No More Bringing Softball Bats to a Game of Major League Hard Ball

[Tom Rinaldo]

Lieberman and his likes need to fear the consequences of not negotiating in good faith. As it is all they feel is smug. Democratic leadership both in Congress in the White House are now deeply codependent in empowering obstructionists.

Hardball would be a determination to use Reconciliation to ram through a very comprehensive public option plan and/or a massive expansion of Medicare if a good faith agreement on HCR can't be reached through conventional means. While it is true that Reconciliation can't be used to bring about reforms of the private industry, it CAN be used to scare the living shit out of them by creating a robust public system with subsidies that could actually put private insurers out of business exactly the way they keep falsely complaining that the lame public options that have been negotiated to date supposedly would have.

Make Lieberman chew on that choice for a while. Put the real fear of God in him that his precious Insurance industry funders are about to be made obsolete by a viable public alternative and then see just how flexible he suddenly becomes in negotiations. Or just call his bluff and do it and make him obsolete in the process. Just 51 votes, 50 with Joe Biden. The private insurance industry has gamed this system. They bought the votes they need to stop real reform and there is no reason to believe they haven't already bought loop holes big enough to fly the Goodyear blimp through in whatever regulations are supposedly about to be imposed on them in this so called HCR.

Until Democrats are willing to use the power that voters gave them to insist that the health care system actually gets fixed, special interests will continue to put the fix in on any legislation that attempts to reform and restrain them. The only thing that really frightens the private health care insurance industry now is a viable public alternative to the products that they sell, which Americans will soon be mandated to buy if the current likely version of HCR becomes law. They know all they need to know about who really has control of the ball in this game as long as we keep pulling the only thing that they actually fear off the table every time they raise an eyebrow. Democrats are browbeaten and Lieberman knows it.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Exactly right.

But with the Democrats browbeaten, just how do we accomplish this?

It should NEVER have come to this.

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. Hard ball always is high stakes. It always involves real risks and taking chances

Which is why so many often shy away from playing it. You can't win at hard ball unless your adversaries are convinced that you are willing to take real risks to achieve victory. But when only one side is willing to take those risks, then that side no longer needs to fear those risks because no one ever calls their bluff. That is where Democrats in general and progressives especially are now. We don't play hard ball because we fear the consequences of losing that game, so the other side pretty much wins 90% of what they want by default.

Increasingly it seems that the national Democratic Party will not abandon playing softball on Capital Hill until they fear the consequences of not playing hard ball more than they fear the consequences of playing it. What I think that means in practice is they need to believe that their progressive base will walk or simply stay home if they don't get a spine. What that means for progressives like me is I need to let them know that I will no longer settle for a tenth of a loaf, that I would rather risk getting nothing than not holding out for half a loaf or more. Yes that means risking letting Democrats lose a chance to pass a deformed HCR bill and it means risking Democrats losing future elections if I and enough voters like me withhold my support if they refuse to commit to really fighting. That is hard ball.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. Your points are very well made.

Somehow we need to make them hear that we won't put up with this shit any more.

Well said.

[metapunditedgy]

3. Softball bats can be aluminum and whack a ball harder than major-league wooden bats.

Just sayin'.

I agree with the rest of your sentiment, though.

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. LOL. OK, OK, Wooden Softball Bats...

Apples to apples and all of that. It was the best I could do trying to milk the "bringing a knife to a gun fight" metaphore for an OP :)

[John Q. Citizen]

4. The private insurance industry bought Obama. That's the problem.

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. Maybe

or maybe he is simply not very invested in taking them on head on and wants some victory on HCR any way he can get it. He certainly doesn't seem willing to spend serious political capital fighting hard for public alternatives.

If not Obama they certainly own enough Democrats to get their way.

[tomm2thumbs]

10. he's only rented - 8 year lease

[ConsAreLiars]

8. The problem is not gear or or guts, but a matter of divided loyalties.

The Republicans. the Cons, are wholly owned and loyal operatives serving Corporate Power. Many are too fucking ignorant to even know that, which makes them even more reliable idiots, and others know the game and are playing it for all they can get.

Many Democrats are honest, serve-the-greater-good types, but even they know that there are millions of dollars around to destroy them if they go too far (see McKinney, maybe Wellstone).

And a great number are juggling the carrot of populist positioning along with the butcher knife of Corporate power.

And too many have decided "better safe (from Corporate opposition) than sorry."

Just politics, just the reality of where money and power reside.

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. Agreed. Which is why I included our own need to play hard ball

in my comments in a follow up post above. Democrats don't fear losing their base enough to offset the points you raised, but above all else political survival requires winning elections, and they won't without the continued support of their base.

[ConsAreLiars]

11. Agreed back atcha.

When the Dems deliver/fight-for nothing much and just mouth inoffensive platitudes while the Corporate Machine calls them names ranging from "useless" (evidence-based) to "rabid frothing commies-nazis," they are on a path toward getting beaten into the pointless mush their stance suggests they already are.

Those who suggest that moving closer to what Corporate Media presents as the "middle" while presenting the insane crazy haters as one pole and Harry Reid as the other extreme side are playing the Devils' game and playing on the Devils side.

Even the dumbass teabaggers might get a glimmering of a clue if a strong pro-human anti-corporate argument was being made every day and in every way by an organized Democratic party led by a determined and insightful figure.

Sadly, that is neither here nor now.

[Waiting For Everyman]

Agree 100%. Senate needs to be scared straight, as you said.

Then the whole dynamic would change, even afterward. The RW and BD would never know when it might be done again.

[Waiting For Everyman]

12. (dupe)

[Tom Rinaldo]

13. Mornin' kick n/t