Well it looks like the Republicans are going to win this round. No doubt about it. I can see how it's going to happen. I've been working hard and staying positive through all of this health care reform debate, but now I see a republican strategy that has me worried.
Lamar Alexander says that large bills that want to change everything and scare half of the country to death are just not the way to go. It's the latest Republican meme. They're all saying something similar. It makes a lot of sense, too. Look at all those old people who have given everything to this country. Hard workers their whole lives. And now we're scaring them to death. Just look at them all! Without fail, they are the group that shows up at all of the townhalls I've been to. So, that means the Republicans are right about this, aren't they?
Is this really how it's going to come down? Somebody please, to use Rachel's line, "talk me down."
For the past six months, there have been many many calls for a mass march on Washington. Lots of talk about it and many diaries and comments asking for the people who have put themselves forward as organizers in this battle to come up with something. September turned into the month of choice.
This past month, several dates in September were tossed out there. Usually, people were just getting impatient and tried to make something stick. Maybe they saw this train wreck coming. Then Richard Rauch announced that he'd like to see "our side" do something on September 13. That was the date that seemed to garner the most interest.
At the time, I did not know that Beck&Co were planning to descend on Washington from September 9-12. The whole idea of having to start over because everybody was afraid meme hadn't been rolled out yet. But, there had been enough interest in some sort of pro-health care reform march that this date seemed to be as good as any and should be supported.
We've known from the beginning that the anti reform side of this has been supported by industry. They have Beck and Fox spewing all the time, so they have national TV support and promotion. They have everything organized down to the second. Most of you have talked to these people at the townhalls. You know they couldn't organize their way out the front door in the morning without help. And yet all over this country pro-reform people stepped up. They found their townhalls, made their signs, talked back. They made lots of phone calls and wrote emails and letters - a lot of them. FDL came up with that great tracker tool. Kos became one of the great places to come to so you'd know what happens at these things. HCAN, Unions, nurses...everybody stepped up. They did it without national TV support and without industry money. And they started looking pretty good at the townhalls. They now outnumber anti reform people at these townhalls regularly.
Republican politicians are STILL only holding closed "townhalls" and not really answering questions. They're often caught in lies and exposed, and they don't like it. They've holed up and now it seems like they're just playing this game in September. They're playing to the TV cameras and nothing else. And this will work, because for all of the exposed lies and nonsense, most of MSM is not covering the meat of this story. They continue to show the shouting and the tasteless signs, but they do not often show all the video clips that I see here in our diaries.
Why my concern with how this will play out? I come from a large family, and I've turned into the maniac that nobody wants to get started on this stuff at the family picnics and bbq's. Too much information. Better to talk about the upcoming hunting season or what teacher each kid got this year. My extended family is typical. They think this is an important issue, but they really don't want to hear every detail. Whatever happens will be for the best. The amount of info they get on the evening news is just the right amount. Been that way for their whole lives. Get up, work, come home, eat dinner, watch news, putter, go to bed, start over. So what they get on the evening news becomes very important. And Republicans seem to know this. Why don't Democrats get it?
Sure this date has not been organized and planned to death. It's the catch up game that we've been playing all along. And yes, showing up at all the local things is a good idea. The same people are doing it over and over again. It's all good.
But when I think of the pictures that are going to come out of DC on 9/12, I think of my family. Surely if that many people are passionate about slowing down the process or stopping this bill, something must be wrong with it. Now, they have been turned off by the Nazi signs and all of that. But I'll bet that will be a tiny minority in DC. I'll bet the republicans throw out some fairly sane looking people for the cameras. Just some ordinary hard workers and retired people. Poor beleagured souls.
When my family and all their neighbors see that on their evening news with nothing to counter it, I'm concerned with what they'll think. That will be the big news of the day. Not the smaller gatherings around the country. Not the vast number of people who support single payer or public option as the polls always show. Nobody will know about all the phone calls and letters. And the Republicans and Blue Dogs will say "Look at the concern."