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A case of nice guys finish last?
Read it and weep: from just a month ago, the big, bold words of the Prog Caucus honcho on his own site:
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) told the Huffington Post that he and fellow liberals within the House would not be "rolled" over in a key debate regarding the reimbursement rates rewarded under a public option.
Oh yeah! Medicare plus 5 or bust. No flipping. Remember the Alamo. ¡No pasarán!
Because, as the lede has it,
A key liberal lawmaker pledged on Wednesday that the progressive caucus in the House was not going to compromise on health care reform, emphasizing that it was acutely aware of its reputation for buckling under pressure.
Collapse in slomo:
- June 24:
By calling for a robust public option, the four Caucuses are saying that a public plan should:
• Be universal and include mental and dental health services.
• Utilize the existing infrastructure of successful public programs like Medicare in order to maintain transparency and consumer protections for administering processes including payment systems, claims and appeals.
• Receive at least the same consumer subsidies as private plans and pay competitive provider rates that ensure equal access to affordable, quality care.
• Reflect an overall commitment to the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities. - July 30:
Any bill that does not provide, at a minimum, for a public option with reimbursement rates based on Medicare rates - not negotiated rates - is unacceptable. - October 12: see above
- November 7...
Whereas, as we know, the Stupaks, flying underneath Bowers' radar, at least, won big boasting half the numbers in the CPC.
Stupak claimed the Prog's problem was too much crying wolf. And clearly there's a element of that.
There's also the fact that the Progs' views are generally to the left of the leaderships'; and therefore any action they take usually would involve voting against legislation that gives them some, though not all, of what they want.
And that the Prog line (when there is one) is inevitably less corporate-friendly than the leaderships' - and Progs have to eat too.
Not to mention that the Progs (still more the Quad Caucus) have too many members with too great a diversity of hot buttons to direct in an insurgency - the Stupaks were strictly single-issue.
And - be it said - Medicare plus 5 is a much less potent cause to those who support it than no taxpayer-funded abortions is to its supporters.
And - looking more directly at the Stupak case itself - what he proposed was voting to defeat the rule. The great thing about that vote is that reps voting against a rule aren't tying themselves to any particular element, or any alternative content.
Thus, if the CHC had found unacceptable text on illegals in the bill, there would have been no political reason why they couldn't have join the Stupaks in voting against the rule.
And the Stupaks were essentially a mob - Stupak could say with credibility that he had no control over them, and had no idea what they might do if the leadership didn't give them a vote on their amendment. The CPC - not so much.
Perhaps, if the Progs want to make an impact, they need to study the Stupak insurgency: identify a disrete hot button issue in some legislation, organise a guerilla band separate from the Caucuses with enough votes to defeat the bill, give the leadership a hard time - and then follow through.
One key strategic point : there is no such thing as a one-shot, now-or-never deal. Legislation can be revoted; a lot a legislation takes several Congresses to pass (eg the notorious bankruptcy bill under Bush).
And another: there's a big difference between important and embarrassing. Progs might want to look for opportunities to hurt the leadership's pride without hurting voters.
But insurgency is not an end in itself: the object would be to reach a state where threats from coalitions of Progs could be effective whilst remaining unspoken - at least in public - thereby minimising intra-party strife.
Of course, this might mean legislators scribing fewer stemwinder diaries at DKos...
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