Passing Health Care Reform Will Not Hurt Democrats

Haven't the sane people been saying this all along? The damage is already done with the squabbling and fecklessness of the D's. Via Taegan-

A new Public Policy Polling survey finds Democratic candidates this fall "will fare about the same whether health care passes or not."

"The GOP leads 43-40 on the generic Congressional ballot. When you ask people how they'll vote if the Democrats don't pass their health care plan the GOP leads 43-38. That's because the level of support from Democratic voters for their own party drops from 80% to 76% if there is no health care bill. The GOP level of support remains unchanged at this point whether it passes or not."

Bottom line: "The political damage for Democrats has been done. It doesn't matter whether it actually passes- it has had the effect of getting Republican voters really fired up and along with the economy continuing to struggle it has turned independents toward the GOP as well. Those voters aren't going to come back at this point because health care doesn't pass. Would Democrats be in a better position right now if they hadn't even touched the issue? Probably. But what's the point of being in power if you don't deal with things like health care?"

VIDEO: President Obama makes unexpected appearance at Daily W.H. Briefing re: Gates incident

By GottaLaff

UPDATE: Here's the video, blog title edited to reflect...

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Damage control by Prez O just now, during a surprise appearance at the White House Daily Briefing. He's speaking about the "Skip" Gates/Sgt. Crowley matter. Liveblog:

He's a good man. This has been ratcheting up and I helped to contribute. My choice of words, unfortunately gave impression I was maligning. I should have calibrated the words differently, and I told Sgt. Crowley. There was an overreaction in pulling Gates out of his home, to the station. I believe, based on what I heard, Gates probably overreacted as well. You have 2 good people in a circumstance in which neither could resolve the incident the way they'd like to have.

The attention garnered shows these are sensitive issues. My choice of words contributed to more media frenzy, that's important. So let's step back, see these are 2 different people, not extrapolate too much.

BECAUSE of history, A.A.s are sensitive to these issues. Even with someone like Crowley with good track record, there can be misunderstandings. I hope this is a teachable moment. Instead of pumping up volume, listen to each other, focus on how to improve relations between officers and minorites. Be more reflective, contribute to more unity.

This issue has overshadowed health care. I won't use this time on health care right now, but that won't be true next week.

One last point: As pres. I shouldn't have stepped into local issue? I disagree. The fact that it has become so big, it shows race is still troubling aspect of our society. ... Discussion about Sgt. Crowley and I having a beer in W.H. may happen, not scheduled yet.

Crowley asked if he could get press off his lawn..? I can't get the press off of MY lawn. [laughter]

McCain shifts ads to Miami, Indiana

Hahahaha... snort....hahahahaha!

A Democrat keeping an eye on John McCain's media buying says the Republican is putting money into two red state markets: the state of Indiana and the expensive, but crucial, Miami media market.

That would be the first time he's advertised in either of those markets, though the RNC had aired ads in Indiana. Miami, in particular, is the sort of money pit that a campaign would love to avoid, if it can. Ad tracker Evan Tracey pointed out to me earlier today that the money gap is showing up in part in Obama's dominance of the huge markets: He's up in Chicago because Chicago TV reaches a fraction of Indiana residents; he's up in Boston for New Hampshire; and he's up in Washington D.C. for Virginia, three markets McCain's not in.