The media narrative around the Arkansas Democratic Senate primary is that labor and the netroots opposed Lincoln because she wasn’t progressive enough. However, that is not exactly correct. Labor and netroots groups are largely piling on against Lincoln because she broke public promises on key issues that had previously earned her the support of various progressive groups. To put it more bluntly, she won the support of many groups by lying, and now it is payback time.
Unfortunately, Lincoln’s betrayal of progressive groups is largely absent from the media narrative on the campaign. For example, take this write-up on today’s primaries from The Hill:
But the spotlight will shine brightest on Lincoln, who earned union scorn for opposing a public option in the healthcare bill and refusing to back card- check legislation championed by the labor movement.
The campaign dynamic present here is a simple left-right spectrum: Lincoln is being opposed because she is not sufficiently left-wing. This is actually a narrative that Lincoln is pushing in her own ads. In a recent TV spot, Lincoln says to the camera:
The labor unions are spending millions of dollars against me because I won’t vote with them 100% of the time.
However, Lincoln did not simply oppose card check and a public option. She made public commitments of support for both policies, before flipping when it was crunch time.
On November 21st, 2009, Blanche Lincoln stood on the floor of the Senate and declared that she would filibuster any health reform bill that included a public option. However, earlier in the year she signed a document stating that she supported the public option. Further, even as she spoke, her Senate website said that she still supported a public option, she is still cool with the public option:
Health care reform must build upon what works and improve inefficiencies. Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans. Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals of a public plan.
And here’s a screenshot:
She told progressive groups that she supported their priorities, but then she completely flipped her position when it came time to actually vote.
In the Ozark Mountain town of Rogers, Ark., more than 250 business owners gathered for lunch at a construction company last month to focus on what they saw as a major threat — a proposal in Congress to make it easier to form labor unions.
At each place setting, attendees found pre-stamped postcards and pre-written letters to be sent to Arkansas’ U.S. senators, Democrats Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln, who had supported the labor bill in the past. After lunch, the business owners were ushered to computers to send e-mail messages as well.
Five days later came the good news: Two Senate votes had been stripped from the pro-union bill. Lincoln said she would oppose it outright, while Pryor declared the current version “dead” and said he would look for compromises.
It isn’t just the public option and card check, either. EMILY’s List had also previously supported Blanche Lincoln, but did not do so in 2010 because Lincoln lied to them. From Ellen Malcolm, EMILY’s List chair
In 1998, EMILY’s List helped elect Lincoln to the U.S. Senate. We believed her when she told us that that, if and when the Senate took up right-wing Senator Rick Santorum’s bill to ban what he called “partial birth” abortion, she would insist on a health exception that protects women.
Our members gave generously to her campaign, believing that she would steadfastly stand by the pledge she made to us to protect women’s reproductive freedom.
She took our members’ hard-earned money to get elected. Unfortunately, when the Santorum bill came up for a vote, Lincoln voted for it even though it provided no exception to protect women’s health.(…)
Since she wasn’t there for us, we won’t be there for her.
Sure, there is an ideological element to this campaign. Sure, there is an anti-incumbent mood. Sure, it is unusual to get a primary challenger as strong as Bill Halter. However, to ignore Blanche Lincoln’s repeated betrayals on key issues to progressive groups who had once supported her ignores a central dynamic of this campaign.
Blanche Lincoln brought this primary challenge on herself by going back on several important public commitments she had made in order to win organizational support for her previous campaigns. She simply would not be in this sort of primary trouble if she hadn’t lied and if groups like EMILY’s List and labor unions were still supported her.
“The Leaders expect all House Democratic members to support this historic bill, and to do so without demanding new restrictions on women’s rights” the spokesman said in an email. “There will be situations where we have some disagreement, but those Members who held the party’s top legislative priority in order to send women’s rights backward, it was a very serious matter and one that the Steering Committee will consider.”
Pretty impressive. Good to see Democrats starting to enforce some party discipline in order to stand up for core values.
Or, this is another lame April Fool’s joke, comparing how Republican House leaders are actually threatening to revoke committee seats over something as minor as earmarks, but Democrats won’t take action against the most serious instance of legislation hostage taking the party has experienced in a decade.
Yesterday, President Obama signed health care reform into law. As Mike Lillis explains in the Washington Independent, the bill now proceeds to the Senate for reconciliation. The whole process could be complete by the end of the week. Republicans and their allies have already moved to challenge reform in court.
Legal challenges
The fight is far from over, however. Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly notes that Republicans have already filed papers to challenge health care reform in court. The Justice Department has pledged to vigorously defend health care reform, according to Zach Roth of TPM Muckraker.
The legal arguments against health care reform center around the constitutionality of an individual mandate, i.e., the requirement that everyone must carry health insurance. This argument is specious. The bill characterizes the mandatory payments as a tax, and imposes a fine for those who don’t pay their insurance tax. There is no question that Congress has the authority to levy taxes in support of the general welfare and providing health insurance to the people easily meets that legal criterion.
Dave Weigel of the Washington Independent reviews some of the other formidable legal barriers to challenging health care reform in court. But take heart, teabaggers! Birther-dentist-lawyer Orly Taitz is on the case.
Violent outbursts from reform opponents
Some anti-reform activists have resorted to intimidation. Five Democratic offices were vandalized in the days surrounding the House vote, as Justin Elliott reports for TPM Muckraker. Someone hurled a brick through the window of the Niagara office of Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the chair of the powerful House Rules Committee.
Slaughter is notorious on the right for drawing up the controversial “deem and pass” strategy for moving the bill forward. Her plan was never put into action, but she has become a target anyway. Another Democratic office in Slaughter’s district was damaged by a brick bearing a quote from conservative icon Barry Goldwater: “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.”
Elliott notes that a conservative blogger in Alabama is doing his best to incite similar attacks, though it’s not clear whether he instigated any of the original five:
…Blogger Mike Vanderboegh has been tracking the breaking of windows at Dem offices after issuing a call Friday: “To all modern Sons of Liberty: THIS is your time. Break their windows. Break them NOW.“
Reproductive rights take a hit
Anti-abortion extremist Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) failed to get his ultra-restrictive abortion language inserted into the health care bill, but the final bill does impede health insurance coverage for abortion.
For example, those who choose abortion coverage will have to write two checks: One for their regular premium and one for a dollar to go into a separate abortion coverage fund. Many analysts fear that the extra hassles will discourage private insurers from covering abortion at all. Pro-choice activists were in a weaker negotiating position because, unlike Stupak and his allies, they weren’t prepared to kill health reform if their demands weren’t met.
The greater good?
Now that health care reform is safely signed into law, the pro-choice movement is stepping back and asking itself some tough questions.
In The Nation, Katha Pollitt argues that the pro-choice movement deserves to be rewarded for sacrificing its own agenda for the greater good. She suggests that the Democrats could reward the reproductive rights movement by fully funding the Violence Against Women Act, addressing maternal mortality and other policy changes to advance women’s health and freedom.
Jos of Feministing counters that with their go along to get along attitude pro-choice groups have only demonstrated that they can be ignored with impunity: “You don’t get rewarded for demonstrating a lack of political power, you get further marginalized.”
At RH Reality Check, Megan Carpentier argues that national pro-choice organization like NARAL and Planned Parenthood ceded their leverage too easily. While anti-choicers were beefing up their lobbying presence in Washington, major pro-choice groups were scaling back. Pro-choice groups compromised early and easily, perhaps because they were overly confident that their service to the Democratic cause would be rewarded in the end.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Reports everywhere now are saying that Bart Stupak is a “yes,” agreeing to some sort of deal on an executive order. If he brings his entire bloc with him, as appears likely, that would seal health reform passage.
What is not clear at this point is what Democrats gave up to get him on board. More details as those come in.
Additionally, as the House starts debate, this is an open thread to discuss.
Also, Brian Baird is now a “yes.” That makes eight “no to yes.” With Marcy Kaptur staying at a “yes,” Dems would only need three of the nine other Stuapk bloc to pass the bill. The executive order deal, whatever it is, has probably secured that.
Stupak says he is negotiating with the leadership on the bill:
This morning, during an appearance on Good Morning America, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) reaffirmed that he might vote for the Senate health care bill if Democrats pass the Stupak abortion amendment as a separate measure. Stupak said that Democrats have shown a “renewed” interest in tying his amendment to the Senate bill
Pelosi says she isn’t negotiating:
ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reports: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was asked about Bart Stupak’s suggestion that there could be another bill to address abortion funding and she said, “I haven’t heard any of that.”
“If you don’t want federal funding for abortion… and you want to have a health care bill,” she said. “This is it.”
Leaving the he said / she said aside for the moment, Stupak still appears to hold the balance on the bill. He may not have a dozen members anymore, but the vote is so close he doesn’t need that many anymore to sink the bill.
To pass the bill, the leadership needs to have only one less “no to yes” votes than “yes to no” votes. Right now, “yes to no” is running at least four ahead, and at least six of the “yes to no” votes are cited the lack of the Stupak amendment as their main rationale.
What this means is that, at least based on public whip counts, there isn’t a clear path to passage at this point without either getting the Stupak group to cave, or caving to the Stupak group. And it isn’t even clear if Democrats could make a deal with Stupak if they wanted to, given both opposition in the Senate, the threat of losing new “no to yes” votes such as Betsy Markey, and the rules on reconciliation generally.
I don’t have any particularly deep insight into this, or any clever solutions. It is just worth noting that the Stupak situation is far from settled at this point.
Last night, there was a report that Speaker Pelosi had called an impromptu meeting at 10 a.m. this morning with all women in the Democratic caucus.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is asking all female Democratic Members to attend a hastily called meeting Wednesday morning but isn’t saying what the meeting is about.
Pelosi’s office sent an e-mail out Tuesday evening requesting that all female Democrats come to the Members-only meeting at 10 a.m.
An aide to one Democratic Member said Pelosi’s office said the topic of the meeting was “to be determined.”
That certainly sounded ominous. The vote count is now at 208-208 according to DDay, and 13 of the final 15 “undecided” members supported the Stuapk amendment. Here are the final 15:
Lincoln Davis, Jim Matheson, Harry Teague, Travis Childers, John Barrow, Zack Space, Chris Carney, Brad Ellsworth, Jerry Costello, Henry Cuellar, Nick Rahall, Solomon Ortiz, Earl Pomeroy, Bill Foster, Harry Mitchell.
Of this group, only Bill Foster and Harry Mitchell opposed Stupak, and they are probably the easiest votes to get anyway. Given this, was Speaker Pelosi preparing for a final cave to Stupak in order to get the remaining six votes?
Fortunately, the answer is no. An aide to the leadership has confirmed to me that the following Roll Call story about the meeting is accurate. Speaker Pelosi is meeting with everyone, and in the specifici meeting with the women in the Democratic caucus this morning, and reproductive rights were not discussed:
Abortion provisions in the health care bill were not discussed during a hastily called Wednesday morning meeting between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and female Democratic Members. Instead, Pelosi ran through talking points on how health care reform benefits women, according to lawmakers who attended the meeting.
On this front, it is also worth noting that Catholic nuns have broken with the bishops and called for the passage of the health reform bill. Ha!
Steve Hildebrand is threatening to run a primary challenge against Blue Dog co-chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin if she votes against the health reform bill:
Senior Obama campaign official Steve Hildebrand is eyeing a Democratic primary challenge to South Dakota Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, a decision he said hinges largely on whether she votes against health care reform later this week.(…)
“I want to see how she votes on health care,” Hildebrand said. “If the vote is very, very close and we lose it or come close to losing it, I will take a serious look at challenging her.”
In response, Jane Hamsher argues that Herseth Sandlin’s opposition to the health reform bill is because of choice (emphasis in original):
Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin holds down a tough seat for pro-choice Democrats. She’s in an R+9 district, and that’s a tough thing to do for a pro-choice woman.
But the Democratic establishment are now out to torpedo any woman who sticks up for choice. Steve Hildebrand – Obama’s Deputy Campaign Manager, who called up rich donors and told them to cut off 527s during the campaign – is threatening to primary her if she defends a womans’ right to choose from Ben Nelson’s assault: (…)
Let’s just be very clear about what’s happening here. There were forty-one members of Congress who signed Diana DeGette’s letter saying “We will not vote for a conference report that contains language that restricts women’s right to choose any further than current law.”
And now, if any of these women wants to keep that pledge to defend choice, Obama’s deputy campaign manager – the guy that controls the cash – is threatening to run them out of office for doing so.
Um, Herseth Sandlin’s opposition to the health reform bill has nothing to do with choice:
On November 6th, 2009, Herseth Sandlin issued a press release opposing the House health reform bill. Not only does the press release not mention reproductive rights or women’s health in any way, but this was a day before the Stupak amendment was even voted on.
On January 20th, more than a month after the Nelson language was added to the Senate health reform bill, Herseth Sandlin issued a press release opposing the bill. Once again, reproductive rights and women’s health were not mentioned in the release.
On February 22nd, two months after the Nelson language was added to the Senate bill, Herseth Sandlin sent out another press release stating her opposition to the bill, and that she was undecided on the reconciliation package. Again, choice was not mentioned.
However, Herseth Sandlin did find time to vote in favor of this bill, just like all great champions of choice:
(H.R. 1388) On a motion to add language to a bill funding local community service and volunteer efforts that would prohibit the volunteers from discussing or promoting abortions, and from engaging in lobbying, union organizing, political activity, voter registration or religious teaching
Herseth Sandlin may have a decent record on choice, but she clearly isn’t above compromising on it from time to time.
In the many instances where she stated her opposition to various health reform bills, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin has never even mentioned reproductive rights. In fact, she opposed the bill before the Stupak amendment passed or the Nelson language was added. She is not an outspoken defender of reproductive rights, and has compromised on it in the past.
If you oppose the health care package because of the reproductive rights language in it, great. But that is not why Stephanie Herseth Sandlin opposes it, and it is not the basis of Hildebrand’s threatened primary challenge.
In response to a third-hand report that he would vote against the Senate health reform bill because it lacked the Stupak language, Representative Tom Perriello just released this statement saying the report was not accurate. Here is a snippet:
“I have plenty of serious problems with the Senate bill and, until I see the final language, I cannot take a position on final passage. But the existing language on abortion in the current Senate bill meets the pledge I made to ensure no federal funding for abortion in this health care bill.”
So, to everyone’s surprise, a third-hand report from the National Review wasn’t correct.
The House of Representatives is pretty far along in drafting a reconciliation “fix” to the Senate health reform bill, which they currently plan to pass a couple days after passing the Senate health reform bill. Speaker Pelosi, four days ago:
And, indeed, leadership is pressing ahead with the legislative process. Earlier today, outside of a caucus meeting, Pelosi said Democrats had already drafted much of a reconciliation bill, meant to amend the Senate package, and sent “a bunch” of its legislative language to CBO.
The Senate seemingly has enough votes to pass a reconciliation bill now. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the Senate and the House agree on what should be in the reconciliation bill, and the House will undoubtedly wait on passage until such an agreement is reached. However, it still means that the reconciliation “fix” to the Senate health reform bill is not the main obstacle to passing health reform.
By far the bigger obstacle to passing health reform remains Bart Stupak’s bloc. As this blog and many others have recounted on numerous occasions, Stupak supposedly has a group of about a dozen Democrats who voted “yes” on the health reform bill in November, but who will vote “no” this time around because the bill lacks Stupak’s regressive language on reproductive rights.
In an attempt to circumvent this bloc, the House leadership seems to have secured the votes of at least three House Democrats who voted “no” in November: Jason Altmire, Brian Baird, and Bart Gordon. Still, that is nowhere near enough to cancel out a dozen members of the Stupak bloc. Additionally, Representative Mike Arcuri appears to be a non-Stupak bloc member who is flipping from “yes” to “no.”
One problem is that no one seems to know exactly who is in the Stupak bloc. There is a lot of speculation, but little confirmation. What little information we do have is:
Bart Stupak is definitely in the bloc
Joseph Cao says he will not vote for health reform unless it contains the Stupak language, so he is in the bloc.
Dale Kildee is not in the bloc, as Brian Beutler confirms:
However, Kildee’s office tells me that his name doesn’t belong on the list–he’s still reviewing the Senate language.
Other than that, we have a list of about 15 theoretical members of the bloc, with no confirmation one way or the other. Here they are:
14 Dems who have voted with Stupak so far (which might be coincidental)
Carney (PA-10)
Costello (IL-12)
Dahlkemper (PA-03)
Donnelly (IN-02)
Doyle (PA-14)
Driehaus (OH-01)
Ellsworth (IN-08)
Hill (IN-09)
Kanjorski (PA-12)
Kirkpatrick (AZ-01)
Lipinski (IL-03)
Mollohan (WV-01)
Oberstar (MN-08)
Rahall (WV-03)
Three other members accused of being in the bloc Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)
Solomon Ortiz (TX-27)
Charlie Wilson (OH-06)
Given that is only 17 possible names, why don’t we just call up these offices and ask something akin to the following question:
Is Representative [insert name here] insisting that language akin to the Stupak amendment be passed as a precondition for considering support of the health reform bill?
Or something like that. It is only seventeen names, so it should be something that even a small news organization can pull off. Further, the nature of the issue means that even an equivocation from these Congressional offices is actually a “no,” making this a particularly easy bit of news gathering. Either they are demanding the Stupak amendment as a precondition for considering the bill, or they aren’t. There is no “maybe” on this one.
The number for the Congressional switchboard is 1-866-220-0044. I don’t see any reason why we can’t get all seventeen of these members on record today. People deserve to know who the members of the Stupak bloc actually are.
I really hate having to come back to this over and over again. Let’s get our abortion-and-health-care basics down folks. The Senate bill does nothing to change the standard we have lived by that no federal funding shall be used for abortion.
Who are the members of Bart Stupak’s bloc? That is, which members of the House of Representatives will vote for health reform if it contains Stupak’s regressive, restrictive language on reproductive rights, but will vote against it if it does not?
Lots of theories and speculation has been made to this effect, including my own. Now, however, I believe I can provide something much closer to definitive proof.
On the day the House voted on health reform in November, Stupak told the Huffington Post that his bloc of anti-choice Democrats proved their muscle in July by defeating the leadership on Roll Call 553.
Stupak said the Blue Dogs have gradually been sending a message to leadership and that much of it goes back to a previous vote involving an appropriations bill that Blue Dogs wanted to include pro-life language.
In July, the House considered a Financial Services Appropriations bill that would allow publicly-funded abortions in the District of Columbia. Stupak and allies were not allowed an amendment, so they sought to “take down the rule” — in other words, round up enough votes to deny he bill a chance to get voted on on the floor. When time expired, the pro-lifers had prevailed. But Pelosi held the vote open for extra time and persuaded four members to switch their votes.
They didn’t win in the end, Stupak said, but they accomplished their goal.
“We wanted to send a message,” he said. “We went back and I said, ‘See, I can take down your rule.'”
This information, presented by Bart Stupak himself, is actually enough to narrow the potential members of Stupak’s bloc to 17. Given Stupak’s comments, only members of the House who meet all three of the following conditions can be said to be part of his bloc:
Voted with Stupak on his demonstration effort in July (Roll Call 553). If someone was not with Stupak on his test vote, then that someone is not really with Stupak (or is at least malleable enough to be separated from Stupak).
Voted for the Stupak amendment on November 7th. (Roll Call 884). If they didn’t vote for the Stupak amendment, then tautologically speaking they are not with Stupak.
Voted for the House health reform bill overall. (Roll Call 887). If they didn’t vote for health reform even with the Stupak amendment, then their objections to the health reform bill are not Stupak related.
There are sixteen Democrats who meet all these criteria, plus one Republican. Only these 17 members of the House can arguably be claimed to Stupak swing votes, since every other member of the House already broke with Stupak on a key vote. Here is the list (more in the extended entry):
(Footage purchased from Sam Sumner, originally posted by Will Urquhart at Sum of Change)
As you may be aware, this weekend (tomorrow to be exact) marks the 37th anniversary of the passage of Roe v Wade, the supreme court decision that effectively legalized abortion nationwide. We have been working on a documentary about clinic escorts for some time now (tomorrow we will be making a big announcement about the film, sign up for our emails and you will be one of first to hear about it), so this weekend is a big chance for us to get some footage.
When I got back home from volunteering at the clinic, I saw an email from Operation Rescue announcing a press conference at the White House today. Luckily, I was able to track down a freelance videographer who sold us some great exclusive footage of Operation Rescue’s President, Troy Newman, failing several times to name a single part of the current health care bills that allows for federal funding of abortion (although he knows for a fact it does, he just cannot tell you how):
Here is where things stand on the health care endgame this afternoon:
Breakthrough on excise tax. Labor and the White house appear to have reached a deal on the excise tax. Some details:
Under the outline currently being discussed, which the sources stressed is still fluid, the threshold for the tax on insurance plans would be raised above what passed the Senate – which was a tax on insurance plans costing $23,000 and up for families.
In addition, health care policies for state and local workers and health care policies negotiated by labor unions would not be subject to the excise tax until 2017.
The sources also say a working idea is to remove dental and vision plans from the calculation.
One of the sources familiar with negotiations said that in addition to protecting health plans negotiated under collective bargain agreements, labor leaders are pushing to expand the deal to exempt health plans for all Americans making under $200,000 a year.
Regulatory reform. Reportedly, the White House is backing the House of Representatives on including a national exchange instead of a state by state exchange, and on repealing the anti-trust exemption for the health care industry. However, those discussions remain in flux, and deal has been reached yet. No guarantee either way, right now.
Reproductive rights? No word on whether the final bill will contain the Stupak amendment (which would create a national ban on abortion procedures in insurance), or Ben Nelson’s state opt-out language. Pro-choice House members have been pushing for Nelson’s language.
Overall deal now imminent–Friday or Saturday. The excise tax was one of the largest remaining obstacles to a final deal between the House and the Senate. The timeline for such a deal appears to be either tomorrow or Saturday, at which time the bill would be sent to the CBO for review.
Timeline. The House will likely send a bill to the CBO on Friday or Saturday. The CBO will reportedly take between 10 to 13 days to return a score on the bill. From that point, it will take the House between one day and three days to pass the bill, and the Senate another three days. All told, this means the final bill will be passed by the Senate as late as early as January 29th, and as late as February 4th. The State of the Union address is on February 2nd.
Coakley loss blows whole thing up–or does it?. With the Massachusetts Senate election on January 19th, and the Senate voting on the bill on January 29th at the earliest, it seems entirely possible that a victory by Republican Scott Brown would sink the whole deal…
…or would it? As David Waldman writes, the Massachusetts special election would not be certified until February 20th, and Senate rules require certification to swear in a new member. Republicans delayed Al Franken from taking his Senate seat for six months because of this, and Democrats could simply do the same to Republicans in order to pass the bill.
Also, as noted by multiple people in the comments, the House could theoretically just pass the bill that the Senate already passed, verbatim, and send that to the President. That is one possibility, but I doubt the House has the votes for the Senate bill. Some Progressives could be lost, and some conservative Dems would be scared off by a by a Brown win. Republican Joseph Cao would probably be lost, too. Stupak, and some of his acolytes, might also vote against it. All in all, with only a three-vote margin, the Senate bill might not be able to pass the House.
It is both small comfort, and an important lesson, for public option advocates that Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson have become the most unpopular and electorally imperiled members of the entire Senate. This has happened largely because of their hostage-taking actions on the healthcare bill.
Joe Lieberman’s actions on the health care bill antagonized constituents both for and against it, and in the wake of that he finds his approval rating at just 25% with 67% of voters in the state disapproving of him.(…)
It’s clear that his actions on the Senate health care bill have made a large contribution to his falling popularity. 68% of voters say they disagree with how he handled the issue to just 19% giving him support. Among people who support the health care bill 84% say they disapprove of Lieberman’s actions but even among those opposed to the initiative 52% say they disagree with how Lieberman handled himself.
This isn’t the first poll showing that Lieberman took a big hit over his backstab on the public option. Two weeks ago, CNN polling showed the exact same results, much to the mystification of D.C. political writers.
Lieberman’s actions appealed to no one. Now, he is toast, even among Republicans. A warm body will defeat him in 2012.
If Governor Dave Heineman challenges Nelson for the Senate job, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows the Republican would get 61% of the vote while Nelson would get just 30%. Nelson was reelected to a second Senate term in 2006 with 64% of the vote.
Nelson’s health care vote is clearly dragging his numbers down. Just 17% of Nebraska voters approve of the deal their senator made on Medicaid in exchange for his vote in support of the plan.
Nelson, like Lieberman, did not make himself more popular among those who oppose the health care bill, or the public option, with his actions. Both supporters and opponents of both the health care bill and the public option were largely disgusted with what they viewed as personal power aggrandizement.
Their actions earned both Nelson and Lieberman featured appearances on Sunday D.C. talk shows, but it also made voters of all sorts loathe them. It would appear that people don’t like members of Congress who take enormous pieces of legislation hostage for personal reasons. Nelson and Lieberman are now the most unpopular Senators in their home states in the entire country, far more unpopular than even Harry Reid, Chris Dodd or Blanche Lincoln.
All of this makes it quite amusing that ongoing hostage-taker, Bart Stupak, is strongly considering a run for Governor of Michigan. What a fool. It seems that he really believes that the only people who hate his hostage-taking actions are from New York City. The Nelson and Lieberman polling quoted above shows that very few people, whether in your home state or nationally, and whether among people who agree with your positions or not, like it when members of Congress take hostages in this manner.
Man, I hope Stupak does run for Governor. It would be an easy way to get him out of elected office altogether. It would also be nice to see another health care hostage-taker go down in flames, mystified about why people don’t like him anymore.
Finally, I think this is a lesson for public option advocates, and our high-profile hostage-taking strategy called The Progressive Block. It seems clear to me now that a strategy like that only works if you build up public support for it (which we most definitely did not do among the Democratic primary electorate), or if the fight is far more low-profile (such as IMF funding in the Afghanistan supplemental). High-profile hostage taking just doesn’t work from the left (or, as polling shows, from the right or the center, either) Voters of all sorts, including those on the left, just don’t like it, and they will punish you given the opportunity. It is indeed small comfort that the mendacious hostage-takers who stopped us are now wildly unpopular both at home and around the country, but it is also a warning that we would have been in the same position if we had become the hostage takers ourselves.
