Today I was listening to the Ed Shultz radio show and he had Senator Kent Conrad on the air trying to explain to Ed's audience why WE should compromise the Public Option for Co-Op's. He basically said "I don't care what the polls say that senators don't get elected by national poll numbers and that we should bend over and take what we can get - meaning Co-Ops." OK maybe he wasn't that graphic but that was the jist of what I felt he was saying to me since I don't live in his district. Anyway, I thought Public Option was the compromise. I'll provide the audio link Link.
I am so tired of listening to democrats talk about not having the 60 votes to get anything through. I swear I don't remember this argument from the Republicans for the last 8 years of the Bush administration. This is why public perception of Congressional Democrats is that they are weak, spineless, weasly, and guttless. Now I feel confident in saying as a party (not all of them) that they are also bought and paid for by the corporate lobbyists. I used to feel like they didn't fight for what they knew was right because they were always afraid of how the republicans would frame the issue. Now I know that that was just political theater. Their job lately seems to be to find all the excuses in the book to protect big business too. The only problem is that it is obvious and the public is not buying the old tired excuses. Especially us Dems!!
I think Congress needs to wake up and realize that there was a revolution of sorts during the Presidential campaign. Alot of people are angry and are paying very close attention to our elected officials. Most of us don't get our real news from Cable or Network television anymore because we've figured out they have an agenda and the public good doesn't seem to fit to nicely into that agenda. So, they can't control or shape the issues anymore. Current polling of the Presidents approval numbers proves that. The internet has made it very easy to find out basic information like who is donating to campaigns, voting records, and the ability to be able to help donate money to an independent grass roots primary challenger....all with the stroke of the keyboard or the click of a mouse.
Democrats better recongize that the democratic electorate is a lot smarter and much more informed than in the past and they better grow a pair otherwise the door will be open for a real reformist party or an independent.