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A lot of people thought it was pretty stupid of the GOP to stand in way of a very popular bill. And it would have been.
If we would have passed even the Medicare buy-in at age 55, with that option opening during 2010, this would be overwhelmingly popular and the GOP would pay a big price.
It really is staggering just how politically tone-deaf Emmanuel and the other DLCers are on this. They have allowed the GOP and a handful of DINOs to manipulate them into a losing position, and it happened virtually overnight. The GOP pushed them to:
1) pass a mandate without any public option, meaning that we are all forced to buy a product that we hate from corporations we strongly distrust and any price they name. How can that possibly end well? And even if the government subsidizes it at some level, that just means that we taxpayers are sinking another trillion dollars into that cesspool.
2) do all of this with minimal benefits coming in 2010. By delaying the better parts of the bill until 2014, we are playing right into the hands of the teabaggers. You think last August was bad, just wait.
The stupidity of this from a political perspective is really staggering. It really makes one wonder how Obama got from the point of running a brilliant strategic campaign to now committing political (and policy) suicide. It is such a shame because it was so unnecessary. All of us here knew that there would be no Republican support. But Obama honestly believed he could win over some Republicans and he committed to a path that didn't include reconciliation. More importantly, he allowed Baucus and company to structure the bill in such a way that he didn't even have a THREAT of reconciliation.
The big, difficult pieces of this legislation could have passed under reconciliation. Just imagine how differently things would have gone in the last week is Obama had at least reserved the threat of reconciliation. Basically he could have told Lieberman and his pals to back off or else we'd shove something much bigger up their arses.
This is really a train wreck.
Never, ever let a DLCer be in charge of anything. They specialize in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
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