How were we *ever* going to get a public option with Lieberman as the 60th vote?

[zaj]

Obama knew from day one what the general public and apparently 100% of progressives didn't. That the Dems never had the votes for anything remotely like a public option thanks to the 60th vote being Lieberman.

I didn't realize this when early on in the spring, I felt certain that the least we'd get was a triggered option. Had I realized that Lieberman circa 2009 was going to be a nearly perfect replay of Lieberman circa 1994, I would never have held out hope.

Lieberman did not support President Clinton's sweeping 1993-94 reform plan, saying it was "too big, too bureaucratic, too governmental."...

The next year, he worked with a bipartisan coalition of senators, led by Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, who made a last-minute push to pass a health care plan. It would have required all insurers to accept anyone and offer them a standard-benefits plan. Lieberman ultimately opposed the measure because of its employer mandate.

And from everything I've read, the Dems *never* had a viable option through reconciliation.

So it seems to me that progressives (and I consider myself one) were ignorant of the real facts of the moment and ultimately were kidding ourselves. The way Obama played this was exactly the right way. Never engaging too deep into a process that was *never* going to happen.

Lieberman was never a gettable vote on the public option. Neither was reconciliation. That's why Obama was going so hard for an early bi-partisan vote and refuse to go hard for the public option.

Since the 2006 primary, Lieberman's fortunes haven't been tied to the base of the Democratic Party. So we held no real influence over his vote. And in the end, holding him relatively close in order to get any number of future votes is better than having him pull a reverse Arlen Specter and have him cacus with the Reps and turn hard conservative on his votes.

It's unfortunate, but looking back I see exactly what the Obama Administration was *trying* to do over the last 6 months. And it all makes a lot more sense when you realize that they didn't have the votes we all assumed the number 60 must mean.

[timeforpeace]

1. More to the point, with Barack Obama as president?

[uppityperson]

2. damn straight! It would have CERTAINLY passed if only we'd elected mcCain!!111111

[zaj]

4. Name one President who can get Lieberman to support any bill that takes on the insurance industry?

51 votes wouldn't do it. 60 votes were impossible to get. We just didn't have a shot.

[moondust]

3. Then why until very recently

did nobody (that I know of) ever so much as mention changing the cloture rules to prevent a filibuster? Not to say it isn't so but your thesis makes the past several months of health care debate an exercise in futility, a waste of time.

[zaj]

7. I think it was the politics of placating the progressive base.

The politics of House Progresives and Harry Reid's reelection.

The WH reportedly tried to keep Harry Reid from introducing a public option at the start of the Senate process and post Finance Committee. He prolonged the process it against their will. At the time, everyone was calling it a political move to secure the support of his NV base during a tough election fight.

And holding the votes of the House progressives is a real issue. But looking back, it's getting what the House progressives want is and was *never* going to happen.

[dkf]

5. You can get a Medicare buy in with 51 votes.

Through reconciliation. You don't need that fool to vote for it

[zaj]

11. If true, no one could know that's the plan at this point.

They would have to pass the current bill with Lieberman's support and get that done before raising the prospect of doing anything he objects to like that. Otherwise he'd hold the existing bill hostage to get that plan killed.

No question in him mind.

His personal future has nothing to do with satisfying the Dem party base. None.

And the "if true" comment is a really big "if". Clearly they couldn't run the whole thing through reconciliation and it's very complicated so I'm no expert on the details. But I think there is a real question as to what the Byrd Rule would allow through. I'd like to hear what experts say about that as a possbile strategy 6 months or a year from now.

[tnlefty]

6. Play hardball and strip him of his prized chair positiion?

No, that is verbotten 'cause Traitor Joe must be appeased instead of smacked around. Perhaps there is a reason that he lost a democratic primary, but so many establishment dems went to his defense. Obama and others included.

I despise Joe LIEber*&#$ with the heat of a thousand white hot suns. I've worked for candidates that I really didn't like, but as a team player, I worked to get the winner of a primary elected. Traitor Joe didn't even have the decency to bow out when he lost.

Perhaps no one expected that the Pres. and others (even though they campaigned for Traitor Joe, or lent their support) expected him to behave in the turn coat manner that he is, but I did, and they're to blame. Next?

It's not unfortunate, it was forseeable ....

[zaj]

8. He has more leverage than the Dems.

He would become as reliable a GOP vote as Specter has been a reliable Dem vote. Placating Lieberman gets us *some* votes that we'd otherwise lose if we battled him. The ugly reality to where things stand in the Senate.

[LSK]

9. Obama played this wrong, he should have advocated for true single payer at 1st

Then settle for public option.

[zaj]

12. I thought that too, but it wouldn't have mattered.

It's about what the 60th vote is willing to do. And watching Lieberman in action, it doesn't matter where you start, he was shameless. He would negotiate a perfectly fair agreement 1/2 way between the two partys and then at the last minute say, well I changed my mind for no reason what so ever. Now I want something 1/2 again further. And then repeat that until he'd completely eliminated anything close to a "win-win" outcome.

He didn't need to give anything. His vote was that valuable.

The only option is to vote in more progressives. Not abandon those currently operating within the existing institutions.

[stillwaiting]

10. It should have been fucking easy.

If Obama, and the Dem leaders REALLY wanted a strong health care bill passed you threaten Leiberman. You take away his chairmanship. Make sure he KNOWS that he will not have that chairmanship at the very earliest possible moment. You also make it crystalline that the entire Democratic Party will mount a FIERCE campaign against him in CT. Including Obama.

Wanna bet what would happen?

Instead, ALL of the strong arming from Obama was against the liberal and progressive voices. ALL of it. The conservative detractors that demolished health care reform have been catered to like royalty. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened here. The REAL Obama has been exposed. The behind the curtain PhRMA deal and the beat down against liberals concerning drug re-importation from Obama kind of spells it out even more. Then there was his involvement and threats to get support for the Afghan War.

Come on now. He worked for almost NOTHING that he campaigned on, and in fact worked to ensure passage of items that he specifically campaigned against.

[zaj]

13. It wouldn't matter to Lieberman. He could become a Republcian overnight.

He won election based on the support of the GOP. He doesn't care much about the Dems. His future just isn't tied to the interests of the Dems. We want him more than he wants us. Sucks, but pretty obviously true.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. Let Lieberman filibuster till he keels over

Then pass the bill after he collapses from exhaustion. :shrug:

If he has more endurance than expected, all the Dems can go on vacation and see if he's still at it in January.

[zaj]

15. I'm sure it's always tempting for the party in power to change the rules to favor the party in power

But it's dangerous. We won't always be in power. How many times have we benefited from the cloture rule and how much more work gets done by feigning the filibuster?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. What I meant was, "Don't be intimidated by the threat of a filibuster"

It's the equivalent of holding their breath till they turn blue.

[laughingliberal]

17. I understand your point but I disagree

As I look back with the clarity of hindsight so many things which just seemed counterintuitive at the time that only make sense when I consider what Russ Feingold said to us-this was the bill Obama always wanted. The embrace of a despicable little man who campaigned against him and stood by, smiling when Sarah Palin accused him of 'pal'in around with terrorists' was either incredibly stupid, blindingly weak, or part of an agenda unknown to the witnesses at the time. I mean, come on, there's nice guys, I know but that was beyond the pale. It was also whacky that I saw no real signs the administration was pleased when Al Franken's race was, finally, settled. Sakes alive, they had 60 votes in the Senate. Would some small sign of being pleased about that have been in order? Instead they seemed to be trying to ignore it as if they were irritated.

Next, we saw and heard no support from the President for the public option which he campaigned on and which set his plan apart from his opponents in the primary. I mean, come on, how much political capital would it have taken to mention it once in terms that sounded believable.

Why would the President wait til all hope of any public option have been killed deader than hell before he told the Senate leader to cut a deal. Were there no deals which could have been cut while there was still even a weak option? The polls showed clear support for it even in the Blue Dog states. A threat to end chairmanships, to campaign against them in primaries with an electorate that wanted a public option, an offer to sweeten the pot such as were made to get the beast we have now passed. I don't buy it. This is the signature legislation of this man's presidency. If he had wanted it, he would have tried for it. If he had wanted it, his pit bull would have been knocking the Blue Dogs' heads. They owe Rahm far more than any progressives owe him. President Obama sat silent when his CofS called the ads we were running in support of his health care reform plan "fucking stupid."

A closed door deal with Pharma, endless reports of Karen Ignagni gloating early on and asserting always that she had a deal with the White House and knew it would be honored. How did she know? We thought we had a deal with a man we elected. We were never assured he was protecting the deal we thought we had. No, there was no way of knowing 100% that he would get that 60th vote with the public option but there was not 100% guarantee of that without it, either. The decision for me rests on watching when he showed up to work for the bill. When it coudn't be made any more industry friendly and any less helpful to the American people, then he comes to work and fights for it. It is the bill he wanted and he strung us along with a weak mention of the PO once in a damned blue moon to keep us on board til the last minute. I don' t like being used and it will not happen again.

As for reconciliation, it could have been done and a lot more of it could have been done than people think. The priorities most of us have could have gotten in there and then built on. The parts that would have been very popular with most of the public would have been done and made it easier to add to later. Now it's a horrible mess and no one is going to want to let them tinker with it, again. For God's sake, this bunch could wind up making it worse.

[zaj]

18. If we kick Lieberman out in January 2009, we get nothing.

This is the bill (approx) that Obama could predict we'd get, and there fore wanted. Which isn't the same as an ideal bill given full control... or even 60+ progressive votes.