Something I read on FDL just clicked:
"Obama campaigns for 2 years with the public option as the centerpiece of his health care reform. He's elected by the largest majority in 20 years, and the public gives him 60 Democratic seats in the Senate and 256 Democratic seats in the House. Obama then publicly lobbies for said public option after he takes office. Then Kent Conrad, who represents like 7 people, and a handful of corrupt Blue Dogs say "No way." And Obama caves."
If even the "best" Obama non-public-option plan doesn't kick in immediately, then why are we stuck with this "now or never" attitude about passing health care legislation?
Why, instead, can't we have a line in the sand on the public option, by which Obama and Democrats say, "We're not going to compromise with screaming assholes who hate us and our proposals and will never vote for the output anyway. But what we will do is assemble a good, effective plan that would improve things substantially for a lot of people, and we're going to have a vote on it, and anyone who votes against it from a competitive district can take their chances with the electorate in 2010 -- and we'll try again in January 2011."
Of course, the idea of using unsuccessful votes against Republicans in political campaigns is the kind of thing that Democrats never really seem to be interested in doing -- especially because there are usually some Democrats who see it as infringing on their right to vote against the rest of the party and rake in money for preventing progress -- so I understand this may be a tough sell.
Or is the guy who said "I don't do cowering" and "if it makes me a one-term president, I'm going to [do healthcare and energy legislation]" only saying those things to the left, much as Rahm Emanuel only screams obscenities at Democrats?