Stop wasting time on plans

HillaryCare, EdwardsCare, will you talk to Iran, where did you get your hair cut, what's your plan for energy, what do you think of your opponent's plan for infrastructure.

It's all a damned waste of time.  Know why?  Because it extends the notion that the President is the decider, and that Congress is out of the picture.

News flash:  The President doesn't write the laws.  The Cabinet doesn't write the laws.  According to the way I read the Constitution, Congress writes the laws, and the President and Executive Branch executes those laws.

Am I wrong?

There's nothing wrong with presidential candidates coming out with plans.  But my concern is that they spend too much time working out the details of those plans, and not enough energy fleshing out their own values.  Anyone who can stand in front of an audience and say that they want everyone covered by health care is on the right track.  But can they make an equally convincing argument on WHY it's important as well as HOW?

I really feel like it's going to be the WHY question that wins or loses this election.  We've had 7 years as an example of what happens with conservatives in charge of both the Executive and Legislative branches of the Federal Government.  And we've had conservatives or centrists in charge of the Executive branch since 1981.  We need to convince the voters all across the country that it is important not just to elect Democrats, but true progressives.  I'm not satisfied with holding the line against the rightward motion that this country has been taking.  I want a 180 turnaround.  We have to convince everyone that it is necessary and a good thing.  I don't think we can do that by drowning them in HOW, but we can fire them up if we really explain WHY.

I like Edwards' plan for Health Care.  I could even be persuaded to support Hillary's plan.  But we already have two bills in Congress that deals with the subject.  HR 676 by Kucinich and Conyers, and HR 1200 by my own representative, Jim McDermott.  I'm sure there are others trying to get attention in the drowning flood of bills out there.  If one of the presidential candidates who is in the House or Senate right now, like Biden or Dodd, want a policy to come out of the Congress, they should  introduce them and then build support of the grassroots to get co-sponsors and push them through committee.  

The problem seems to be that's not how electoral politics works anymore.  Instead of working to get your plans passed, you make speeches and articulate a plan, then leave the hard work to someone else someday in the future.

I know this is cynical.  Show me differently.  HR 676 currently has 77 co-sponsors, and we need more to get the committees to actually bring it up.  If Senator Clinton thinks that her plan is the best and has the best chance of going through Congress, she needs to get one of her supporters in the House to introduce it before the end of the 110th Congress, and start building the wave of support.

Here's where all this came from.  When Senator Clinton came out with her Health Care plan, focused on choices and mandates to the people, I started wondering what would happen if she won the nomination, won the election and we succeeded at the grassroots to create a true progressive majority in Congress.  I can guarantee that Kucinich and Conyers would resubmit HR 676, and that it would get pushed through committee.  The question in my mind is whether she would sign something that deliberately took the private insurance industry out of the picture.  Given her history, given her campaign sponsors, and given her own plan for health care, my greatest fear is that she would refuse to sign it because it would make the insurance industry angry with her.

I'm thinking about it, but it basically comes down to this.  Will the candidate who wins and runs under the Democratic Party banner support the most progressive legislation that is likely to come out of congress in the 111th session?  That's the question that we should be asking them now.  Will they sign HR 676 and the other progressive pieces of legislation that will land on their desk, or will we spend another 4 years under a centrist and calculating president trying to maintain the power that George Bush amassed during his reign?

You tell me.

•  Tip Jar

  What does everyone think?

  by chadlupkes on Sat Sep 22, 2007 at 06:21:13 PM PDT

  •  That they sell out once they get into office

    Or, as the fellow who wrote The Economic Hit Man says, they're offered a bullet or a bribe. Because anything short of that makes so little sense.

    by AllisonInSeattle on Sun Sep 23, 2007 at 09:19:46 PM PDT

•  Most times when a Dem answers

  "What do Democrats stand for," we get a laundry list.

  No, folks, our form of government is broken.  Your erudite plan to federally fund stem cell research is not going to win the election.

  I am for individual liberty and the rule of law, and for equality of opportunity.  Why?  Because I want to live a free, self-determined life.

  What candidate is best going to uphold the law, including punishing those who break it?  Another Nixon-pardoning Gerald Ford or Iran-Contra-ignoring Bill Clinton is going to lose us even more life, liberty, and happiness.

  by Simplify on Sat Sep 22, 2007 at 06:55:48 PM PDT

•  Good questions. You're right in one

  very important point. We should be working like hell to get HR 676 voted on NOW. At the very least, this would be a great issue for the 2008 House primaries, which is why I think Nancy (Neville) Pelosi will never  call it to the floor.

  Your second question, "Will the candidate who wins and runs under the Democratic Party banner support the most progressive legislation that is likely to come out of congress in the 111th session?" is rather meaningless, unless we move the leadership to a more active position. My solution is to primary the Blue Dogs, the "New Democrats" (aka "Old Quislings") and scare the sh*t out of the leadership.

  by Jacques on Sat Sep 22, 2007 at 06:55:49 PM PDT

•  Sounds like a plan!

  thanks for the good advice.

  by Roadbed Guy on Sat Sep 22, 2007 at 07:06:56 PM PDT

•  I know,

  we could write a spate of impeachment diaries.  That's the ticket.

  by DCDemocrat on Sat Sep 22, 2007 at 07:24:05 PM PDT

•  Have you been

  talking to my brother? He said almost the exact same thing the other day.These sitting Senators are all talking about their plans and what they are going to do. How they are going to fight for health coverage "when I am elected", introduce the bill. Does this mean they won't fight for coverage of all if they aren't elected?

  by LaEscapee on Sat Sep 22, 2007 at 08:59:31 PM PDT

•  they've chickened out, sold out, backed out

  of not very progressive stuff for decades -

  aside from the completely dispable bullshit of this week, alito, roberts, the nuclear option, ... the May 2001 tax rip off for bush and his fucking criminals

  and for some reason their all gonna get spines and fight for us peee-ons in jan '09??

  only if we get rid of about 90%+ of the current dems in congress and the senate.

  rmm.

  by seabos84 on Sat Sep 22, 2007 at 09:59:00 PM PDT