Democrats know the rulebook. The tactics being used against them by Republican and conservative groups were perfected by the party when it set out to defeat President Bush's Social Security privatization proposals. They also know that it's easier to gin up noise against a major legislative initiative than it is to sell an initiative that isn't fully formed yet.
They know the rulebook. As a Democratic strategist said to me: "I think as Dems we learned a lot of lessons from beating Bush on privatization -- we know and perfected all the tricks and tactics so we know what to expect from the tea baggers, the insurance companies and other opponents."
Obama's side ostensibly has the best ground game in the history of progressive politics and advocacy. And opponents of the policy have a moving target because there are four or five possible bills. But there is reason to think that, when the BDAs from town hall meetings members hold with constituents are finished, and when all the calls to members' offices are tallied, Democrats will find that opposition to health care reform has not abated. Where Democrats have President Obama, principles, and a new argument about consumer protections, Republicans have an enthusiastic, self-contained base that is ready to work to defeat Obama's signature initiative. (On some level, this isn't _really_ about health care: it's about anxiety and anger at government, and at the Obama administration.) Democratic members are left to sell a series of principles that are popular, but which have been obscured by the focus on Washington sausage making. The press will be complicit in telling the story, as the louder voices at town hall meetings will ultimately get more coverage. As the Democratic National Committee has learned, it's not easy to engineer a massive national congressional switchboard campaign unless there is a defined target. That's one reason why the Democrats and the White House are trying to bait the insurance companies. The president, the vice president and the Cabinet will be out in force to make arguments, some of them good arguments, in favor of the need for health insurance reform. The goal of the opposition -- of Freedom Works and Americans for Prosperity -- isn't to change minds; their activists know what they believe already: it's to make noise. Making noise scares members of Congress. And Democrats are vulnerable to panics. That said, if the only people who show up at the constituent meetings are angry, talking-point-spewing ideological opponents of the president, then maybe the maybe the effect of the meetings will attenuate
The press will be complicit in telling the story
Yes, you will. And judging from the title and tone of this article, it looks like you've already got your mind made up.
Exactly. The press will tell themselves that because there are two parties, their ideas must be equally valid, and it will - at best - take no position on the issue, despite vast public popularity. At worst, the press will take the morally indefensible position to gin up controversy.
This is why we have to listen to crap about Obama's birth certificate and whether Obama hates white people instead of getting a real solution to health care.
The ultimate problem, Mark, is the American people elected Kumbaya instead of William Jennings Bryan on national healthcare.
http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/07/prez-kumbaya-instead-of-william.html
Oh, and I expect to vote Green again (or Socialist or something, if that's an option) again in 2012.
no one cares about you weak a$$ blog
And right on cue you are on the CBS News pretending this is somehow organic even though you know better. Creepy.
Yes, the press is complicit. So by all means keep calling the Tea Party tax protesters "tea baggers". Nothing says "principles" quite like throwing the occasional gratuitous homophobic insult at your opponents. Do you really think we want people who are that juvenile controlling our country's economy?
I'll second Darius's comment.
Darius and Kenneth Parker need to to read up; the tea baggers' "secret" plot to loudly, angrily, disrupt town hall meetings during the recess has been well publicized.
I'm aware of their strategy. It's worth pointing out that the strategy relies on gullible media figures to amplify the tea baggers' message.
Politico has a short and blurry memory of the actual events. Dem supporters were not an organized efforts driven by an organized sponsor (Freedom Works) and publicized by a news network. They did not have a three-pronged agenda (1) Artificially Inflate Your Numbers
2) Be Disruptive Early And Often and 1) Artificially Inflate Your Numbers
2) Be Disruptive Early And Often). Ambinder might want to balance his view a little further and maybe post a correction to his reciting of right-wing talking points.
Ambinder pushes yet another bogus equivalence between Republicans and Democrats. See Josh Marshall's post below, and to answer Josh's question, OF COURSE Ambinder remembers; he just chooses to pretend otherwise.
Marc Ambinder seems to think the tea-bagger effort to shut down Democratic town hall meetings is just working from the Dems 2005 anti-Social Security privatization playbook.
Really?
I watched those events unfold pretty closely. And what the Dems did in 2005 consisted almost entirely of protest outside town halls and anti-privatization activists trying to get into the meetings to ask questions to pin members of Congress down on their position. What made it so uncomfortable for Republican and some Democratic members of Congress is that they got questions they didn't want to answer.
Did some meetings get heated? Sure. But these weren't organized attempts to shut down the meetings themselves.
Does Marc remember what happened four years ago?
The Democratic tactics weren't to create chaos on shout down Congress-critters during the Social Security debate. Whoever your unaccountable
source/strategist for this story is, they simply don't know what they are talking about.
The anti-privatization strategy was to get them on record as either being for or against privatization, nothing more or less. You see, since Americans hated the idea of privatization, so the very act of making Republicans and Lieberdems answer this question without weasel words was damaging to their efforts. Sure, these things got contentious sometimes (not Bush's as he only talked to sympathetic crowds), but it was about getting answers, not making the anti-privatize forces look any larger or more inflamed than they really were.
The Republicans aren't interested in answers here, this is thuggery and brow-beating and intimidation, pure and simple. And it is all paid for by the GOP bag-men like Dick Armey and their corporate masters.
Ambinder reveals more than he realizes. The reason he and his colleagues will be complicit is because these theatrics plays right in the press’ business model. They can’t be bogged down by boring details and Qs and As. They need conflict and drama - even when it’s manufactured!
The American media has such contempt for the intelligence of its audience, so they reduce policy and serious policy discourse to tactics and talking points.
Why let pesky facts get in the way of a good STORY or NARRATIVE or MEME. Your choice Ambinder!
Boy. This sounds exciting. I've nothing to add to what other commenters have said other than to hope (and we can only hope!) that Obama runs around with empty file cabinets like GW's crew did to claim that health insurance (instead of the US Treasury) is broke.
Interesting that the peanut gallery seems to be taking Marc to task for a supposed "right-wing bias" in a pretty innocuous post about the politics and tactics around the health care fight. Clearly Marc's sympathies are actually with the healthcare initiative, and he is of the opinion (debatable, but let's go with it) that Americans would obviously support whatever healthcare bill comes out if the political operators weren't involved. There's nothing defamatory, inflammatory, whatever you want to call it, about stating the simple fact that all politicians of whatever creed engage in, well, politics, and trying to handicap how it will impact what does or doesn't get passed...
Actually, I neither know nor care about Marc's biases. However, the false equivalency accusation definitely that several have made has resonance with me. I don't remember the Dems getting dinged for astroturfing back in the day. And I certainly don't anticipate Obama pulling any of GW's ridiculous stunts.
I was commenting on the false equivalency nonsense. Why did the "democratic strategist" have to be granted anonymity to say that Healthcare = Social Security? I think this is because it is patent nonsense for the reasons I stated, and if they attached their name to such juvenile thinking, I would be stealing their job.
This actually goes back to 2000 and the GOP attempts to (literally) storm the offices recounting ballots in Florida. Shut things down, no matter what. Law, reason, intelligence be damned.
Actually, this goes back to 2000 when the GOP imported operatives (astroturf) to Florida to literally storm the offices recounting ballots. Shut things down, no matter what. As disgusting then as it is now.
I followed the social security debate closely and I think Obama is in a far stronger position for the following reasons:
The AARP lead the opposition to Bush's effort. The opposition now is lead by groups the average voter has never heard of.
Healthcare was a central part of Obama's campaign. Bush based his mainly on war and marriage.
SS never came to a vote in any congressional committee.
Cavuto Mark!
.........Perhaps the American public aren't quite as stupid as the GOP and their various camp followers in the media (and I include Ambinder in this) think they are:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/122003/Political-Party-Affiliation-States-Blue-Red-Far.aspx
Perhaps the American people aren't as stupid as the Republican party and the media think they are:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/122003/Political-Party-Affiliation-States-Blue-Red-Far.aspx
LOUD! NOISES!
Bush's push to privatize Social Security was deeply unpopular from the get-go and the Democrats' protests didn't amount to much. Health care reform is currently extremely popular in most polls. Marshall is right that the current tantrum theater by the Right more closely resembles Bush operatives sewing chaos in Florida in 2000.
I went to a townhall in Flemington, NJ with my local Republican congressman, Mike Ferguson (now retired). It was not an organized thing; I read about the townhall in the local paper. The hall was full and people were mostly opposed to Bush's effort and had very individualized, non-scripted comments for the Congressman. I remember one gentleman's point was that saying no one over 55 would be affected made him uneasy because he was 53; like, how much would he be affected? I asked Rep. Ferguson what would happen if people lost money in private accounts and his answer was that they weren't really going to let people invest the money as they wished, that it would have to be in an annuity. Thats rather confusing.
Rep. Ferguson was pretty testy. He didn't like the opposition but it sure wasn't organized to go there and challenge him to explain Bush's plan.
There goes Ambinder, the unwavering right wing enabler par excellence! Reading this kind of tripe convinces me that the death of corporate media couldn't happen soon enough. At least media whores like Marc Ambinder will be put out of their jobs.
Even while he admits that the lobbyists and astroturfers like Dick Armey's Freedom Watch are promoting fundamentally antidemocratic thuggery at Congressional town halls, Mr.Ambinder draws the false equivalency with W's Social Security train wreck.
The difference, Mr.Ambinder, is that Social Security privatisation was an ill-conceived plan dreamed up by Bush's financial industry backers and had NO grass roots support. Lack of access to health care , on the other hand, is a severe problem that afflicts 1 in 5 Americans, causes insecurity for millions of others, and makes our business uncompetitive around the world.
Maybe you should get out of your inside-Washington bubble, stop talking about who's winning and losing in politics, and address real issues facing real Americans. Go out and tell people the truth, and stop playing games with people's lives you twerp!
Big diff...
GWB was attempting to REMOVE government from our lives while Obama and the Dems are doing everything they can to ensure government control of our lives.
This sense of government intrusion is the underlying anger for any and all protests.
Really? That spying-on-us thing, that was to remove government from our lives? And attacking a country that never attacked us, and killing a million of its people, and displacing another 2 million, that was getting government out of our lives? I hope you'll pay my share of the deficit he made, too, bubba.
"This actually goes back to 2000 and the GOP attempts to (literally) storm the offices recounting ballots in Florida."
I lived in Palm Beach County in 2000. Those were *not* "astroturf" mobs. They were my friends and neighbors. Every time I see lies like this repeated, I know I am dealing with the deranged. As a grassroots Republican, I can only say that I have never seen my friends and acquaintances so angry. I have also never seen a political operative. It is not so much about health care as it is about spending trillions we don't have. Yeah Bush had deficits, and conservatives, myself included, didn't like them, but these deficits Obama is contemplating are an order of magnitude worse.
You guys would have a lot more cred on the issue of spending if you had spent more time bashing the deficits and less time accusing Bush of planning 9-11.
Here's a photo of the Brooks Brothers Rioters.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31074-2005Jan23.html
Check out all those GOP aides (each and every one is identified) at the front of the "riot". Your friends and neighbors, eh, moptop? Thanks for the laugh!
Whatever. I was there, you weren't. Call me a liar, I don't care. I told you I lived in Palm Beach County, not Dade. I guess you are defending Dade counting votes in private. I guess it never bothered you that Dade counted overvotes in heavily Democrat districts, and stopped counting them before getting to the Cuban heavily Republican districts, which is what led to the Supreme Court decision on equal protection going the way it did. Why shouldn't that kind of stuff be done out in the open? I never hear you guys talk about how Florida was called for Gore by the networks *before* the polls were closed in the heavily Republican panhandle, suppressing turnout, or that the state of Florida was under a federal consent decree that required them to count late military ballots.
No, you have a picture of a bunch of Republican operatives legitimately protesting for open government. Wow! Who they were invalidates what they had to say?
Course it doesn't invalidate what they have to say. But it does severely undercut the claim that the riots came about because of some spontaneous outpouring of passion from tons of ordinary people, without any word or organization from the paid campaigns. I mean, these guys have those riots on their RESUMES for goodness sakes.
The reality is that MOST political events are there because organizers on both sides called up angry activists and told them where to be and how to act. The activists themselves are real people, and always with real political passions. But they are also usually coordinated by someone with an overall idea as to how to employ them to create a narrative for media-consumption.
One more thing. I will give Obama and the Democratics every courtesy that you guys extended to Bush and the Republicans for the past eight years. Cross my heart. This is how winners play politics, you taught us that.
We didn't say that he hated all black people, now did we? We taught you to steal elections? Really? Because, you see, the Republicans have such a history of suppressing the vote, that there's an injunction against them dating to the 1980's that they not do it again. Missed that, did you?
The toughest question is -- how do you provide health care to 47 million more people without more doctors?
Possible answers:
Allow non-doctors (nurse practicioners) to play a bigger role in health care
Allow doctors from other countries to practce here without as much red tape
reduce the use of resources for terminal cases
limit specialization so that more doctors focus of general practice
other ideas?
Limit specialization, etc.: Primary care docs make in the $150-250K range. Specialist make $350K and up, some quite up. Are you going to stand there at med-school graduation and say who stays in primary care and who gets to go on to the big bucks?
Other ideas? The only workable idea is to get govt out of medical care and health insurance and let free enterprise work.
The beginning to this reply did not post as a reply and can be found a couple of posts down.
"reduce the use of resources for terminal cases"
Cash for Clunkers health care. Beautiful. How, exactly do you know a case is "terminal"? Oh, I know, once you withdraw care, you are automatically right. How much cash do you plan to save by scrapping those "clunker" people anyway?
I love how people go from claiming that healthcare isn't a right and you shouldn't expect other people to pay for it to then demanding that taxpayers must pay for every possible treatment in terminal cases or else they're trying to kill you.
People, all the time under the current system, have to pay out of pocket for experimental or questionable-efficacy treatments insurance companies won't cover (in fact, insurance companies currently try all sorts of means to get out of paying for anything, even directly lifesaving care). There's no difference here.
But somehow it's being portrayed as some sort of plot to kill old people.
" then demanding that taxpayers must pay for every possible treatment in terminal cases"
Actually, I would prefer if taxpayers stayed out of it, for the most part, allowing private citizens to make such choices.
"But somehow it's being portrayed as some sort of plot to kill old people."
You guys are the ones who keep bringing up killing old people. That quote of mine came from your side of the debate, not mine. Justwondering said it.
If these end of life counseling sessions are not intended to get people to die quicker, convince people to "go gently into that dark night" to stand Blake on his head, where will the savings come from? I didn't put it in the bill.
Having others pay for your health care costs (or anything else--your old car, for example) is not a right but an entitlement. Funny thing is, thanks to the SCOTUS decision in Roe v. Wade, freedom from government interference into the doctor-patient relationship IS a right.
Funny that the party that believes Roe v. Wade sacrosanct when it comes to abortions has no problem at all when it comes to devising massive-scale plans to insert government into the doctor-patient relationship for everything else. And it will be funny to see the look on all the progressives' faces when the SC strikes down Obamacare citing Roe v. Wade as precedent.
And, just to be clear, in my example it would've been the insurer, not taxpayers, who paid.
First, get your numbers right. Your 47 million is a completely bogus combination of 1) illegal aliens 2) people eligible for Medicare that have simply failed to sign up 3) people between 18-35 who have opted not to cover themselves because they are healthy and immortal 4) people making up to $65K per year who have chosen not to buy insurance because they'd rather spend money on something else and 5) people between jobs.
The 9-10 million actually uncovered folks (pre-existing issues, between jobs, etc.) could be managed quite nicely without having to completely uproot the current system and turn over 18% of GDP to numbskull government bureaucrats. To borrow a phrase, "Keep your hands off my body!"
Now, you want some cost saving ideas? 1) Limit "pain and suffering" settlements to $1 million 2) allow sale of health care policies across state lines 3) eliminate employer tax deductibility of health care costs and 4) eliminate minimum coverage mandates. Let a REAL free market operate and get government the heck out of the way. But that would be too much like liberty and self-reliance. Can't have that.
We would be far better off just giving money directly to those 47 million uninsured (which is an inflated number, but we'll go with that for the sake of argument) so that they can buy their own insurance. Hand everything over to the government and there WILL be rationing, there WILL be political favoritism, there WILL be rising costs with no end in sight. That's how government works. Are we to believe it would be any different with health care? Why would it?
Possible answers:
Allow non-doctors, etc.: Medical practice is ripe for disintermediation; however, since the progressive of the Carnegie Commission and the Flexner hearings (pre-WWI) helped establish the gatekeeper model in medical practice, an enormous bulwark has grown up to protect against such change.
Allow doctors from other countries, etc.: We do, and because of the quality variability abroad, the red tape serves as a chance to observe. Still, I feel hesitant to denude other countries of their badly needed and expensively trained providers.
Reduce the use of resources, etc.: Who gets to play God? Every physician tells stories of beyond-belief recoveries. Two weeks ago, a surgeon told me about almost coming to blows with an anaesthesiologist in the operating room. The gas guy was claiming the woman's vitals indicated she could not survive and accused the surgeon of just wanting the money. He operated and she lived 16 more years without complication.
Nothing like balanced reporting, Mr. Ambinder. The Democratic playbook is "Let's demonize the insurance companies." What's so high-minded about that strategy?
In case you've forgotten, there's still a 1st Amendment. I will continue writing my congressman and tell him what I think of this top-down, command-and-control monstrosity you call "reform." I will also attend his townhall meeting and say so publicly.
If the Democrats lose their battle to bring Americans government health care, it will primarily be their own fault for poorly selling their plan and failing to convince the great majority of Americans who currently are pleased with their health insurance. Additionally, they were short sighted and greedy when it came to the stimulus, which, surprise, isn't stimulating. People aren't willing to gamble trillions on another half-cocked Democrat scheme.
Those of you who continue to insist that there is some popular groundswell demanding health care reform either need to get out of your bubble and start reading the polls or rethink your brilliant strategy of "say it enough and it will magically become true!"
You nailed it. If you go read at Daily Kos, you will see that something has gone bad awry in the ascent of Obama. One young Kossack was even wailing, "Where are 'our' mobs?"
"That said, if the only people who show up at the constituent meetings are angry, talking-point-spewing ideological opponents of the president, then maybe the maybe the effect of the meetings will attenuate"
In your dreams, buddy. :-/
Some things are worth getting mad about.
I seeing Obama and congress trying to rush through a half-assed bill, that very few have even read that will affect me and my family profoundly. It has not been adequately explained to me. This gets me mad too.
I have health insurance and I am basically satisfied with it - although it is by no means perfect, it is 'the devil I know'. The health care situation in this country has been brewing for years and it won't change drastically any time soon. There is no 'emergency' that requires a total overhaul by the end of August, within six months, or even by the end of the year.
I don't care about anyones good intentions, nor do I care which side gets their legislative victory - only the practical results to me and my family. It is far better to take the time to get this right than to pass something quickly.
Trouble is, the govt already heavily regulates health insurance. I'll give you an example. One by one, our three sons, in their 20s, are coming off our policy. They want to buy a policy, but they are looking at paying not a whole lot less than we, their parents do. This is despite the fact that men in their 20s have one-fifth the medical expense on average as those of us at retirement age. Not only are health insurers prevented by the government from such targeted pricing, they are required to cover a host of services (psychiatry, e.g.) many young people aren't concerned about.
If the govt weren't butting in, insurers could easily tailor make policies for young people in the $150/mo range. They'd be making money and our sons and other young people could be breathing easier.
I disagree. I think there definitely IS an emergency. The problem is the nitwits inside the DC beltway think that the problem is simply one of stealing enough money from their political opponents' supporters to pay the doctors and hospitals.
Anyone with a lukewarm IQ knows that the cost of medical services has been increasing in real terms from between 8-15% annually AFTER INFLATION for the last generation. That means that medical costs have been more than doubling every ten years. That situation is clearly unsustainable and the point of unsustainability for even comfortable people isn't that far off.
Obama's big idea for controlling costs is putting the elderly in hospitals to die instead of trying to keep them alive. Mind, that's not surprising coming from the party that considers it an article of faith that mothers can commit infanticide on any whim whatsoever at just about any time they please. Their ethics guru Princeton Professor Peter Singer has already said that it is okay to murder the handicapped.
The hassle with medical costs is the same that we had for housing. We have an artificially restricted supply of medical practictioners. We also have a massively overregulated situation with the medicines and equipment that practictioners are allowed to use. Finally, we allow practictioners to act as gatekeepers to medicines and medical tests.
Fix those things and you get medical costs under control. Anything else and you're simply rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
The organized teabagger disruption of town hall meetings has nothing to do with the Democrats efforts on Social Security.
Disruption is the key word. Let me spell it to you D I S R U P T I O N. Please be more honest in the future.
Don't worry, WP. Obama is getting it under control. This is on the Whitehouse web site right now:
There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
Borrowed straight out of the Castro playbook.
"The organized teabagger disruption of town hall meetings has nothing to do with the Democrats efforts on Social Security."
I totally agree. The Democrats "efforts" on Social Security were basically a dog in the manger number, viz, you weren't going to get anything resembling "reform" till you gave Democrats the government. I watched the Social Democrats pull this sort of stunt back in the late 1970's when they called a national strike, basically telling Swedes that NOTHING was going to happen till the naughty Swedish voters put them back in power.
What the teabaggers want is their country back. What the Democrats want is raw power to tell people they don't like how to live their lives and on what basis.
Erratum:
Obama's big idea for controlling costs is putting the elderly in hospitals to die instead of trying to keep them alive.
Should read...
Obama's big idea for controlling costs is putting the elderly in hospices to die instead of trying to keep them alive.
The slaughter has begun. Astroturf indeed. Heh.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/08/gop_upset_victory_in_delaware.html