Let's Find The Final Five

by: Chris Bowers

Tue Aug 25, 2009 at 14:30


At its core, the fight over a public option is not just about health care, but about who runs our country: the American people or powerful corporate lobbies. It has been easy to tell who has been charge for quite a while, but as David wrote this morning, with this fight we are on the verge of changing the power dynamic in D.C.

With 45 Senators on the record supporting a public option, we are close to winning this fight. I sound like a broken record by now, but if Progressives in the House can keep any bill without a public option from passing that chamber, and if 50 Senators are on record supporting a public option, then the easiest path for the leadership to pass health care reform is to force a strong public option through reconciliation.  Getting five more Senators on the record supporting a public option brings us to that important tipping point.

The campaign to reach 50 ramps up today. You can participate by sending a fax to each of these five Senators, asking them five specific questions on where they stand on a public option. It is quick, it is easy, it is supported by a range of other actions, and it is important

Your actions are layered by media requests to each Senator from local bloggers, new field staff from Democracy for America, and mass emails to Stand with Dr. Dean members in each of these five states.

We can win this, changing not only health care, but the whole country in the process. Please, no matter where you are and what time you are reading this, send out faxes to these five Senators now.
Chris Bowers :: Let's Find The Final Five

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Let's Find The Final Five | 11 comments
will not work (0.00 / 0)
You are sending people down a desperation path that will not work. Reconciliation will not work in this environment and to keep encouraging it sends out a false hope.
why? n/t (0.00 / 0)
[ Parent ]
here's my reply (4.00 / 1)
[ Parent ]
different opinion (0.00 / 0)
Many Democrats don't want to use reconciliation for this, or are afraid the bill would get stripped to pieces if they do.

Feingold's pessimism today was partially because he is uneasy with reconciliation.  

[ Parent ]
The Final Five are in the Colonial Fleet. (4.00 / 2)
Obviously. Jon Tester will be starring as Saul Tigh.
Four of the Five (4.00 / 2)
Having contributed to the campaigns of four of them -- not Carper -- I edited in as my first paragraph to them the following:

I contributed to your campaign from here in Missouri, more than once and more than I could afford.  I am proud that you were elected.  I and others who supported you now ask you to do what is right for the country and by doing good for the nation, we will do well as Democrats to prove that government can work to make our nation a better place.

To the doubters: it cannot hurt; it is inexpensive; it is better than sitting on your hands; and it feels OK, too.

Another angle on healthcare.... (4.00 / 2)
Regardless of the merits of the public option, if Obama and the Democrats can just shove it through in spite of the massive lobbying effort and huge $$ expenditures of the healthcare industry, then the big corporate sponsors of the Republican Party will have less incentive to keep funding the GOP.  The healthcare corporations went to the mat on this issue-- they gave it their best shot.  If they lose, all those obstructionist Republicans and Blue Dogs may find it harder to raise money in the future, because they didn't perform for their corporate clients.
You can see the industry hedge its bets when R-D balance shifts (0.00 / 0)
OpenSecrets.org - right-hand columns show party percentages, etc.
[ Parent ]
Couple of corrections (4.00 / 2)
"If you live near Reaton, Virginia, you can ask Mark Warner if he supports a public option in person, tonight at 7 p.m."

1. It's "Reston, Virginia" not "Reaton".
2. The town hall tonight is with Howard Dean and Rep. Jim Moran, NOT with Mark Warner.
3. Mark Warner will be at a fundraiser tomorrow night for Virginia House of Delegates candidate John Bell, running against a loony-tunes Right Winger who has said that contraception turns "co-eds" into "chemical Love Canals for these frat house playboys in Virginia" and that "sometimes incest is voluntary." No joke.  

OK (4.00 / 1)
I took it down. Post it in quick hits tomorrow.
[ Parent ]
Chris, thanks for this link (0.00 / 0)
I bulked up my faxes with some thoughts that I'm absorbing from Maggie Mahar's Money-Driven Medicine. A film based on the book will be shown on this Friday's Bill Moyers Journal. Boy, she sure shows where the waste exists!
Let's Find The Final Five | 11 comments
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