Personally, as a Democratic voter, I want concrete plans for what Dems will do

[coti]

if they retain their majorities. And I don't want built in excuses about 60-vote supermajorities and corporate media corruption.

To begin with, I want a cut-and-dried, no wiggling-out-of-it pledge that we're going to get a public option. And a REAL one, too- one that ANYONE can choose to pay into and receive good coverage from.

Oh, and let's not forget this "Fiscal Responsibility" commission. I want an ironclad understanding that Social Security is not to be cut and the retirement age is not to be raised, or any other such legislative games that would reduce benefits for those who have paid into the system and need them.

Because, if our Dem leaders are now starting to regret that they didn't believe us about the importance of REAL healthcare reform and the public option, they're going to be shocked in 2012 when they see the electoral consequences of cutting the incomes of the least of us in this kind of economy, while the income gap only widens.

[BootinUp]

1. The repukes would like all those plans too. nt

[coti]

3. Apparently, they're already enjoying NOT having them, if the predictions

about what's going to happen this election are at all accurate.

Doesn't look like not having the incredibly popular public option and hinting at SS cuts is doing us that great.

[vi5]

2. Oh please....

They could barely get anything done with sizable majorities in the house and the senate and with the white house. They could lose one seat in both and they're still going to run scurrying and tack even further right. The fact that they'll likely lose more than that in both and possibly lose control, all it will mean is they are going to pander even harder to the right wing.

[coti]

4. Oh, I'm not saying that they'd actually make a commitment like this.

They won't, I'm not kidding myself.

[SargeUNN]

5. what have you found out so far?

I think it would be easier to answer you if I knew what you already know so I won't bore you with stuff you already know.

[msongs]

6. obama is looking for ways to reach across the aisle again. just what repubs want to hear :-) nt

[BootinUp]

7. lol nt

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stray cat]

12. Voters clearly learned nothing from 2000-2008 why should they expect more from their representatives

Idiots representing idiots - time for the GOP voters with their enhanced intelligence to bury progressives and working americans

[Monique1]

13. With replies like these

you want republicans to win. So, be happy in Nov when the Dems lose and will never regain the set back. Let the nazi take over begin!

[LonePirate]

15. As detrimental as their agenda is, the Rs still know how to push it through Congress.

The Dems couldn't push through a progressive agenda with a filibuster proof majority.

Just like everyone else on here, I don't want the Rs in charge. Still, a stinging election loss may be the only way for the Dems to wake up and start listening to the base of voters that sent them to Washington. I don't know about you but I am sick and tired of progressive goals and ideals being ignored, if not rejected, by Obama and this Congress.

[jaxx]

9. I want to see some support for the Democratic Party in this election.

Yeah, yeah, I know....it's asking a lot.

[blogslut]

10. I hope you will do your very best to ensure we retain Democratic majority

I am going to do phone banking and of course, Vote.

[BzaDem]

11. So what you are saying is that you want Democrats to lie to your face?

When you say you don't want excuses about 60-vote supermajorities, you are basically saying you want them to lie to you. There is a 60-vote supermajority, regardless of what anyone says about it.

[coti]

14. No, I'm saying that they don't get to just use it as an excuse for not doing the work.

The work, namely, being using the bully pulpit to bolster support for what's right.

When you have the right ideas, and are actually trying to fix problems, that can be done. They didn't even TRY with the public option- and the support was already there!

All they had to do was stand up to the jerks blocking it- many of them our OWN DEM REPRESENTATIVES (and only 2 or 3 of them!)- and say, look, this is what people want, and, moreover (President Obama speaking, here), "If you don't vote for this, I'm going to your state/district to unseat you."

[BzaDem]

17. Ah, the bullshit "bully pulpit"

"Washington is obsessed with oratory and persuasion. Lawmakers are constantly begging the White House to take the rhetorical lead on this or that. Pundits and reporters talk incessantly about message and narrative. In the movies and on TV, governing always culminates with a dramatic speech. The only problem? Speeches don't matter.

George Edwards, a political scientist at Texas A&M and the author of the book "On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit," has studied the major speeches of every recent presidency. His conclusion: "When we actually looked at what happened to virtually all presidents, the public almost never moves in their direction. That was true with Ronald Reagan, with Bill Clinton. It was even true with Franklin Roosevelt before World War II. The country moved when Hitler did things, rather than when FDR made a speech. And we're seeing the same thing with Barack Obama." If the point of presidential speeches is to move public opinion -- and that's certainly what most of us think -- they simply don't work.

So, what does? Well, Edwards says, the public actually has beliefs of its own. Or as he puts it: "The public supports what the president wants to do when they support what the president wants to do."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091002671.html

Right now, politically, the easiest way for a swing district congressperson to lose is to have Obama come and give a speech in their district in support.

The bully pulpit is a figment of your imagination that you construct so that you can think there is some way to get what you want without the votes, when in reality, there isn't. It is the result of cognitive dissonance. Nothing more.

[coti]

18. Bush, and his comparatively weak Senate majorities, is conspicuously absent

from your excerpt of that article.

Somehow, Bush was still able to prioritize and find the right messages for those things he really wanted to get done.

Or was it just that his opposition was partly composed of vichy, corporatized Democrats, like the 2-3 who blocked the public option?


Besides, as I mentioned- the public already supported it. Poll after poll showed that. It wasn't a public opinion issue at all- it was a political pressure issue.

[BzaDem]

19. His comparatively weak Senate majorities accomplished basically nothing.

He lowered taxes twice, which are both going to expire within a few months. That is easy, and doesn't even require 60 votes. Nor does raising taxes.

What about his proposals that required 60 votes?

Social Security: FAIL.
Immigration: FAIL.
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling: FAIL.

Why? He didn't have 60 votes.

[coti]

20. They got the Iraq War and the two tax cuts, which is ALL they cared about.

They have no other issues, as a party. The only reason Republicans run for political office at all is to cut taxes for rich people.

If they can squeeze in other pro-business legislation, they do that too. But their priority is cutting taxes for the rich, which he most definitely accomplished.


But, speaking of the Iraq War- talk about using the bully pulpit effectively. That would probably be the best example you can find. Bush even had Vietnam vet John Kerry voting for it.



You're still missing the point, though. You're still not addressing the fact that the public already supported the public option, and all that was needed was political pressure from the top.

[BzaDem]

21. The public didn't even know what the public option was. There's a huge difference between responding

affirmatively to a question in a poll and actually effectively supporting something. Most people couldn't give a rat's ass about any political issues, let alone a public option or anything else that specific. This is why they happily elect Senators that are publicly against it (and many other things they would respond affirmatively in a poll to).

"But, speaking of the Iraq War"

The Iraq War had nothing to do with Congress. Sure, there was an authorization to use force. Do you REALLY think Bush wouldn't have gone to war if Congress didn't pass the resolution? He asserted he would go to war regardless of Congress long before congress passed anything. That was for show. The President has essentially unilateral power on many foreign-policy related issues.

[coti]

23. Still arguing immateriallities. The significance of the resolution doesn't matter-

though I doubt many would argue that it had no significance. The resolution gave Bush political backing from Congress for his war, and most treated it as quite a big deal at the time. Everyone understood its import.

All irrelevant- the point is that he got it, through the bully pulpit.


As to the public option's support, the greatest thing about it is that there's no good reason NOT to support it. Why wouldn't consumers support more choices for their health insurance, when that insurance program isn't just a giveaway but must be paid into, like private healthcare, but without the profit demands and claims denial practices? Why would it be a bad thing to have the enormous risk pool that only the federal government can provide? I fully believe that the support for the public option was as high as the polls claimed. And, given more of an information breakthrough by the Administration (countering Fox's "socialism" label) on what it would be, the support likely would have been even higher.

[BzaDem]

26. To you, there is no good reason not to support it. To others, there is no good reason TO support it.

These things are resolved in elections. The fact that people continuously vote in Republicans that vote against it is evidence that it isn't an issue they really care about.

"I fully believe that the support for the public option was as high as the polls claimed." Oh, I'm not denying that if you asked the entire nation the question in the poll, the poll's results would approximate the entire population's result. I'm not attacking polling.

I'm simply saying there is a HUGE difference between saying "I support the public option" in a poll, and knowing what the public option is (and caring enough about it to use it as a factor in your voting decision for your Senator). The bully pulpit rarely changes public opinion, and changing public opinion on an issue rarely changes votes in the Senate or votes for the election of a Senator. It isn't a tactic that works.

Despite what you might want to think or what you learned in high school, the bills that pass are a function of the composition of the Senate, and that's it. Not the other way around. There are rare exceptions, and they certainly do not involve a popular subcomponent of a bill when the bill itself is horrendously unpopular.

[coti]

28. The reason to support it is to create competition for private insurance companies

which will help to stop their yearly, enormous premium increases and unfair claims denial practices.

It's a pretty good reason that most people would agree with. People like competition, especially when it will save them money and pressure insurance companies to actually pay their claims.

[LonePirate]

22. I wish one of the parties was bold enough to end the filibuster rule

We would gain so much more when we are in power that it outweighs what is lost when we are not in power. The filibuster has destroyed America as much as any law ever could.

[DonCoquixote]

25. we have a winner

Or was it just that his opposition was partly composed of vichy, corporatized Democrats, like the 2-3 who blocked the public option?

[defendandprotect]

16. Might be time to start demanding Dems sign PLEDGES ... ????

You know, some people suggest that Obama/Dems actually had a much larger majority --

maybe equal to 24 more Dem Reps?

But at any rate, it was certainly a mandate, yet he never acted like it .

Bush, who lost the 2000 election always acted as though he had a mandate!!

IMO, we should create a tremendous push to knock out as many Repugs as we possible

can -- and then double back to deal with corporate Democrats after the election.

Nothing could be more obvious than that we need to have MEDICARE FOR ALL in America ---

and that Obama has worked against this in back room deals with Big Pharma and with

health care industry to keep it a privatized system. See comments by Rahm below.

AGREE with you also re Social Security -- we need to get elderly OUT of the work place

and have earlier retirement! Social Security checks should also be twice what they are now

especially with government salaries as a guide -- they're all 40% higher than private incomes!

And they are 40% higher because they have automatic raises for inflation and COLA under a

somewhat different scheme.

Seniors need to get united -- this FREEZE on COLA's may be a test to see what the reactions

would be to cuts??? AARP is an insurance company -- not actually working for the benefit of seniors!

IMO, Clinton was a warning that indeed corporate-Democrats will do every bit as much harm to

the safety net as Republicans would do --

We have Obama pushing Charter schools right now --

Increasing taxpayer dollars for "faith-based" organizations --

and Sen. Anne Murray said Obama had planned to cut VETERANS' benefits -- and she protested!!

Every bit of all of this needs careful watching -- no matter which corporate politician is in

power!!



:)

[rucky]

24. You nailed it.

This is why we're losing to teabaggers.

[unkachuck]

27. K&R....n/t