I will start by saying this: I am fully ready for progressives to win key battles. I think it's high time we governed. Our role as the opposition was critical for most of the last eight years, but we won the elections, and now it's time to step up to the hard work of changing policy.
I am so incredibly proud of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the fight they've picked to ensure that healthcare reform has some teeth in it in the form of a robust public option. And I am impressed, quite frankly, with the level of strategic thinking they're engaged in.
But wherever I go, I see a small vocal group viciously attacking progressives for fighting for a public option - because they think it would be better if we utterly lost while chanting about single payer.
And here's what I'm asking: turn your rhetorical guns to the folks who are making single payer impossible, rather than the folks who support it.
We are well on the way to winning a key battle on the healthcare front. I've been deeply immersed in it: on Thursday alone, I convened and moderated a forum for Members of Congress and staff on healthcare reform (with experts on both single-payer and public option), I distributed key materials such as polling and policy briefs to those members and staff, I sat in while the Congressional Progressive Caucus hammered out their principles, and I ran the technology for the Q&A session between Congress and the grassroots while making sure Members actually showed up and have been editing the C-SPAN video that resulted into clips which should be available later this weekend.
Nearly all of the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus support single payer. But 80 CPC members is a far cry from 218, which is what's needed to pass things in the House.
There are not 218 votes for single payer in the House. Single payer cannot happen in this environment right now, regardless of how passionately its advocates want it.
So throwing fits in the direction of progressives who support single payer because they can't wave their magic wands and make it happen is rather unhelpful.
We do need to advocate publicly for single payer. It is constructive to create a political climate in which it might someday be possible. So we need to convince the general public it's a good idea, and we need to apply pressure to Members of Congress who don't already support it.
But there are a handful of people whose guns are pointed the wrong way. (Andaimo, you're the most obvious culprit here at DailyKos.) Knock it off. Stop attacking progressives for not being able to wave their magic wands and make the impossible happen. Instead, please consider spending that time and energy persuading people who don't support single payer, so that we might actually make some progress.
We are winning a fairly big battle right now in healthcare reform. Most progressives agree that it would be nice if we could win the bigger one. But we can't. We don't have the votes or the leverage to get the votes.
And while we are winning, it would be lovely to feel like we were generally pulling in the same direction. You feel incredibly passionately about single payer? Fantastic! Go persuade people who don't support it, so that we eventually have the 218 votes we need in the House.
