Reid also declares that Olympia Snowe was negotiating in bad faith, that she was never going to support a health care bill, and that talking to her was a waste of time.
Given that both Lieberman and Snowe were negotiating in bad faith, we should have been pushing for reconciliation as hard as we were pushing for the public option.
Then again, Kissell only leads a potential primary challenger 49-15, and only 28% of Democrats know he voted against the bill. For an incumbent, those are pretty weak primary numbers-someone could actually knock him off. However, the North Carolina primary is on May 4th, so it is unlikely that a strong primary campaign would be able to gear up in such a short time.
Ned Lamont's main opponent in the Democratic primary for Governor in Connecticut has dropped out. Current polling on the campaign indicates that Ned is now the strong favorite in both the primary and the general election. Get ready for Governor Lamont!
It turns out that if I delete content from a website that I--quite literally--own, then I am engaging in censorship. I don't remember the part of the first amendment that declares everyone is allowed to use everyone else's printing press.
This is the last day to submit your comments to the FCC in support of Net Neutrality. Go do it, now.
The FDIC is trying to limit risky bank behavior by linking it to limits on executive pay. The good news not just the ruling, but that the ruling is causing blowback from the conservative members of the FDIC. This is a perfect example of the type of fights Democrats have to pick with financial institutions in 2010. As I wrote yesterday, banks must be portrayed as the culprit, and Democrats have to come across as fighting the banks father than colluding with them.
Keep picking fights like these, and pick them as publicly as possible.
I'm taking a five day break from blogging for the holiday. There will be plenty of content in my absence, I just won't be writing it. Be sure to check in, if you need an escape from your holiday.
During a three-hour tirade about Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to transfer five detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States for criminal prosecution, Rush Limbaugh attacked the "dangerous" "ideologue" Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), who in a Fox News interview that day discussed his support of Holder's decision.
--If Democrats do lose a significant number of House seats in 2010, the chamber as a whole will shift to the right. However, given who will lose, the Democratic caucus will actually shift significantly to the left.
--Yey, there is lots of water on the Moon! That's great and all, but if you want something that will really excite you about potential human colonization of space, check out the new VASIMR rocket--it can travel to Mars in only 39 days! Best of all, it was actually designed to ferry people and goods back and forth to a permanent Moon base, and is already being tested on the international space station. The pieces are really falling into place...
--New Stargate Universe tonight-and the premier of the Prisoner on Sunday. Woo-hoo
Final Update: Health care reform passes the House 220-215. One Republican votes in favor (Joseph Cao, LA-02), 39 Democrats vote against. List available shortly.
Before that, 64 Democrats, and all but one Republican, voted in favor of the Stupak amendment. That amendment bars any health insurance plan that covers abortion procedures from entering the new health insurance exchanges established by this bill.
Stupak said earlier today that this bill had enough votes for passage even without his amendment. Further, President Obama has supposedly promised that he will personally work to remove that amendment from conference committee. We shall see.
The list of Democrats who voted in favor of the Stupak amendment, but against the overall bill, should be available soon. Just as important as primary challenges, we need to create an alternate DCCC, so that progressives don't see their money spent on anti-choice, anti-health care Democrats. A Stupak amendment of our own, if you will, to make sure that our money doesn't end up funding shitty Democrats.
Previous updates have been moved to the extended entry.
Tonight, we will be covering election results in three threads:
One thread for Maine, starting at 8 p.m., eastern (Adam)
One thread for New Jersey, starting at 8 p.m., eastern (me)
One thread for everything else, starting at 7 p.m. eastern (me)
In the meantime, this is an open thread to discuss the elections tonight, before any results come in.
Update (Adam): 1. Turnout is exceeding expectations in most of our target precincts. Sec/State had to eat his words this am re his prediction of 35% turnout. Volunteer shifts at location after location is great, people are coming back for more turf. Field ppl saying we want to be north of 45% in terms of turnout to be in good shape.
2. Jesse Connolly is going on Maddow at 9:15 PM EST.
3. No legal reports of suppression besides a few isolated incidents re people asked if they are legal residents.
4. Polls are open until 8 PM. If you have friends in Maine, be sure to text/call them and remind them to vote. They can find their polling place at this link. Have to get every last vote.
Coming up this weekend on Open Left, we continue to try and expand our original reporting efforts:
Saturday
8:30 a.m. eastern: "Dollhouse Lessons: Echoing America," by Paul Rosenberg
12:30 p.m. eastern: "Interview with Representative Alan Grayson," by Paul Rosenberg
2:30 p.m., eastern: "HL Mencken & the shift from populism to Democratic cultural politics 1920-2009," by John Emerson
Sunday
11 a.m., eastern: "America's Education Truth-Teller Has Left Us: In Memory of Gerald Bracey," by Jeffbinnc
1 p.m., eastern: "Global Warming As National Security Threat-An Interview With Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, USN, Retired" (who testified Wednesday before Boxer's Committee on Environment and Public Works), by Paul Rosenberg
3 p.m., eastern: The Right to a Job: An "Organizing" Moment, or a "Movement" Moment? (Core Dilemmas of Community Organizing), by educationaction
Kudos to Paul for scoring a couple of big interviews. Expect more of this in the days and weeks to come!
This is an open thread. Tell the world what is on your mind.
Tom Matzzie adds to the chorus of progressives expressing optimism about the opt-out public option idea. Quite a few people I respect have done this now, so please check out my post expressing skepticism on the idea from last night.
I am listening to the health care forum President Obama is holding right now. It is annoying how often progressives keep repeating wingnut claims about "death panels," "health care for illegal immigrants," and other such wingnut insanity. I know we are repeating them to try and point out how stupid the claims are, but we just seem to end up giving them more and more free advertising. And then we wonder why so many people believe those lies.
Whatever progressive media I consume, from these town halls, to Bill Maher, to blogs, we just keep repeating the wingnut nonsense over and over and over again. We did it with the town hall protesters, too. At what point do we finally realize that we are actually helping to spread these myths, rather than debunk them?
Oy. Maybe it is just me, but it seems like progressive media is even more effective at spreading conservative memes than actual conservative media.
Six worthy items on health care for this evening (most of which were first posted on Open Left in Quick Hits):
The RNC sends out a press release attacking the co-op proposal. No one could have predicted that Republicans would also not agree to the co-op "compromise" proposal, either. Just like no one could predict that Republicans will still attack the health care bill once co-ops are dropped, too.
In an interview today on MSNBC's "Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan," Senate Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R) said he'd vote against any health-care reform bill coming out of the committee unless it has wide support from Republicans -- even if the legislation contains EVERYTHING Grassley wants.
"I am negotiating for Republicans," he said. "If I can't negotiate something that gets more than four Republicans, I'm not a good negotiator."
Grassley will only vote for the bill if it is supported by a majority of Republicans. Given that the RNC is already attacking co-ops, that should be an easy bar to cross. It truly is a relief that Grassley is negotiating in good faith.
Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY), says that President Obama could lose "100 votes" in the House if the public option is dropped:
WEINER: The President does seem like he's moving away from the public plan, and if he does, he's not going to pass a bill. Because there are just too many people in Washington who believe that the public plan was the only way that you effectively bring some downward pressure on prices, and if he says well we're not going to have that, then I'm not really quite sure what we're dong here.
BECKY QUICK: So you would not vote for a bill that made it through, if it got through...
WEINER: Not only I but I think there's probably a hundred members of the House, who believe for various reasons that you need to have something to bring down prices. Otherwise you're basically, what you're doing, you're keeping the cost arc. . . the CBO agrees with that. You know as it was, I think the public plan had been watered down so much. So if the President thinks he's cutting a deal to get Senate votes, he's probably losing House votes.
It is a good thing that the Democratic leadership will be able to make up the votes by negotiating with Chuck Grassley and through Kent Conrad's co-op idea. Here is the video on Weiner:
Joe Sestak (whose campaign I work for) seems to have found a way to avoid rowdy protesters at town halls: just hold the meetings in places where right-wingers feel uncomfortable about being loud and noisy. Recently, he has held two town halls, one in a predominantly African-American church, and another in a veteran's center. Neither event had significant protests.
So, just find places wingers are scared of--like African American churches--and the protests melt away.
Speaking of town halls, is the national news media just done with that story? There is virtually nothing about the health care protests today on the Elections section of Google News. Last week, there was virtually nothing but the town halls in that section of news. Either national news outlets are bored with the story, or there are more taken with the latest conflict: Dems vs. Dems on health care. Or both.
As Democrats, we should have known all along that fighting with ourselves was a sure way to clear Republican protesters off the headlines. There are few stories the national political news media likes more than Dems vs. Dems.
Here is a great speech by Howard Dean to fire you up on the health care fight:
I spoke just before Howard did, and I remember almost nothing about what I said. Best speech I have heard in a while.
It seems that almost everyone who writes for Open Left is at Netroots Nation right now. Ironic that a blogger conference has kept us from blogging today.
Regular posting to resume soon. Apologies for the delay. This is an open thread.
Today is the day we stand up for Democratic values, for the right of the people of Pennsylvania to have their say, and for hard-working families all across the Commonwealth.
Today, I will be announcing my candidacy for the United States Senate. Join me at JoeSestak.com, where we'll begin streaming live from VFW Post 928 in Folsom, Pennsylvania, at 8:30 am.
There are some who say it's impossible to win without the backing of the establishment, who say we'd be better off cutting deals and bargaining on our principles. But that kind of political calculation isn't what put the Democrats in power, and it isn't going to keep us there.
I say -- and I've heard people all across the state say -- that we need to stand up for our beliefs, that we need leaders of genuine conviction, not political convenience. I say the people demand and deserve some accountability for what has happened to our Commonwealth and our Country.
We know it's not going to be easy. We know it's worthwhile because it's not going to be easy.
But to succeed, I need everyone who believes in accountable leadership and the right of the people to have their say to join me -- and I ask you to start now by joining me at JoeSestak.com.
Will Todd be able to hate on the average American even more this time around? Will someone else be able to ask an even more assholish question? Tune in to find out.
Afterward: The novelty of these events is starting to wear off a little bit. Perhaps it is entirely my impression, but this press conference lacked the pop of the previous two. This might be a good thing, as it means that "President Obama" is now normal.
President Obama's style remains slow and lucid. He is clearly thinking through all of his answers, rather than just flying off the cuff or relying on talking points. He isn't as good as President Clinton is now, but he is better than President Clinton was back when he started. The only question where Obama really rambled was on Specter and bipartisanship. That is probably a lesson in why we should avoid talking about vague abstractions that have little to no bearing on the real problems we face. It all comes out like BS.
The worst question award goes to Jeff Zeleny, who really stepped in it with his "surprised," "enchanted" and "humbled" question. Then again, people will remember Zeleny's question, which can't be said about most press conference questions. The best question was about when we should expect to see results from the policies that are being put in place.
The President's response on swine flu was strong for its specificity--the reminder to wash hands in particular. The framing on torture was disappointing, because the issue is not whether torture makes us safer, or whether it can acquire information better than other techniques, but whether it is right or wrong. That is an area where non-ideological pragmatism is not useful. The issue is whether it is right or wrong.
The most striking aspect just how earnest President Obama was when expressing his desire to not run banks and car companies. There was an honest, personal antipathy to that idea. He really isn't interested in doing that. some might read this as an ideological opposition to nationalization, but it could also be read as the feelings of an individual who turned down Wall Street to engage in public service. He just doesn't want to run companies. And hey, even as someone who supports nationalization, on a personal level I don't blame him.
It appears I will be "starring" in a new podcast series with a fairly decent production value.
One problem: I can't think of a name for the series. I have always had difficulty naming things. You should have seen how many times we changed the name for this blog before it launched. The funniest names we came close to using were "Open Movement" (with my column as "Bowers Movement") and Open Mandate" (paging Jeff Gannon...)
The series is going to be focused on analyzing political news and strategy with a numbers based perspective. The name can, but does not have to, have a connection with either my name, or with Open Left.
