This is my response to Badabing's diary currently on the rec list. The simple truth is that no one will primary President Obama. That isn't going to happen because no one wants to go down in history as being the one to challenge President Obama, and he does have a majority of the party behind him. The President is essentially the leader of the party at this point, even though he's not doing a great job of leading the party since he isn't all about the fortunes of the Democratic Party, but more about his re-election instead.
The simple truth is that if cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and to Medicaid are passed as a result of the debt ceiling deal, the Democratic Party will be decimated in the elections to take the House back and to keep the Senate under majority control. It's why the DCCC chair, Steve Israel, is speaking up, as are others in the House and in the Senate.
They know that if they don't take the House and the Senate back in 2012, we'll still have a Republican Congress which the President will be okay dealing with since it helps his "bipartisan" credentials.
And that would be very bad for us because there'll be further spending cuts. It's why we need to keep pressuring these Democrats in the House and the Senate not to agree to those cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Pelosi has said publicly and privately that she won’t agree to any cuts in benefits, and that is becoming a mantra for House Democrats.
At a special meeting of House Democrats on Friday, Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said, “We will defend Medicare and go our own way from the White House if we have to,” according to a Democratic source.
Democratic Rep. Kathy Hochul, who recently won a special election in a competitive upstate New York district, told colleagues at a closed-door meeting Thursday that Republican efforts to overhaul Medicare helped push her to victory and that they shouldn’t give up the political issue by agreeing to cut the health insurance program for the elderly.
Pelosi will listen to her caucus in the House if they tell her they simply can't deal with cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. It's why you need to keep burning up the phones.
Call, call, AND call!
If the House Democrats and the Senate Democrats can stand united on saving Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid from the bipartisan compromise that President Obama is brokering with Republicans, they have a better chance of taking the House back and keeping the Senate in Democratic control.
As for the President, if the House and Senate Democrats stand firm, he'll still have his bipartisan credentials because he truly tried to work with those Republicans.