Day: December 17, 2009

Warning Sign For Charlie Crist In Florida And John McCain In Arizona

Who would have thought that the governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, who was very popular during the first two years of his term, and who then decided to go for the Senate seat rather than a campaign for reelection as Governor, would now be faced with a “dead heat” race with a young conservative, Marco Rubio, a Cuban American who was State House Speaker from 2006-2008?

This unlikely scenario has seen what was once a 35 point lead, and a sense that Rubio was wasting his time, to a situation where Crist is in deep trouble. Considered a moderate Republican, this seems like a warning sign to Republicans that if they dare, as Crist did, to cooperate with President Obama on anything, then they will pay the price with funding support for a more conservative opponent in the primary.

I have a feeling that Crist wishes he could change his mind and instead run for reelection as Governor, as a preferable choice to the likely nominee, Attorney General Bill McCollum, who has a tendency to lose statewide primaries for vaious offices but now has a “free ride!”

Interestingly, the same fate could come to Senator John McCain in Arizona, where a former conservative Republican Congressman J. D. Hayworth is contesting him in the upcoming 2010 Senate primary.

As stated many times before, this move to the far right seems insane if the GOP hopes to regain power, and in so doing, sacrifices moderates such as Charlie Crist and John McCain.

The Democratic Party Deterioration: The Obama Crisis of 2010 And Beyond

Now it is not only Independent Joe Lieberman who has made it clear he will not vote for the health care reform bill if the public option or Medicare extension remains in the bill.

Also, the much more admirable Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has said he probably will not vote for the legislation, if it does not INCLUDE the public option or Medicare extension, or even better, a single payer system.

Plus Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska has stated that if the bill does not disallow abortion coverage, then he will not vote for the bill.

It looks more and more as if this health care legislation is in deep trouble, and even an attempt to recruit the two Maine women senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, seems unlikely to work because they have their own special problems with the legislation.

If the legislation does not pass in a reasonable form to bring real reform, the American people will be the losers, and the health insurance industry will have a big victory.

And, unfortunately, it could be the end of the dream of a real reform period under President Barack Obama. A defeat now would be hard to recover from, and particularly so with the unrest within the party over the “surge” of troops in Afghanistan ordered by President Obama. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made it clear she will not lobby her colleagues to back the Afghan appropriations bill and is tired of backing funding for wars she does not believe in.

The possibility of major Democratic losses next year, with the decision of four House veterans to retire, is alarming, and it is highly unlikely that the Obama Administration will have any better an opportunity than right now to promote real reform initiatives.

It sadly seems as if the old gridlock and stalemate so common in recent administrations is occurring again, a highly regrettable situation, to say the least! 🙁