The HuffingtonPost has a report about the DNC dropping nearly half a million dollars on an anti-public option ad to prop up Senator Ben Nelson's popularity within his home state of Nebraska.
On Monday, Joe Sudbay of Americablog reported that the DNC had forked over $459,760.00 to the Nebraska Democratic Committee, which, in turn, used that money to sponsor television ads on Nelson's behalf. Those ads featured the senator explaining his support for health care legislation in part by noting he had changed the legislation so that insurance coverage would not be "run by the government." It was a clear slight at the public plan.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Jim Manley, told Ben Smith of Politico that the money was not part of the deal to get Nelson's vote. But the real question was why the DNC would pay for ads that maligned government-run insurance at the same time the party was rallying behind that very proposal.
Asked about the expenditure, DNC Press Secretary Hari Sevugan sent over a statement that glossed over the question of how strongly the committee was devoted to the public option in favor of pointing out that Nelson was (then and now) under immense political pressure.
"We, the Democratic Party, were defending a Democratic senator from attacks from the health insurance industry and other special interests for his support of reform," Sevugan writes. "Senator Nelson is not the first Democrat we have defended from these attacks and he will not be the last. We've spent money directly in support of House Democrats who have supported reform in the form of TV and radio ads and we've also worked with state parties to defend Democrats like Senators Nelson, Lincoln and Dorgan who have stood up to the insurance industry in support of reform."
Democratic Senators like Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln did NOT stand up to the insurance industry in support of reform. Instead, they weakened it further, watered it down, sold out the public option, and participated in backroom deals with lobbyists, pharmaceutical representatives, and special interests.
It's rather silly that Sevugan would say this. He knows better, but it's his job to trot out the party line.
It's why I don't donate to the DNC or to the DSCC. They use our money to prop up these two-faced politicians like Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, and other Democrats that do not deserve our support. I'm only donating to progressive Democratic candidates instead that I feel deserves my money and grassroots support.
There's also a great must-read report at TalkingPointsMemo about how the Senate botched the health care reform process.
- For starters, Senator Baucus, who's doing the same botching with the jobs bill, did it on the Senate health bill when he delayed for months on end in a hopeless pursuit of "bipartisanship."
- Senator Ted Kennedy's death in August. This was the monthlong recess in which tea partiers attended town hall events, and scared enough Democratic lawmakers to further weaken and water down the health reform legislation when they returned back to Congress. It's why we fought to pass the health reform bill BEFORE the August recess because I knew this would happen.
- The entire kowtowing to the Congressional Budget Office, which meant every single health measure had to be scored by the CBO, which resulted in its long, delayed process. Also, the bill had to be kept under a budgetary cap of $900 billion dollars, which meant subsidies had to be significantly pared down and other areas had to be cut to meet that $900 billion number. The Senate HELP bill was better in terms of the coverage, regulations, and the delivery of health care. However, because it went over $1.2 trillion, it meant all of that had to be significantly pared back due to "concerns" by conservative Senate Democrats.
There's a lot more that I can go on for, but I'm exhausted, and it's late.
UPDATE: Eve will be at the free clinic event in Hartford, Connecticut, tomorrow. Please stay tuned for news coming out of that health clinic!