I fear that teabagger success in getting Bart Stupak

[louis-t]

to quit will lead to more death threats to Democrats. I think the hate speech will increase, not decrease. Repugs know they can get away with this. They know they're followers will ramp up the crazy for them. They may not even stop if someone gets killed. In advance, they are already blaming Democrats for the violence. These are sick people.

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. Fox noise & AM hate radio has let the genie out of the bottle

Reports about the nuts indicate they robotically repeat the swill & buzzwords uttered by Fox & the others.

[catbyte]

2. I don't think the real reason is teabaggers

I'm convinced it has a lot to do with his sweetheart deal at the C Street "church". I think there's a LOT of dirt that's going to be dug up about that now that those ministers have gotten the IRS involved. That's just MHO, of course!

Yoopers are tougher than a bunch of teabaggers... ;)

Diane

Anishnabe in MI

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. You really think Stupak is quitting because of the teabaggers?

You think that being hated by 85% of DEMOCRATS might have a little more to do with it?

[LetsgoWings13]

7. as a michigan man

+1

[DCBob]

8. The teabaggers "think" they took him down...

Which means they will be emboldend to do more of the same.

[louis-t]

9. I don't think Dems would push him out

unless they thought another Dem could win in his district. That area of MI is very red. Besides, smart people realize that the executive order Stupak 'demanded' didn't move the ball one inch in either direction.

[mod mom]

4. I think it had to do with Rachel Maddow's excellent reporting on C Street.

[Gin]

5. I agree...and the ministers getting involved helped push the issue

[frazzled]

6. He did this to himself

I'll just let Klein explain it, because I agree:

Rep. Bart Stupak has not had an easy year. He made himself a villain to liberals when he threatened to kill the Affordable Care Act unless the already-restrictive abortion language was made more restrictive. He made himself a villain to conservatives when he accepted an executive order saying that the abortion language in the bill was intended to be extremely restrictive. And now, after weeks of negative ads and angry letters and shouting phone calls, he's retiring.

But Stupak isn't alone. If Sen. Ben Nelson was up for reelection this year, there's a good chance he'd be retiring too. The two of them took the most damage during health-care reform, and for the same reason: They took a hostage and then accepted the ransom. And while that strategy might have worked in the past, it's proven a disaster.

<...>

Compare Nelson and Stupak to people such as Mark Warner or Brad Ellsworth, both of whom are moderate Democrats who had serious concerns about the bill, but who spent their time quietly getting those concerns addressed rather than using them to get TV bookings in advance of a high-profile deal. Nelson and Stupak made themselves into targets for both the left and the right, and ended the process with lots of notoriety but even more new enemies. Warner and Ellsworth haven't suffered from the same backlash. The old model in which moderate Democrats justify their vote for a bill by talking trash about it until they get bought off doesn't work in an environment where the media and the political opposition is waiting to pounce on the buy-off.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/health-care_reforms_biggest_lo.html