"Repubs..made this a must-win to take back the House.But even at this late date,the deal’s not done"

[Pirate Smile]

'You're mad at me?'


Boccieri isn't backing down in Ohio, even if the polls suggest he could be a goner. | AP Photo

MASSILLON, Ohio— To watch TV or read the polls, Rep. John Boccieri might seem a goner. But put him on the stump, face-to-face with voters, the Ohio Democrat comes alive — a political natural, almost Frank Capra character from another time in American campaigns.
“You’re mad at me? My wife’s mad at me too this morning. We’ve been married 13 years,” Boccieri will say, softening the blow of the day’s first encounter on his voting for health care reform. And like the C-130 pilot he once was, the 41-year-old freshman congressman begins to break down the massive bill as if going through one of his old Air Force checklists when flying troops and wounded in and out of Baghdad.
“You OK with the fact that we’re allowing kids to stay on until they’re 26? We’re also saying you can’t deny children because of pre-existing conditions. You like that?” he asks. “We aren’t finished with this. It’s the first step, but we have to start somewhere” and then out might come his pocket copy of the Constitution. “It’s we the people, not we the corporations,” Boccieri closes.

-snip-
From Sarah Palin to Karl Rove and the billionaire brothers controlling Koch Industries, national Republicans have made this a must-win to take back the House. But even at this late date, the deal’s not done, and Boccieri’s ability to hang on illustrates why Democrats sent their members home early — a full 30 days more since August compared to 1994 — to get out their vote against the Republican tide.

-snip-
The congressman is left paying a huge price for having been thrown into the national spotlight last spring when he went from a “no” to a “yes” vote. In fact, he changed less than the health bill itself, which came back from the Senate in a very different form from what had left the House in 2009. And much as Republicans want to draw a line back to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the whole Canfield letter episode, trumpeted so loudly by Obama, reverberates more because of Boccieri’s childhood memories of his mother’s battle with breast cancer.
“That story brought me back to a place where I hadn’t been in a long, long time: standing at the foot of my mom’s bed when she told her three boys that she had breast cancer,” Boccieri recalled. “It brought me back to a place where I had to think what my life could have been if my mom didn’t have access to health care.”

-snip-
Yet until Boccieri finds a way, his campaign cedes the field to Republican fronts which are pounding him with well-coordinated, sequential attacks most often financed by anonymous donors

-snip-
The 60 Plus Association, a Virginia-based conservative advocacy group, has spent close to $600,000 on such television spots, accusing Boccieri of flip-flopping and choosing Pelosi over the district’s seniors. The ads are part of greatly expanded national role for the group this election cycle after benefiting from what Republican sources describe as an influx of funds from the billionaire brothers, David and Charles Koch, strong opponents of Obama’s policies.
As the 60 Plus barrage runs down, a new tag team moved in this past week to fill the breach. The Republican-leaning National Federation of Independent Business was first in with about $500,000 for anti-Boccieri spots aimed more directly at federal spending than health care per se. who starred here in a Sept. 28 Renacci fundraiser.

-snip-
Miles away at the Honey Haven Farm festival in Ashland the next day, Boccieri would come face-to-face with the same division over government’s role.
“I am not a government-control person. People can do it much better themselves,” said David Cooksey, after loudly rebuking the congressman for his support of health reform. “I’m with the church, and I want to help people … I just think the government’s involvement in it is not the way to go.”
But Cooksey’s own in-laws, the farm hosts Deborah and John Boyer, had a wholly different take.
“My health insurance company is punishing me for living,” said Deborah, 58 and a breast cancer survivor. “I’m baffled by Ashland County. I’m baffled by my neighbors. ... I don’t care what news you watch. Turn it off sometimes and look for something else.”
“We really need you in there,” she bursts out as a weary Boccieri prepares to leave. “Keep fighting,” said her husband John, and the congressman stops, putting his arms around their shoulders.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43666_Page4.html#ixzz12UnfN2f7

[Pirate Smile]

1. kick

[Cognitive_Resonance]

2. K&R nt

[Arkana]

3. I like this guy already.

[Parker CA]

4. Kick and Rec!