General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: "But we couldn't *possibly* have gotten single payer!" [View all]ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...of starting negotiations at the high end of what one wants, rather than starting in the middle and ceding ground from that starting position.
You know, of course, that Lieberman voted how his corporate owners... er, handlers... instructed him to vote. We only needed to put the scare into them, in order for them to put pressure on him.
Of course it's all hypothetical, we all know how it went down, and we can't know what would have happened if things had started out differently. But our side started from the middle position, not from the more progressive position. Our side (cough Obama cough) ceded ground before negotiations even started, and that is not a winning strategy -- unless one's real goals are not one's stated goals, which is also a possibility.