You heard it right! God Bless Joe Wilson because he is the best gift that the Democrats could have ever gotten!
Look at what has happened since his school yard antics were splashed all over the main stream media today...
Wilson is God's gift to the Dems!
So far the DNC has raised $1.1 million dollars since the speech.
A million-dollar day for the DNC
More evidence of a campaign-style reaction to Joe Wilson's outburst: The DNC's Brad Woodhouse emails that "in the 18 hours since the President, spoke 381,000 people have signed this letter in support of reform to members of Congress and we have raised - online alone - $1,087,000 - without a fund raising ask in the email."
http://www.politico.com/...
Rob Miller, Wilson's opponent has raised over $677,392 dollars and the donations have been reported to be coming it at over $1,000 per minute at Act Blue
http://www.actblue.com/...
President Obama's health care approval ratings have jumped up double digits.
Obama wins with speech-watchers, poll says
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two out of three Americans who watched President Obama's health care reform speech Wednesday night favor his health care plans, a 14-point gain among speech-watchers, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. national poll.
Sixty-seven percent of people questioned in the survey said they support the health care reform proposals Obama outlined in his address to a joint session of Congress. Twenty-nine percent opposed the proposals. Those figures are almost identical to a poll conducted immediately after Bill Clinton's health care speech before Congress in September 1993.
http://www.cnn.com/...
And Wilson's display and the other GOP antics have unified the Democratic base and congressional representatives and passage of a bill looks more likely to happen now.
So God Bless Joe Wilson!
Updated 1
Well Rob Miller continues to pull in an amazing amount of cash on Act Blue and his own website.
At the moment he has raised $723,649 and it is still climbing:
http://www.actblue.com/...
In the time it has taken to update this diary hie fund raising total has jumped up over $7,000 dollars and he now has 19,789 donors.
Even with this influx of cash his political aspirations may not yield the win that many Dems would like to see. South Carolina is a deeply Red State:
Within hours of outburst, money pours In for Miller
Excerpt:
Not all Democrats are as bullish about Miller’s chances to parlay Wilson’s sudden notoriety into victory.
Minnesota Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg, who saw a surge of financial support in 2008 after Minnesota GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann questioned Obama’s patriotism and suggested that members of Congress "may have anti-American views" during an MSNBC "Hardball" appearance, said he is somewhat skeptical of the episode’s ability to alter the dynamics of the race.
"[Miller] has to be conscious about the conservative backlash," said Tinklenberg, who experienced a $1 million-plus fundraising boomlet in the days after Bachmann’s remarks. "We found that people rallied to Bachmann’s defense because they saw the fundraising as a liberal media attack."
Despite running in a strongly Democratic environment
and riding a wave of national publicity, Tinklenberg still fell short — and was outspent by Bachmann.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is already hard at work attempting to raise money off Wilson. The committee sent out a fundraising e-mail Thursday asking donors to pitch in to hit a target of $100,000 in the next two days.
"Joe Wilson, already weakened by the last election, when he got less than 54 percent of the vote, despite outspending Rob Miller by more than 2-to-1, will be further damaged by his shameful outburst toward the commander in chief," said DCCC spokeswoman Jessica Santillo.
Republicans insist the overnight contributions aren’t indicative of local sentiment and reflect the attitudes of liberal, out-of-state donors who aren’t in touch with South Carolina values. "These kinds of donations tend to be given in the heat of the moment," said conservative political strategist Nino Saviano, president of Savi Political Consulting. "It’s probably coming from the liberal base and not locally within the district, but from other parts of the country. They’re driven by the left liberal blogs."
Read more: http://www.politico.com/...
Joe Wilson heavily out spent Rob Miller in the last election cycle, but the influx of cash has him worried.
Joe Wilson Releases Combative Fundraising Video link:
Declaring "I will not be muzzled," a combative Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) issued a fundraising appeal Thursday night asking supporters to donate to his re-election campaign after watching his opponent effortlessly raise more than half a million dollars since Wilson's outburst against President Obama.
"I want to take this moment to speak to you directly," Wilson said in the video, in which he acknowledged that his interruption of the presidential address to Congress was "wrong" and reminded viewers that he "apologized to the president shortly afterwards."
But the outburst "occurred after a month of town hall meetings and deeply emotional conversations I had with constituents who are as passionate as I am about this issue," he said.
"On these issue I will not be muzzled. I will speak up and speak loudly against this risky plan," he said.
"The supporters of the government takeover of health care and the liberals who want to give health care to illegals are using my opposition as an excuse to distract from the critical questions being raised about this poorly conceived plan," he said, continuing to suggest that the bills under discussion contain provisions to aid illegal immigrants that fact-checking groups say are not there.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
On the national front President Obama seems to have seized the momentum and is now playing offense, but many progressives are still waiting to see what the fate of the Public Option will be.
Democrats Seem Unified by Obama’s Speech
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ROBERT PEAR NYT
Published: September 10, 2009
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s speech on health care failed to bridge the gulf with Republicans, but Democrats said on Thursday that the president had largely succeeded in unifying his own party by making a cogent, persuasive pitch to the American public and by casting his plan to overhaul the health care system as a political and moral imperative.
The day after the nationally televised address, in which Mr. Obama signaled that he could accept an alternative to a government-run insurance plan, influential Democrats who previously seemed wedded to the public insurance option hinted that they, too, might be flexible. They included the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Representative Henry A. Waxman, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, both from California, and who both, like Mr. Obama, say they still prefer the public option, and view it as crucial to passing a bill in the House.
Democrats sought to use momentum from the speech to reshape the national political debate after more than a month of playing defense. Mr. Obama wasted no time in pursuing the support of lawmakers who seem to be on the fence by inviting 17 Senate Democrats, mostly centrists, to meet with him at the White House on Thursday, a session that participants described as overwhelmingly positive.
Snip!
"The president’s speech breathed new life into what we are doing," said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, who is leading the bipartisan negotiations. "The president is talking about what we are talking about. That is very helpful. We’re very close to being in sync here."
The group of six Senate Finance Committee negotiators, three Democrats and three Republicans, met again on Thursday to try to resolve differences. Large obstacles remain, including disagreements over a proposed expansion of Medicaid.
Some of Mr. Obama’s remarks left liberals disappointed, like his willingness to bend on the idea of creating a government-run health plan to compete with private insurers, which has broad support in the House.
http://www.nytimes.com/...