Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 11/21/2009 11:04:15 AM PST by Bobkk47
A Zogby Poll this week illustrates the stark choice facing Senate Democrats as they have to decide whether or not to vote for ObamaCare. The poll shows that Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln, high up on the list of vulnerable Senate Democrats seeking reelection in 2010, literally faces a choice between being reelected and voting for the bill.
The Zogby Poll shows Arkansans opposed to the Obama/Reid bill by 28-64, with 50 percent “strongly opposed” to the legislation. To swim in the face of such a current of public opinion is risky business for a U.S. senator.
Lincoln’s most likely Republican opponent, state Sen. Gilbert Bennett, is hot on her heels in the poll, trailing by only 41-39. But asked who they would support if Lincoln votes for ObamaCare, Arkansas voters switch to Bennett, giving him a 49-36 victory. That Lincoln goes from two points ahead to 13 points behind over one Senate vote illustrates the potency of the opposition to healthcare changes.
Most Arkansans don’t know how Lincoln will vote. Forty-two percent predicted that she would back the bill, but 24 percent said she was more likely to oppose it. Thirty-six percent did not know.
Her fellow Arkansas senator, Mark Pryor (D), is also in play on this legislation. Thirty-five percent of his voters think he will vote yes, while 18 percent think he will vote no and 47 percent don’t know.
While Pryor is not up for reelection this year, he is also almost certainly signing his political death warrant if he votes for the bill.
This survey, taken by Zogby, was funded by the League of American Voters as part of its efforts to influence swing senators and defeat the healthcare legislation. The League has been running ads in Arkansas aimed at explaining the costs of the bill both for the old and the young. The polling shows that the ads are working.
The League has run ads in Indiana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Louisiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Maine, Montana, Colorado, Florida and Connecticut to push swing senators to oppose the bill. It will retain Zogby to do surveys in many of these states to bring home to their senators how strongly those they represent do not want this bill to pass.
Please help the League to fund these efforts. The League has raised over $3 million in its health care campaign but needs $2 million more in the coming months.
As part of the League’s work against the bill, Dick went to Arkansas on Thursday, November 19th to tour the state and to publicize the findings of the Zogby Poll. In three press conferences (in Little Rock, Conway, and Hot Springs), Dick warned Senator Lincoln about how strongly her constituents feel about the bill.
The recent decision of the federal government to recommend that women abstain from annual mammograms illustrates well, exactly how Obamacare would force a deterioration in the quality of medical care, particularly for the elderly.
The panel evaluating the effectiveness of mammograms did not find that they don’t work or that they do not save lives. Rather, it found that the lives they save are not “worth” the cost of annual testing. This bureaucratic balancing of human life and financial cost lies at the core of the government managed health care in the Obama Bill.
To maximize your chances of avoiding breast cancer, women over 50 should, of course, be tested annually. But to save the government money and to conserve scarce resources, the government would like them to increase their chances of becoming sick and get screened only every other year.
Under our current health care system, the government can only recommend such changes. But under Obamacare, it can and will require them.
This rationing of health care, of course, primarily effects the elderly since it is they who need care the most. Who could ask for a better illustration of how this system would work than the government’s sudden discovery that saving lives through mammograms is not worth the cost?
The way the Democrats are acting I don’t believe they will lose another election. Which makes you wonder if future elects will be put on hold for our own good.
It’s mind boggling to realize that these few men and women hold so much power and are consumed by it. I am praying for God’s intervention in any way possible, to hold back 1 key voter be it through physical illness or simple Divine Intervention.
She’ll vote for it, just as Pryor will. They’re only moderates when they’re here in state. In DC, they’re as liberal as just about any of them.
I predict she will vote for cloture, but against the bill.
This will help Reid et al. in getting bill to floor, but she can then go to her state and say she voted against Obamacare. Most likely, most of her constituents will be none the wiser.
I’ve written to her twice, if she bows....like the Administration teaches...she bows...LOW, and I’m going to pull the lever for anyone other than Blanche.
If she doesn’t vote “as told”...she won’t even make it on the ballot for the next election. At least this way, they’ll find her a little “party job”...
I’ve known her for years. She talks a good game and can charm the electorate.
dShould there even be a question of how to vote when your constituents are so opposed?
We no longer have a representative government, its a sham and we owe them no allegiance they have broken the social contract.
One senator's choice?
Here's a list of 21 senators choosing to vote against the wishes of their constituents.
Alaska Mark Begich (D)
Arkansas Blanche Lincoln (D)
Arkansas Mark Pryor (D)
Colorado Mark Udall (D)
Colorado Ken Salazar (D)
Florida Bill Nelson (D)
Indiana Evan Bayh (D)
Louisiana Mary Landrieu (D)
Missouri Claire McCaskill (D)
Montana Max Baucus (D)
Montana Jon Tester (D)
Nebraska Ben Nelson (D)
Nevada Harry Reid (D)
North Carolina Kay Hagan (D)
North Dakota Kent Conrad (D)
North Dakota Byron Dorgan (D)
South Dakota Tim Johnson (D)
Virginia Jim Webb (D)
Virginia Mark Warner (D)
West Virginia Robert Byrd (D)
West Virginia Jay Rockefeller (D)
That’s what I think she’ll do too.
According to another post, she has committed to vote yes on cloture in the last few minutes.
She needs to be eviscerated at the polls. We then need to repeal any law that is passed after we get the man-child out of office.
It’s mind boggling to realize that these few men and women hold so much power and are consumed by it. I am praying for God’s intervention in any way possible, to hold back 1 key voter be it through physical illness or simple Divine Intervention.
God helps those who help themselves.
How many Republicans have stood up and said that even if this is passed, if the Republicans become the majority again, they will *repeal* it?
Hello? Any Republicans out there? Even one elected Republican say this? Not even one?
Why not?
At least we discovered Lincoln’s price—100 million dollars in tax dollars going to La! Now she in INDEED a high priced one!
For certain Lincoln has another gig lined up.
Nice of Morris to worry about her though.
Sounds like Blanche has also secured herself a plum job in the Obama administration! Why else would she risk her re-election unless she had some other place to go after she is no longer a senator from Arkansas?
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