How disappointing! Joe Trippi was very weak on the Public option.
Trippi, barely even mentioned the Public Option in yesterday's State of The Union on CNN. Instead, he let Ed Rollins take the lead, setting the stage for the Public Option as something that should be given up for unity among Democrats.
Worse, Trippi pretty much echoed that by advocating the "Something is better than Nothing" approach.
I had so expected him to vigorously defend the need for a robust Public Option, just like his former boss Howard Dean has done. Trippi almost completely avoided talking about the Public Option as a must, and it was absolutely shocking!
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Trippi only mentioned the Public option toward the end of the interview in the context of Obama's possible plan to include, what is it again.... a trigger for the Public option! Outrageous!!!
Of course, like most on Dkos, my contention is that REAL change, and Real leadership, requires more than Health Care Reform in Name only (HCRINO). Obama really needs to assert himself on the Public Option in his speech next Wednesday. But again Trippi never mentioned the Public optione when he said this about Obama's speech:
TRIPPI: Barack Obama is the best messenger to get across what he wants and what he needs -- what he thinks we need to do. And you know, right now he is dealing with a Republican Party that looks at this and says, look, they passed Social Security and Medicare under FDR. If we let them pass a successful health care plan, then we're going to be done for another 40 years.
There isn't a party left on the other side. He needs to ask for bipartisan support, but he has got to realize it may not come from many Republicans, it's going to come from asking Democrats to pass another real groundbreaking, successful bill on health care and add that to Medicare and Social Security as part of the Democratic Party brand for the future.
The only thing that I liked him saying was that "this administration has the potential to be FDR or Jimmy Carter," and that Republicans are banking on him being a Jimmy Carter type President. In the end Trippi said this about Republicans:
TRIPPI: They're going to keep gunning. I mean, look, this administration has the potential to be FDR or Jimmy Carter, and I think the Republicans are going to do everything they can to make him Jimmy Carter, to created a failed presidency.
That's unfortunately what many of them want and I -- and again, we have a -- I really do believe a post-partisan president who is trying to work with everybody, but the Republicans aren't going to cooperate. He's got to understand that, continue to be bipartisan, call on the American people to support that, but realize he's sticking his hand out and many Republicans are just not going to -- just not ready to embrace it.
One correction, it seems to me NO Republicans will embrace any kind of healthcare reform, with or with a public option.
If Public Option rallies in the South, happening as part of Move-On's 300 rally event were any indication of the Strong support for the Public Option, there is no need to go for the Blue Dog approach. Again, I cannot state strongly enough, how disappointed I am with Joe Trippi!
In fact we'd be squandering a great opportunity to provide what Trippi did correctly state would be a Democratic Legacy just like Medicare under FDR.
More than 40 years have passed since Wilbur Mills, a fiscally conservative Arkansas Democrat and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Wilbur Cohen, health and Social Security adviser for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, agreed in principle to the legislative structure that would create Medicare and Medicaid.
On July 30, 1965, President Johnson signed the bill into law in Independence, Missouri, the birthplace of Harry S. Truman, thus honoring the first chief executive to advocate publicly for national health security.
So why again do we need to go along with the Blue Dogs? Clearly fiscally conservative Democrats were able to support FDR's government run Medicare, to provide national health security for those over 65.
It's high time people under 65 have the opportunity to opt into a Medicare-like Public Option!!!