Yesterday and Today were dark days. The democrats have been declared impotent, with only a meager 58 votes in the senate. Healthcare, Climate, and Bank legislation has been declared dead.
(Sorry, despite it being convenient for republicans to use as a figure to inflate the democratic numbers and make them seem weaker, I can't in good conscience count Joe Lieberman as a dem)
And what do the voters in MA want? Not a teabagger, but stronger action. That is clear from voter polls and follow on discussion, despite Fox.
There are dark words from the media, but more is at work here than meets the eye. There is one thing that I am not hearing except from Fox Spews. Not a single democrat has said that health insurance reform is off the table.
It isn't raining yet.
More importantly, we no longer have to play the 60 vote game. Reid and the other dems are acutely aware of the consequences of failure.
There is a distinct lack of panic among the dems. Notice a few things:
here
here
here
here
here
Progress is being made. We are certainly not in a snowball situation, but it is certainly a grind against established and entrenched business interests.
The media are playing up the 'conflict among dems' side:
here here
But what are a few things that the media aren't bothering to report, since they don't fit into the neat little basket that they want:
- If there is one thing that the democrats have been exceptional at in the past year, it is demonstrating that they are not republicans, and not like Bush. Why is this important? No matter how hard they might yell about not being offered real bipartisan options, the media is slowly starting to see through it.
The second problem was the Republican Party. Obama came to office attempting bipartisanship. The Republicans weren't buying. "The classic example being me heading over to meet with the House Republican caucus to discuss the stimulus," the President said, "and finding out that [minority leader John] Boehner had already released a statement saying, We're going to vote against the bill before we've even had a chance to exchange ideas."
Read more: http://www.time.com/...
from earlier,
Democrats are trying to prevent the Republicans from using Senate rules to slow the push for final passage of a comprehensive reform bill, the sources said.
We still have Budget reconciliation.
We still have the benefit of United States v. Ballin. Using that requires no more than 30 senators. And Reid knows it; and so do the Republicans. Losing 60 votes means the dems have to play hardball now.
There is not perfect storm outside. The sky isn't falling.
There is no 11th dimensional chess, but setbacks are inevitable. Deal with it. The only time we lose is when we stop moving forward, and start arguing about what to do and get frustrated.
We're still winning. The senate bill, despite what you've heard, isn't as bad as its made out to be (I know, I read it over christmas. See my earlier diary on it)