Whip Hand.
"...I think it's realistic because the American people are desperate..." HHS Sec Kathleen Sebelius was the early warning system on healthcare last year, when she commented on Sunday talk that the "public option" would not survive the process. Sebelius is honest and trustworthy, and she knows much more than she speaks. This presentation does not sound confident. No one has the whip count by Hoyer and Pelosi, and as of Friday 5 they were not sharing. Sebelius aims to make the process seem critical, timely, urgent, passionate; yet that facts are that there is no good whip count, or even bad whip count, right now. The Obama administration bases its remarks on the healthcare bill on the aspiration for success with the House vote, not on the confirmation of the House vote. The whip count is not going to become easier. Bart Stupak of Michigan has already been targeted by the progressive partisans. The Blue Dogs are preparing their retirements after November.
No Good Choices.
The best explanation I can find as to why POTUS persists against the large odds against the final bill is that there is no alternative, no other choice, no way out. POTUS goes for the win in the House, at 216 votes, and if he wins, miracle. And if he loses, hope. The calculation is that neither a win nor a loss will materially change the wave building to sweep over the Democrats in the House and Senate in November. Used to be called a tidal wave.
People are desperate for jobs. This administration remind me of the court of Louis 16, clueless to the needs and wants of the people.
Let them eat Healthcare!
The American people are desperate alright - desperate for November to get here. It occurs to me that my comments can be misconstrued to mean that I hate Obama. Personally, I don't hate anybody. I simply react to the now obvious hostility that this administration is showing towards what I believe to be is a majority of Americans. It is the Left that hates. Obama ran his campaign as a slightly left-of-center candidate. He ran on 'change'. Every American could interpret this in anyway he or she wanted to. No one can deny that change was in order. It never occurred to most of us that it would be a change to much worse.
This week, Joe Biden is being sent to Israel to do some arm twisting. Obama seems curiously detached from the ME peace process. Sending Biden is Obama’s way of placating the Jewish vote. Should things go wrong over there, Biden and others will be thrown under the bus. No one in Israel is fooled. American Jews, though, can be expected to grasp at any straw to keep their liberal credentials in tact. They will continue to cast their votes for Democrats. It is their version of going to holycommunion.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Can't describe how incredibly gratifying it is to dwell on the thought that Obama owes everything to Rahmbo. As he made Obama, he sowed the seeds of Obama's destruction.
Intrade still has Obamacare running at right around 50, sometimes a bit higher, sometimes a bit lower. I take this as meaning not so much that there are 50 good reasons to expect it to pass and 50 to fail, but more like JB says: there's no reliable whip count at the moment so it's basically still a coin flip: 50%. I've listened to all the pundits and read a lot of the whip count blogs and there's only one thing I've heard said that is absolutely irrefutable: if they had the votes, they would vote right away. No news is good news. And this, to me, means Intrade is overpricing it at the moment. If that stupid website weren't of questionable legality I would short Obamacare with the retirement money. Then leave town on the next freight train with my belongings in a bindle on the end of a long stick if I lose and my wife finds out.
Agree 100% with Sapienta. This obsessing with healthcare is either a completely tone-deaf, political-tin-ear stance by the White House, or it is a final push on a once in a lifetime chance to put the US onto the tracks in front of the entitlement train from hell that the British most famously ride. It's apparently a one way trip, as the British press reported last week a young man calling the police for help before he expired of dehydration, yet somehow nobody still will stand up and say "enough! Take us back to private health care." Oh yes, and the Canadian politician who flew to Florida for heart surgery. Is any more evidence needed that state run care is a failure?
Gotta find the dental floss, have some health-care cake stuck between my teeth...
pk writes above
"He ran on 'change'. Every American could interpret this in anyway he or she wanted to."
change from someone who garbled polysyllabic words on occasion to someone who garbles policy.
is the current administration successful anywhere except where it reluctantly, kicking and screaming, follows the GWB path? anywhere?
The knives come out for Rahm tonight. Rep Massa reveals details unbecoming a WHCOS or a member of Congress. Dems are eating their own.
Unions, especially Helathcare, financially support the Dems. Obama and 1600 cannot abandon them now. SEIU runs the phone banks and gets the vote out.
"got some health care stuck between my teeth" ... wouldn't publicly admit to coprophagia if I were you ...
Peter Koelliker wrote: It occurs to me that my comments can be misconstrued to mean that I hate Obama.
Just to be sure, Pete, I'm not an Obama-hater, either. In fact, I rank him as among our country's Top 100 Best Presidents of all-time. Of course, Jimmy Carter is among that group, as well...for the time being.
Hate is too strong a word for my position on Obama. I think a good analogy is that he's like a hemorrhoid - you try to only think about him a couple of times a day.