So, the question of the public option's priority for the White House seems to finally be put to rest.
Gibbs said flatly that the White House doesn’t believe there’s enough support in Congress to get it passed.
Asked directly whether the President’s failure to include the public option in his proposal means he views the public option as dead, Gibbs didn’t exactly dispute this interpretation.
"There are some that are supportive of this," Gibbs said. But he added: "There isn’t enough political support in the majority to get this through."
"The President took the Senate bill as the base and looks forward to discussing consensus ideas on Thursday," Gibbs added, presumably meaning that the public option is not a consensus idea.
It’s unclear why Gibbs is deciding in advance that there isn’t enough support to pass this idea. Momentum has been gathering for days. It’s also very likely that it would continue to gain steam if Obama racks up a victory at the summit and Dems press forward with plans to pass reform themselves via reconciliation.
But Gibbs’s statement seems likely, willfully or not, to slow that momentum in advance.
Plenty of folks in the Senate seem to think otherwise. Twenty-three as of now, including leadership members Chuck Schumer and Robert Menendez, who have signed onto the Bennet letter. The White House might have just thrown a bucket of cold water over all of them. Which will make Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson very happy.
Here's the response from Progressive Change Campaign co-founder Adam Green, via e-mail:
The White House obviously has a loser mentality -- but America rallies around winners. Polls show that in state after state, voters hate the Senate bill and overwhelmingly want a public option, even if passed with zero Republican votes. More than 50 Senate Democrats and 218 House Democrats were willing to vote for the public option before, and the only way to lose in reconciliation is if losers are leading the fight. That's why Democrats in Congress should ignore the White House and follow those like Chuck Schumer and Robert Menendez who know that the public option is a political and policy winner."
The PCCC, Democracy for America, and Credo Action continue to put thousands of calls into senators here. In the last 7 days, the numbers of senators on board went from 0 to 23 - see WhipCongress.com.