Barrack Obama has just completed his speech on Health Care Reform to a joint session of Congress and he has presented to us the kind of watered-down approach that progressives had hoped he would not give. We switch to the pundit post-speech shows and find out that the conservatives castigate the president as moving us ever closer to Socialism while the “liberal” pundits admonish the progressives for wanting just too much from the man and that in order to get along we must stab a dagger into the heart of the public option and sign off on this most recent give-away to the “corporatocracy” in the guise, this time, of the health care industry. What should the progressive block of Congress do? Sacrifice their own values for the good of the team (the DLC and the Blue Dogs) and leave their base stranded on an island of no exit and no recourse, or kill Health Care Reform? I argue that the dagger they brandish should be thrust into the heart of the reform legislation, not the public option.
Why do I say this? Because if progressives do what they have always done and cave to the conservative elements of the Democratic Party (Rahm Emanuel, Inc. in its present incarnation), they will do two things: (1) enable poor reform that does not address costs or universal coverage effectively and (2) set the stage for an electoral disaster for the Democratic Party in 2010 and probably also 2012. So for the good of the party, progressive block, please stand up for your values for once do something for the little guy: KILL HEALTH CARE REFORM. But if you do, you need to start figuring out quickly what your political strategy will be to justify your actions and just how you will develop an alternative approach for fixing health care in this country because you will be squarely in the cross-hairs of Rahm, many supposedly liberal fund-raising organizations and, of course, the “Liberal” media.
Frankly, I am amazed at the general line of thinking that infects the Democratic power structure concerning strategy. They invariably tack to the right, including Barack Obama, thinking that this is where the American Public resides. Look what has happened to our right-leaning president since the inauguration. His polls have plunged ever lower with each separate concession to the corporate lobbyists in the financial (bailout II and credit card “reform”) and defense (Afghanistan quagmire in the making) industries and to the “elite immunity institutions” that have allowed the Bush Administration to escape prosecution for designing and implementing a PROGRAM of torture and rendition. Look at Harry Reid, he has caved to the right-wing in this country for so many years I can’t even count them, apparently because of the “tack right calculation.” According to the latest RESEARCH 2000 poll in Nevada (9-3-09) Reid is trailing both GOP candidates by margins of 3 to 5 points. Only 40 and 41 percent of those polled in Nevada want to vote for the Democratic Majority Leader in the Senate! Wow, the leader of the Senate Democrats who won a landslide victory less than a year ago can’t even beat the son of the SHARK (Jerry Tarkanian)! So naturally, Harry will need to even tack further to the right and show us just how effective he is at getting things done . . . for the Republicans.
Barack Obama’s story is just as sad. In a short 10 months he has been able to drive one of the most impressive grass roots movements ever assembled in this country over the levy and into the river. Proof that a broad based malaise has visited his former supporters is provided by a post-mortem on Obama’s grass roots network, Organizing for America, by Jeff Zeleny in the NYT on 08-15-2009. Zelney paints a pretty bleak picture of this formerly 13 million strong network. For instance, Bonnie Adkins of Iowa, a devoted organizer during the election, agreed to set up a potluck supper for volunteers in the network to help Obama’s health care effort. She worried that her house wouldn’t hold all of the people showing up, but there was no need to worry because only ten people attended. “The enthusiasm is not there like it was a year ago,” she said. Zeleny goes on to say that: “Mr. Obama engendered such passion last year that his allies believed they were on the verge of creating a movement that could be mobilized again. But if a week’s worth of events are any measure here in Iowa, it may not be so easy to reignite the machine that overwhelmed Republicans a year ago.” Now, Zeleny proposed that this deflation was simply a function of weak spines and “fatigue at the prospect of returning to the political calisthenics the Obama army once required.” Let me offer an alternative hypothesis. A large portion of his former progressive and liberal base, of which I am one, was steeled and ready for battle at the inauguration, but from the start of his administration Obama began to slide down the slope of appeasement and accommodation to the right-wing, as Arianna Huffington describes it, and to the corporations. Now he is pleading with his network to raise the decibel level on health care, but why support someone who cannot even articulate the skeleton of an effective health care plan and who is willing to trash the essential plank of a PUBLIC OPTION just to get credit for some kind of legislation?
What do we hear now? A large portion of Obama’s former campaign staff, volunteers and donors, of which I am one, have signed a petition imploring him to come out strong for the Public Option. This is how the petition is worded: "We worked so hard for real change. President Obama, please demand a strong public health insurance option in your speech to Congress. Letting the insurance companies win would not be change we can believe in." Not as strongly worded as I would like, but reading between the lines you get the distinct impression that Obama’s grass roots movement is teetering on the abyss. Unfortunately, the DLC, “Rahmanites” and the Blue Dogs are blissfully unaware of the electoral peril they find themselves in, not just because of Health Care Reform but because of every piece of corporatist legislation they have guided through Congress up until now. The latest count of signers on the petition includes approximately 400 former staffers, 24,000 volunteers and 39,000 donors.
A final note on the electoral suicide that the Democratic Party is participating in is the generic polling by party. Rasmussen notes that a year ago preference for Democrats ranged between 45 and 48 percent while Republicans were bottom feeding at 34 to 37 percent. The latest Rasmussen telephone poll now shows a 43 to 36 percent advantage for Republicans. Obviously Democrats have just not demonstrated how weak they are and just how undifferentiated they are from Republicans. They are going to have to tack further right!
The Democratic Party needs to wise up, grow a backbone and whatever else will give them courage and start acting like they are an alternative to Republican Rule. That is what was voted for last November, but sadly, that is not what we got. We are at such a low-ebb politically in this country at the moment that only about 40 percent of the Democratic Party is willing to offer the American people an alternative, an alternative that would champion the little guy over corporations. That was what I thought the slogan “change you can believe in” actually meant. Now it is up to the Progressive Block in congress to take up the banner and signal an end to corporate rule in this country, because if they don’t the Democratic Party will be pulled out of the water, turned over on to their backs exposing their bloated lobbyist fed bellies to sunlight and gutted just like a catfish. A bit colorful, but I think the description is appropriately accurate.
The first step: Kill the Bill! If progressives in Congress can achieve this one modest shot over the bough you will quickly see just how thirsty the Health Insurance stakeholders are for getting this bill passed so that they can drown the Public Option and Single Payer plans for another 10 years. The full fury of the captive media will be aimed directly at the progressives and, I fear, it will not be long before a few more right-wing concessions will be made to give cover to just enough of the Republican shills in the House to put the bill over the top. It’s a sloppy solution because it uncovers just how corrupt our government has become. In spite of the fact that 55 to 77 percent of Americans favor a Public Option, members of both parties will conspire to kill it. When this happens there is only one last chance for the Democratic Party: Democratic Senators will have to filibuster final passage. That is a hard road to slog down because, as Nate Silver of FiveThirtEight observes, it looks like progressives are a few votes short of the 40 they would need to filibuster in favor of a public option. If they can’t muster the votes, though, look for a crushing Democratic defeat in 2010 and a whole new rollercoaster of health insurance rate increases for the little guy. Remember, other than the public option there is no real check on insurance rates in any of the legislation, just the word of an industry that admits time and again to fraud and abuse for the bottom line.
Now, if we can fill this inside straight even with “Bi-partisan” participation in subverting real health care reform, then progressives will be in a position to start bargaining with the Obama Administration and maybe something positive on Health Care Reform can be achieved over the next couple of years. The first strategy: attack the bill for all of the reasons it won’t help the little guy, and there are many. The next step, don’t be in such a hurry to get something done. The Obama Administration is in a hurry for closure and when somebody is in a hurry sometimes they’ll agree to policies they might not have before. Progressives need to bargain from a position of strength. I would say the starting point is single payer, if we have to have a strong public option while we transition to single payer over 10 years, so be it. Don’t let the insurance companies rip us off for another 10 years before we start this process all over again. Remember progressive congressmen, this is about the little guy. As Teddy Kennedy said at the Democratic National Convention in 2008: “There is a new wave of change all around us, and if we set our compass true, we will reach our destination — not merely victory for our Party, but renewal for our Nation. And this November the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans, so with Barack Obama and for you and for me, our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on.”
Perhaps Barack Obama might slow down for a minute to ponder that quote a little longer, because I for one am beginning to think that our torch does not belong in his hands at all. Prove me wrong, Mr. President, because all of this turmoil would end if you would bring that torch into the chamber, wield it mightily and tell everyone in the country that we need to protect the little guy by giving him a PUBLIC HEALTH CARE OPTION. We have waited a long time for real Health Care Reform, if it takes another year to get it right, then why don’t we do that. After all, isn’t that what the Blue Dogs and Republicans say? Bob Dylan sums it up nicely “when you ain’t got nuth’in, you got nuth’in to loose.” Progressives, that’s exactly what the little guy has at stake in a watered down, insurance friendly health care bill, so don’t think you are denying him anything because he has nothing to protect him long-term in this bill. The big losers if the bill doesn’t pass are the insurance companies, and that can’t be all bad, can it?