What's happening now is a result of what's happened since 2006: Republicans are in a death spiral, and are increasingly incapable of making policy. Not only do Democrats need to work without them, Democrats need to make Republicans own their impotence in 2010...
...Should Grassley broker a deal for health care reform -- not single payer, not a public option, not co-ops, but any thing with the words "health" "care" and "reform" attached to them -- he will be primaried in Iowa...
...In recent days, it has become abundantly clear (not just to us, but to the media) that Republicans have no intention of working for any kind of health care reform. Grassley said as much, on the record. It is becoming clear that Republican officeholders are acting to block reforms that would benefit their states and districts, putting political strategy ahead of sound policy. Policy that, if enacted properly, could make the politicians who shaped it very popular with millions of constituents it aided.
That is the dilemma of the Republican death spiral. As fewer voters remain in the party, the die-hards become a larger proportion of the remaining voters. These die-hards become ever more important in determining who the Republican Party will nominate in its primaries. Thus, four-term Senator Arlen Specter is chased out of his party by Pat Toomey. The party gets more Toomeys on the ballot as a result.Toomeys are harder to elect amongst the wider population. Had 300,000 moderate Pennsylvania Republicans not changed their affiliations to vote in the Democratic presidential primary last year, Arlen Specter would likely still be a Republican, poised to win nomination for his next term. Except those former Republicans (many from his base in suburban Philadelphia) are no longer part of the primary voting population. They can't help a Republican Arlen Specter.
Those former Republicans can, however, vote against a Republican Pat Toomey in the general election if they think he's too extreme...
...The Republican Party is paralyzed in 2009, incapable of governing, incapable of even helping to govern. The party that once preserved the Union can now only preserve the fears of bigots and the profits of special interests. The party that let New Orleans drown has shown no indication of learning from its mistakes; the past four years have seen it even less willing or able to manage the very real needs of the American people. Democrats from Barack Obama to Max Baucus to Ron Wyden have extended their hands to see if Republicans could be engaged at any level on this issue. We now know that is impossible. It was never possible; the dance of the past few weeks confirms that the Republicans simply cannot afford to govern in any way, shape, or form lest they be tossed out by the party's rank-and-file. If Rahm Emanuel's on-the-record comments are any indication, the White House now knows that is the landscape.
I'm traditionally wary of any partisan, Dem or GOP, who believes that a final death blow can be delivered to the other side. However, either of the major political parties can be marginalized to various degrees over a decade-long period or more. Eventually there are generational changes that help retool a party and upheavals or shifts in the world that favor one side or the other.
However, the argument here is that if Dems stick together and stay strong (which I equate to adding a government pool to the health insurance competition -- no mandate without public option), they win bigtime. All that's left is the nihilism of our early 20th Century GOP hardcore driving their non-agenda -- they have to poke holes with whatever scares they can dredge up or invent in order to undermine public desire for the government to do any kind of reform. Or maybe come up with an 11th hour counterproposal that Tom Delay can dance to with the stars.
That's why we need debunking reference sites like this.
That's why I'm so glad the President is taking the suggestion I emailed to him to define health insurance reform as a moral issue.
I'm guessing I wasn't alone.
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