Warning: Shocking ideas ahead that may offend many Democrats.
Seems that our biggest battle in this whole health care war is not the vote on the bill itself, but the vote on cloture. If we can get a bill to a vote on the Senate floor, it seems improbable that the party leadership plus the White House would not be able to round up 50 votes to pass it.
There's been a lot of talk about how to deal with this issue: Bring massive party pressure to bear on the Blue Dogs to vote for cloture even if they plan to vote against the bill. Get around the need for cloture by using reconciliation (sometimes incorrectly referred to as the "nuclear option.")
But it seems to me there is a much simpler solution.
Let the Republicans filibuster.
That's right, turn 'em loose and let them obstruct health care reform to their little shriveled hearts' content. Let them stand there on the Senate floor and in front of the C-Span cameras, day after day, reading the phone book while 47 million Americans remain uninsured, while people are dying every day waiting for Congress to act.
Let the truth be frickin' VISIBLE to the entire country, the entire world.
Do not enable them by doing all kinds of political gymnastics and contortions to shield them from having to actually physically say "NO!" If they want to be the party of No, make them do it overtly.
Plaster their obstruction all over the teevee screens. Even the MSM would have to cover the filibustering. Have every Dem in Congress appear on TV as often as possible, and write Op-Eds for every paper in the country, about how the Party of No is once again showing their true colors, just as they did when they cheered America losing the Olympics, but that this time Americans are dying.
How long do you think it would take before the national rage would become obvious even to their tiny, clueless little brains? How long before all the Dems and even a few moderate Republicans with some instinct for self-preservation would be ready to vote for cloture?
I know the idea of actually requiring Republicans to filibuster rather than caving in on cloture just on general principles is probably anathema to the party leadership, which for some reason sees having a spine as the functional equivalent of suicide. But it's time for them to push back against the minority tyranny.
There might be some objection that allowing the Republicans to filibuster means allowing more Americans to die every day. But I honestly think the overall result of this strategy would be to speed up the whole process and get us better legislation sooner.
Thoughts?