Democrats

Pathbreaking Moment: Senate Overcomes GOP Filibuster On Health Care Reform!

Ronald 1 Comment

After a long, drawn out, highly partisan debate that has gone on for months, the Senate this morning passed a necessary step toward cloture to overcome a filibuster, and move toward later this week agreeing to a landmark health care reform bill.

Of course, even after a final vote expected to be held on Christmas Eve, the hardest job of all will be early next year to promote a conference committee report of both houses of Congress, reconciling different aspects of the bill that will be very difficult to gain compromise on, including the issue of abortion, the public option in the House bill, and funding and taxing health care in a way that will not add to the burgeoning national debt.

In many ways, the concept of victory seems elusive, as one has to wonder how the two houses will come up with a common bill. It will require statesmanship and moderation to accomplish what has been an elusive goal for nearly a century: health care reform, which even if this resolves itself, is still only a beginning step toward total reform at some point down the road in future time.

While this issue has become highly partisan, it seems to me that even this imperfect bill passed in both houses of Congress will ultimately be a plus for the Democrats, as much as Social Security and Medicare were in previous generations. The unwillingness of Republicans to work on a common goal for health care will not make them look good in the future and in historical perspective!

The Democrats Who Stand In The Way Of Health Care Reform

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As things now stand, the health care legislation being debated in the Senate has four Democrats preventing a real reform package, and we could call them the “N and Three L’s”–Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, and Blanche Lincoln of Nebraska.

Without these four votes for the “public option”, the only way conceivable that the Democrats can overcome a filibuster is to utilize “reconciliation”, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would prefer to avoid, but can use if necessary, just as it was under the GOP control of the Senate during the Bush Administration.

This means 51 votes, or even 50 plus the Vice President, would be enough to accomplish health care reform. This has been broached before by myself and others, and certainly is not preferable, but we have reached a point where we cannot allow a few rebellious Democrats to block necessary reform that has never reached this stage legislatively.

To allow health care reform to fail at this point would be a tragedy on the level of the Afghan War escalation about to begin! 🙁

A Different Way Of Analyzing Tuesday’s Election Results

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While the Republicans are celebrating their gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday, if one looks at special elections in House districts since the election of 2008, things look quite differently.

Not only did the Democrats win NY 23 for the first time since the Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant in the 1870s, but also they have won a vacancy in a California seat, and also earlier in Louisiana, Mississippi and Illinois, since Barack Obama became President.

The fact that they won open seats in New York and California on Tuesday allowed their margin of victory on the health care legislation last night to be 220-215, rather than 218-217, the absolutely bare margin needed for passage.

In the long run, winning the House vacancies is more significant for national politics than the losing of governorships in states that have recently demonstrated that they have gone for the party out of the White House a year after the presidential election for 20 straight years in both states, and actually 32 straight years in Virginia.

The difficult economy is bound to affect governors of both parties, as higher unemployment and greater numbers of foreclosures, leading to budget cuts in public services, naturally creates a political nightmare for governors, who bear the brunt of the blame for the downturn.

So while the Republicans celebrate their triumphs, the Democrats also have a lot to celebrate–five Democratic wins in the past year in special House elections!

The Oddity Of Virginia And New Jersey: No Significant Meaning

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An odd tradition has occurred in both Virginia and New Jersey since 1989, and in Virginia actually going back to 1977.

The party in the White House every time has lost the gubernatorial race in these two states the following year. No one knows why, but since it has happened on a regular basis, it cannot be seen as a bellwether for the future.

There is no way that an election with only two states holding major races can be seen as meaning anything, other than local factors predominating. So the Republicans should be happy, but not get their hopes up for 2010.

It still comes down to this ultimately: As Bill Clinton promoted in his 1992 campaign: It is the economy, stupid!   This is what will decide the fortunes of the Republicans and Democrats in the midterm congressional elections next year!

The Meaning Of Virginia And New Jersey And NYC Races

Ronald 2 Comments

The Republican victories in the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey and the close reelection victory of Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York City are testaments to the fact that all politics is local, except in a Presidential election year.

The reality is that, with the economy continuing to worsen regarding unemployment and foreclosures, and with the corruption problems in New Jersey, it was inevitable that the independent voters would rebel against the party in power in both states, and make for a closer margin for NYC Mayor than was expected.

Last year, the Democrats benefited from the poor economy. This time, the Republicans were the ones to gain from the worsening economy.

It is very obvious that what happens in the 2010 midterm elections will be based more on the economy than anything else, so this puts the burden on President Obama to bring about substantial improvement in economic statistics in the next year, and to accomplish passage of major health care reform legislation, with the belief that once it is accomplished, it will be an asset for the Democrats.

While this is not a good day for Democrats, to interpret two state governorship races as a mandate for the GOP and a slap in the face to Barack Obama is a tremendous exaggeration. But no one can debate that the 2010 midterm congressional election will be a judgment on the Obama Presidency halfway to the Presidential election.

The Oddity About American Political Parties And Ideologies

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We already know that the GOP is extremely weak in most states as a result of the 2008 Presidential election, with only four states strongly Republican compared to 30 that are strongly Democratic, and the rest leaning toward the Democrats with a few exceptions.

And yet the latest poll evidence shows that many more people see themselves as conservatives than liberals, with moderates holding the balance as usual, and generally leaning toward support of the Democrats, at least in the presidential campaign itself.

The most conservative states are in the South–Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina; the Plains States–Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota; and the Mountain States–Utah, Idaho and Wyoming.

The most liberal states are in New England–Massachusetts, Vermont; the Northeast–District of Columbia, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut; and the Far West–Oregon, Washington, California, Hawaii. But the percentage who say they are liberal is considerably lower than the conservative numbers in the more conservative states.

Those who are moderates by definition range from 43 percent in Hawaii and Rhode Island to a low of 32 percent in Alabama.

So we have the oddity that the Democrats may be strong, but yet ideologically the country is nowhere near as liberal as the Democratic congressional leadership and senior membership, and even President Obama, based on his four years in the US Senate.

Therefore, the GOP is able to have great influence despite their small numbers in Congress, because so many Americans still find the word “liberal” abhorrent, and therefore, moderates rule the day in the battle with conservatives for the future agenda of the Obama Presidency.