I'm particularly interested in those who are using this Democratic debacle to attack progressives.
Right wingers, like Mitt Romney, spin it as attributable to Obama's extreme left-wing, progressive agenda.
Some
Democrats are going to do something similar-- blame the loss on
progressives efforts to affect the health care legislation. They'll say
that progressives did not compromise enough, did not buy Obama's
message to not allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Those
Democrats are looking a lot like members of the Republican party.
They're looking a lot like tea partyers.
Coakley faced her difficult situation because the leadership of the
Demcratic party decided to forget who elected them. They decided to
treat corporations better than constituents. They decided to become
more corporatist than populist. Chris Dodd got the message. Byron
Dorgan got a message from the White House. His noble bill, which would
have given overburdened Americans the right to buy medications from
Canada and other countries at more competitive prices was sabotaged by
the White House. The Democrats will probably lose Dorgan's seat. I
don't think Dorgan would have left if his bill had been passed-- a
populist bill that any self-respecting Democrat should have passed.
North Dakota was really the first senate race lost because of gutless
cowards and misguided DINOs like Rahm Emanuel and the rest of the DLC
Democrats in the Democratic party, particularly the ones from the
Clinton Cabinet who Obama appointed.
I've written before about
how the Democratic leadership has betrayed its constituents. This has
happened at many levels. Senate leaders and Rahm Emanuel have
hand-picked blue-dog, conservative Democratic candidates to run against
solid progressives. The DSCC and DCCC have funded conservative
Democrats IN PRIMARIES, helping them to oppose progressives.
Coakley
was one of those top-down picks, blessed by the Democratic leaders. Her
campaign was overseen by national Democratic leaders. Politico reports
that now, Rahm Emanuel is blaming Dem Pollster Celinda Lake and the
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC,) Headed by NJ senator
Bob Menendez for not seeing the trending lead Scott Brown was
developing sooner. Bull!! If there is one person to place the blame
on, the Coakley loss, it is Rahm Emanuel and, since Obama has kept him
on, Barack Obama-- an Obama who has failed to keep his promises-- not
just the specific promises he campaigned on, but, more important, the
vision, the hope he instilled in his supporters, that he would make
real change happen. He failed in that promise miserably, directly or
through appointees.
If Nancy Pelosi decides to pass the senate's health bill, as-is, the
Democratic party will be deader than the Republicans were after the
2008 elections.
There is still hope for decent health care refortm. They'll have to use
reconciliation to pass a medicare for all bill. Then they'll have to
pass a simple bill that fixes the most egregious health insurance
problems that even the Republicans from Maine can support, like
pre-existing conditions, recision (cancelling policies when people get
sick for excuses the insurers knew of for years) and unequal rates for
men and women.
Will Obama see the problem? Will the congressional democrats face
reality and dump Reid and Pelosi? Not likely. That means we will see a
massive rejection of the Democrats in November.
Oh, and to get back to my thought at the beginning of this article. Expect those Democrats whose policies literally engineered Coakley's defeat to viciously attack progressives and blame them for the loss.
Thinking about which countries will be affordable once the US dollar collapses, anyone?
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