Cartoon of the Day

Click to enlarge, via. Good luck today Mr President.

It's time for hardball, President Obama

By GottaLaff

Via the L.A. Times' Michael Hiltzik:

Get mean already.

The president's coolness in the face of the right wing's relentlessly anti-intellectual assault on his policies has been impressive as a display of character. But it also has enabled his opponents to subvert his program and erode his popularity. [...]

Senate Majority Leader Reid wasted weeks trying to enlist the GOP in a compromise, despite clear signs that Republican leaders were only interested in sabotaging reform. Obama didn't really take the reins of the debate until his address to Congress on Sept. 9. [...]

Interestingly, the GOP noise machine that has so unnerved the Democrats has done nothing to shake the public's desire for reform. It has merely sapped confidence in the Democrats' ability to deliver the goods. [...]

When asked to rate the actual provisions of the program, respondents expressed solid support. [...]

How about the "public option," which is anathema to the GOP? Asked if a government health plan should be created to compete with private insurers, Washington Post-ABC respondents said yes, 55% to 42%. CBS found even stronger support for providing a Medicare-like program for all Americans, 60% to 34%. [...]

It's worth remembering that effective health insurance reform has five major elements: mandating individual coverage, requiring issuance to all applicants, outlawing exclusions for preexisting conditions, regulating premiums and fees, and providing subsidies for low-income buyers. All are overwhelmingly supported by Americans, and all are in the Democratic proposals.

In other words, Congress and the president are poised to give Americans exactly what they want. [...]

So why are the Democrats so reluctant to drop the hammer on the opposition and pass this thing -- by themselves, if necessary?

Could the answer lie in Obama's cerebral personality? [...]

It's possible that Obama is playing a deep game -- that he aims to remain detached while the GOP destroys itself with its fatuous posturing. It's also conceivable that plenty of strong-arming is taking place behind the scenes. [...]

Global warming and financial regulation -- big issues lying dead ahead -- are in many respects even more complicated than healthcare and more susceptible to demagoguery. If they want to achieve their goals on these issues, the White House and the Democrats may have to assert their electoral mandate more aggressively than they have so far, or they'll risk losing it.

We've already seen that Obama knows how to talk sense. Can he play hardball too?

Health care debate must be fought below the belt

By GottaLaff

Right in the middle of writing this post, I stopped and read this piece about how the White House and the DNC will now try to turn all those nasty town hall mobs and Drudge reports into gold. They plan on making them the face of the opposition by taking on these thugs in new ads, playing by new rules. Good.

Phil Singer, who worked on rapid response for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and dealt frequently with the largely unfavorable conservative site, said:

"To be sure, Drudge asserts a certain level of influence. But I think it is fair to say Obama exerts a little bit more. And one of the things that has been interesting to watch has been the way that the White House and before that the Obama campaign was able to turn some of the old media rules on their head and create a new media dynamic."

Now back to my current blog already in progress, and opinion piece by Dan Neil:

How could the left possibly be losing the debate on healthcare reform when its opponent is the roundly loathed health insurance industry -- an ongoing criminal syndicate, in my view, that demands protection money from sick people?

It's because the insurance industry's demagoguery is better and smarter than the reformists' demagoguery.

This is a gunfight to which the reform agenda has brought a dull spoon. [...]

You might as well have Spencer and Heidi advocate for the public option. [...]

The American public is being roasted in a caldron of bull like St. Antipas, and this ad calls for increased reasonableness and bipartisanship? With allies like Big Pharma, who needs enemies?

Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee, through its Net-roots operation Organizing for America, has spent weeks and millions on the "It's Time" ad spot, a series of close-ups of people telling their sad tales of falling through the cracks of the healthcare system. [...]

Do these advertising strategists even live in America? When it comes to healthcare, appealing to the public's sympathy is a dead end. The whole healthcare debate is precisely about avoiding responsibility for less fortunate citizens. Then the kicker: "It's time for healthcare reform."

That's it? That's the galvanizing take-away? It's the emotional equivalent of "It's time to storm the Bastille." [...]

The insurance industry's ads are more effective. They are big, scary, threatening. Reform gets rolled like the British at the Somme by this ad.

Liberal progressives and advocates are going to have to get down and dirty if they want to win this fight. There's some hope on the horizon, though, in the ad from Americans United for Change [...]

[T]he female narrator asks, "Why do the insurance companies and the Republicans want to kill President Obama's health insurance reform?" Note the yoking of insurance companies to Republicans. Note also that it's Obama's health insurance reform. Evil insurance. [...]

The important thing is that the ad hominem ad is pointed, shrewd and manipulative.

And yes, it's class warfare. But then again, this is war.

Hopefully, after the aforementioned new efforts by Obama and the DNC, this is a war we can win.

Democrats Prepare Plan B on Health Care

Well, at least it looks like we're not going down without a fight, the DCCC is planning activities for recess, so get involved.

With health care reform sidetracked for another month, ABC News reports Democratic leaders "are quietly preparing for Plan B."

"Under the scenario now being discussed, bi-partisan talks would be aborted and parliamentary maneuvers used to force the bill through with a party-line vote."

Interesting side note: The "Gang of Six" senators involved in bipartisan health care negotiations represent six states with a total of less than three percent of the U.S. population (Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Maine, New Mexico and Iowa).