It’s not nice to make a Blue Dog angry
But Waxman did.
Good.
And fancy that, the Blue Dogs say the Democrat leadership in the House lied to them! Say it isn’t so, Nancy!
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
But Waxman did.
Good.
And fancy that, the Blue Dogs say the Democrat leadership in the House lied to them! Say it isn’t so, Nancy!
Would you like some popcorn, Neo?
This has indeed been a very bad week for the liberals.
One can only hope and pray that next week is even worse.
Come to think of it, isn’t a certain elected official stepping down from her post next week?
That should be very, very interesting.
Stay tuned.
I still think this is so much Kabuki theater. The “blue dogs” are going to vote for this, it’s going to pass and the conservative base will be demoralized. Others have brought this up, but Obama needs not one Republican vote in either the House or Senate to pas this (or anything else for that matter.) Not sure what’s to be done until 2010.
no one you know: You might be correct. I have thought of that possibility. But I hope you’re wrong. The Blue Dogs’ political future will be over if they vote for this bill. Perhaps self-interest and ambition will triumph in the end, if principle can’t.
neo, thanks for the response. I hope you’re right about this. I just look at the likes Charlie Rangel, Alcee Hastings, Jack Murtha, and how they’ll have to be carried out of the House (yes, I understand that they’re not Blue Dogs, well, a case could be made for Murtha) and think that if a vote for the Stimulus and Cap & Trade won’t end those political careers, another vote for Big Government won’t. I can see it now, how this was the biggest comeback victory EVAR by a president trying to get his agenda passed. The thrills will be running up those legs again in no time. Looks like a “rope-a-dope” from where I’m standing, still stiff upper lip and all that.
“The Blue Dogs’ political future will be over if they vote for this bill. ”
I don’t know – with ACORN registering “voters” and helping with the Census………
It seems to me that if the Blue Dogs were going to capitulate on healthcare, they would have done so already. Many of them had their arms twisted and then some by the Obama-Pelosi-Reid machine in the cap-and-trade vote in the House and then found that it came to nothing because the bill didn’t go to the Senate. As Richard Fernandez quotes: “There are no more arms to break.”
Obamacare is such a bad, ill-defined, ill-argued and hyper-expensive bill that any Congressperson in a red or purple state is putting their career at risk to vote for it. Meanwhile Obama’s numbers are dropping faster than Carter’s. Plus as we saw this week, his public speaking can’t help Obamacare either.
As I’ve been saying, Obama has squandered his honeymoon and his Messiah powers. He has deeply alarmed about half the population, and worried another quarter. His tricks and tics are showing. Unless the economy roars into recovery with jobs and more jobs, Obama’s current strategy is stuck.
His choice now is to go to the center or go to the bunker.
The Blue Dogs are toast back in their districts if they go along with this. This is not like the “stimulus” package, which was just one helluva bender, but not different in kind from what politicians do all the time. This is different.
Nancy — I’d like to slap her wig sideways!
Well, actually, I wouldn’t do that .. but I could see me wishing to pop her with a paint ball from across the room — so the distance can soften the blow. Those things smart.
I don’t know Nyo. Slapping her wig sideways would be fun. And then, perhaps her ideas aren’t BAD as such, just out of place. A little jostling of the Italian to the back of the head “duh” variety and they might suddenly work. And look at it this way, it’s not like her expression would show it!
Then again, we’re talking about the woman who crossed herself in a mosque — there used to be a video of it. So she might be beyond help.
Fred Barnes has a persuasive article, Barnes: Obama’s Already Lost the Health Care Argument.
Barnes’s point, which he backs up with several polls, is that the public just ain’t buying, no matter how much Obama does his Honest John “This isn’t about me, this is absolutely necessary to fix the deficit, and you can keep your coverage” snake oil act in front of the cameras.
With the Blue Dawgs, their bark is worse than their bite. Watch for interesting things getting slipped into the bill to buy them off.
And watch for a number them to go down in defeat in the 2010 elections if they don’t at least pretend to read this legislation.
And here I thought the Blue Dogs were housebroken. Good on them. But Queen Nancy must be plotting up ways even now to deny them their kibble.
I’ve never understood the Blue Dogs. I understand where they come from–Rahm Emmanuel’s fertile trick bag: Run conservative Democrats in conservative districts! But I’ve never understood why the rubes fall for it. Anyone with half a brain and one good eye can see that, when the guys get to DC, they will be nothing more than numbers in the great left-liberal counting house. If you’re conservative, why are you a Democrat? That’s what I’d like to know. It makes no sense at all. None. Zero.
There are conflicting signals; one news story, time stamped around 3 P.M. yesterday, had Blue Dogs emerging from meetings with Waxman et al saying that they had been lied to and deceived, that what they thought were good faith negotiations were not, and that negotiations were off for now. However, right after that I found a news story, time stamped around 5:30 P.M. that same afternoon, about how grinning, bucktoothed, ratfaced Waxmen and Blue Dog negotiators had appeared jointly before the press to announce that things were on track, and that they were going to get this thing done. Similarly, there were stories reporting how Waxman was saying he would bypass his recalcitrant committee and bring the bill to the floor for a vote, stories about Reid and Pelosi saying that there was is no way the bill couldbe voted on before the first week of August recess, yet, other stories quoting Rahm Emanuel saying there would be a floor vote next week.
So, cynical me wonders if this is, indeed, a Democratic “Rope-a-Dope” strategy– i.e rest on the ropes, protect yourself, pretend that you are worn out–finished–and hope that your opponent will get tired of throwing punches, ease up a little when he thinks he sees the signs that victory is near for him, and, when he does this, you can emerge, rested and fighting–and that the Democrats involved are trying to confuse and defuse their opponents into thinking that they can relax, and that vigilance and constant pressure are no longer needed, because the bill is delayed or is, effectively, dead.
“If you’re conservative, why are you a Democrat? That’s what I’d like to know. It makes no sense at all. None. Zero.”
Betsy, I think there are still a lot of “Reagan Democrats” out there – people with blue-collar backgrounds whose politics are centrist or even to the right but who retain an innate distrust of the Republicans as “the party of the rich”. And rightly or wrongly, Bush’s unpopularity spread to the rest of the ticket last year. Not everyone thinks in starkly ideological terms.
Gary,
I understand what you’re saying, but it occurs to me that if the Reagan Democrats (or any other roughly conservative Democrat) were voting for Democrats because they don’t trust Republicans, they would probably vote for the Democrat in any case–so why bother to run conservative ones? But it’s the candidates themselves whose sense I question. Surely they know that when they get to Washington, they’ll be subsumed by the left-liberal nature of the national (congressional) party. I think, and have thought for some time, that the problem with conservatives, and with Republicans (to the extent that they are conservative) is that they don’t recognize the nature or the stakes of the fight they’re in.
As to Bush’s unpopularity–you have a point there as well, of course, but I think McCain was lame enough all on his own to have lost without Bush’s help.
I also understand that not everyone thinks in starkly ideological terms. But for those who don’t, what terms do they think in? Partisan, perhaps? If people vote Democrat because their Democrat is conservative, what’s that if not stark ideology?
The blue dogs have crafted there message to fit conservative democrats ideals and capitalizes on the distrust of the republican party; fiscally conservative, tough on crime etc and a message that distances them from the whacko left wing of the party, makes the vote easier to swallow for people who do not support what the democratic party has become.
Time will tell if it is just an act or if they are true to their beliefs, we can sit back an watch the show as people see what having a large majority in charge of everything means, thinking people cannot approve of what is happening now IMO, my motto, reboot congress 2010, I bought that domain name btw.
> Say it isn’t so, Nancy!
Umm? Senate?
I believe the tagline you sought was “Oh, Henry!”
> Charlie Rangel, Alcee Hastings, Jack Murtha, and how they’ll have to be carried out of the House (yes, I understand that they’re not Blue Dogs, well, a case could be made for Murtha)
They may not be Blue Dogs but every one is a damned son of a bitch.
:oP
> Those things smart.
Move closer — that’s going to be the only smarts she ever got.