Thursday, December 24, 2009

Liberals who are ideological are scaring "liberals" who are interested in power.

http://tinyurl.com/ybq4fyg
Keep the Big Tent big By William M. Daley
****This scion of the Daley machine in Chicago is a bit chagrined that a protege of that machine, having actually been elected President, doesn't understand that by governing only from the Far Left he is likely to lose power. Admittedly, Obama has the Far Left and only had to fool the moderates and independents to get elected. Now, however, he is pulling aside the curtain in Oz and Daley thinks it should be put back in place.One might suppose that there are things that Obama cares about, such as domestic policy and turning the U.S. into socialist France ( or worse 0 and things he cares less about, like wars and foreign affairs. The only plausible reason he took so long to make a decision about sending troops to Afghanistan, and then wound up with a compromise, is that he needed all the months to do focus groups and find which set of stated policies would do him the least amount of harm. Note that what is good for the country, and the fact that delay emboldens our enemies, were/are matters of no concern to this President.****
http://tinyurl.com/yg7zyuy
The Democrats have been down this road before.
When Legerdemain Is Used to Pass an Unpopular Bill Michael Barone
... Obama has been saying that passage of the bill will mean that the health care issue will be settled once and for all... wrong. ...That legislation was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. Its lead sponsor was Stephen A. Douglas, at 41 in his eighth year as senator from Illinois,...Douglas' legislative prowess far exceeded that of current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. To hold together his 60 Senate Democrats, Reid simply dispensed favors -- eternal Medicaid financing for Ben Nelson's Nebraska, a hospital grant for Chris Dodd's Connecticut, more rural health money for Byron Dorgan's North Dakota and Montana's Max Baucus.****Don't forget Medicaid financing for Reid's own Nevada and Mary Landrieu's $300M for Louisiana.****...The issue that Douglas said the Kansas-Nebraska Act would settle forever was slavery in the territories....the results of the next election were pretty convincing. The Republican Party was suddenly created to oppose the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the 1854-55 elections transformed the Democrats' 159-71 majority to a 108-83 Republican margin. ...On the health care bill, there can be little doubt about public opinion. Quinnipiac, polling just after the Senate voted cloture, found Americans opposed by a 53 percent to 36 percent margin. Polls suggest that Democrats may suffer as much carnage in the 2010 elections as they did in 1854. Nor did the Kansas-Nebraska Act settle the issue it addressed. ...A health care bill like the Senate's is unlikely to settle all health care issues, either,..."We aren't done talking about health care," writes Atlantic blogger (and Obama voter) Megan McArdle. "We haven't even really started. Our budget problems are as big as ever, and we just used up both political capital, and some of our stock of tax increases and spending cuts, to pay for something else." The Senate bill contains provisions that are likely to be revisited. Its language channeling federal and consumer dollars to abortion coverage is opposed, according to Quinnipiac, by a 72 percent to 23 percent margin. Its provision establishing an Independent Medicare Advisory Board and stating that it cannot be abolished except by a two-thirds vote of the Senate is of dubious constitutionality, and even if upheld in a court of law may not pass muster in the court of public opinion. Since when has Congress passed laws that cannot be repealed? Kansas-Nebraska was an attempt to settle a fundamental issue by legislative legerdemain and political trickery. The Democrats' health care bills are an attempt to settle a fundamental issue by partisan maneuver and cash-for-cloture....such tactics can work for a while, but the country -- and the Democratic Party -- can end up paying a heavy price.

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