve no doubt they’d like to cut and run away from this. Obviously, if they ever had any serious intention of discussing this or pretty much anything else in good faith, they’ve had plenty of chances. And they have chained themselves down so tightly with their own talking points now that if anyone manages to shine a spotlight on them, they can’t move out of the way. The downside of intransigence is inability to adapt to changing circumstances.
I have asked Mr. Sargent how i could print his great piece on the ooutsourcing of government jobs.The outsourcing is actually replacing socalled big government. Plus adding to the profit of corporations at taxpayer expense.Please repeat that piece.
“Somebody at Ezra’s post commented that if a deal can be made securing straight up/down votes (no GOP filibuster) then resetting would be (potentially) feasible. Is this sensible?”
The GOP won’t agree to that, because the Senate Democrats have 51 votes for a public option, and could basically just pick up the bill that the House already passed and push it through with a simple majority vote. I think they could pass the House bill 56-44 (they lost the Kirk vote in MA, and then there’s Lieberman, Nelson and another member of the Democratic caucus who vowed to vote against a public option. Might be more. But there’s at least 51 Senators who would support it.)
Playing the game of: “American Politics” can be our greatest downfall, ….WE MAY NOT NEED ANY OTHER ENEMIES !
I am truly hoping that members the GOP will work with the Pres. to get the country back on track. And before this Pres. took ofc, I never realized, or took note of the games politicians played in Washington, holding the American public in the palm of their hands. Senators on both sides, who decide to act like children, saying: “If I don’t get what I want, I won’t play” !………….. America, we should all take note of these people, and when their terms end, we really should do the right thing by them to VOTE THEM OUT STRAIGHT OUT OF OFFICE !
And THIS is why GOP Congressmen will have to walk the Gauntlet in Nov.
They are STUPID! And we will no longer tolerate STUPID Politicians!
If the GOP hasn’t figured out this a Whipping Post for the GOP from Obama, then the whole lot of them are STUPID!
As Cantor said, the “ONLY route to a BIPARTISAN cooperations is if the Dems FULLY embrace the GOP plan.”
The Dems are losing the messaging war since they don’t have a 24×7 news channel spreading their talking points. I hope the Dems are prepared because the GOP is about to flame every idea they think is in the final bill and won’t have a conscience about making things up.
Our government! Have we all forgot that these people who are in their positions work for us. It seems that way to me. It appears that most people of the United States have come to accept that we now work for the federal government. If you do not agree then perhaps you need to change your way of thinking.
Why is it that we have all started acting like school children, including the federal government? How did this two separate team concept become reality within the government? If you blame them you are wrong, the government is always giving the people exactly what popular opinion says we want.
Isn’t it time for us, the people to come together and stop acting like school children, so our government will do the same? The blame game must come to a stop or our country is going to cease to exist.
For the government to stop we must first stop, we must realize that we are on the verge of being lost to this silly BS.
Has any of you taken the time to check what your state is doing with their 10th amendment act rights? 23 states have some sort of 10th amendment act on the books or are considering it. that’s almost have of our country, perhaps the only way forward is by our nation (the greatest nation on earth), failing and having to restart.
Perhaps then we will realize that the blame game only leads to failure. The time for hard decisions is here yet all we do is blame each side for not coming together. your getting exactly what your asking for. More of the blame game. It’s no wonder nothing is getting done we don’t expect it to get done until one side gets exactly what they want before giving in and passing any kind of bill.
I am not saying one side is right over the other, I am saying that our government was never meant to become a school yard exercise in who’s right who’s wrong.
At this point in our history it does not matter anymore. What matters is making those decisions that must be made to get our government back on track and us the people out of debt and working for our government.
This is what we the people should be demanding of our government.
I don’t know about any of the rest of you but I don’t want to be working for my government for the rest of my life. I what it to work for me as it is suppose to do.