Posted on 01/20/2010 6:43:11 PM PST by smoothsailing
Examiner Editorial
January 21, 2010
When the majority of voters in the bluest of blue states elects a candidate opposed to Obamacare to fill the Senate seat previously held by the man who was that proposal's most prominent supporter, there is a clear message: You lost because of what you've been doing for the past year, so stop doing it.
Incredibly, President Obama's political brain trusts and his most powerful allies on Capitol Hill don't understand this reality. Witness Obama adviser David Axelrod saying of Republican Scott Brown's victory in Tuesday's special election: "I think that it would a terrible mistake to walk away now. If we don't pass the bill, all we have is the stigma of a caricature that was put on it. That would be the worst result for everybody who has supported this bill."
Robert Gibbs, Obama's White House press secretary, saw nothing in the Massachusetts results but reasons to keep on keeping on, "not that we somehow abandon our pursuit on things that are important to the middle class." Similarly, even before all the votes in Massachusetts were counted, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was vowing to reporters she will plunge ahead to pass Obamacare: "We will get the job done. I am confident of that."
The same refusal to see what everybody else sees was reflected in commentary by the president's most vigorous supporters on the nation's editorial pages. The Boston Globe, for example, saw nothing in Brown's win to "negate the resounding mandate that President Obama and Democrats in Congress received in 2008 to address escalating health costs." The Globe encouraged Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to "bring the legislative process to a close by pushing House members to pass the Senate version."
Then there are Obama's supporters in academe like Yale's Jacob S. Hacker and Georgetown's Daniel Hopkins, political scientists both, who even before they knew the outcome of Tuesday's election confidently explained in The Washington Post that "running from reform" would be the wrong message for Democrats to glean from the Massachusetts contest. Hacker and Hopkins thus provide a sterling illustration of minds being made up before becoming confused by the facts.
Obama and Democratic leaders would do well to listen to these words of wisdom from one of their own, Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York: "If there isn't any recognition that we got the message and we are trying to recalibrate and do things differently, we are not only going to risk looking ignorant but arrogant." Translation: If voters are so angry that Republicans can get Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, there isn't a safe Democratic incumbent anywhere in the country.
Be still, my heart.
It would certainly be historic and unprecedented if Republicans too every seat in the House in November. But apparently, even if that actually happened, these same people would still say the same things. They are truly insane and Pat Caddel is right, DC has become Jonestown.
I’d love to shove Harkin’s face in this...
There are times I believe the Democrat leftists are saying these stupid things just to irritate us.
But the reality faced by the Democrat leadership is the 25% or so of the Democrat base who is mentally deranged and the leadership needs to placate that whacked out base with these messages of full speed ahead.
Spot On!
spent some at DU—it’s true. BO is getting hammered for selling out to the banks and insurance agency and that’s why he is meeting opposition and why Coakley lost.
talk about a tin ear and political tone deafness
“DC has become Jonestown.”
Ohhhhhhhh, I like that! What a great analogy.
I think I found my new tagline if I may.
Everyone needs to just chill and enjoy this spectacle for a few days. There will be tons of stories out there about what the dems are/may be going to do. Remember, they have to publicly say they are pushing forward, regardless of what they may be planning.
And now, its now just what Obama/Pelosi/Ried want any more. Too many fence sitting dems are not going to vote for the current bill. The house will NOT accept the senate version and then fix it in reconcilliation. By next week, the dems will try to start over and include the republicans on some scaled back version. And that will be the most dangerous for us all.
I would love to take credit for it but I have seen it posted here at FR several times. Still, its a great analogy attibuted to dem Pat Cadell.
Why do I think good things are about to happen?
I am from IA and Harkin has got to go.....but unfortunately he isn’t up for election in 2010.
Pelosi is safe.
People who don't realize they are defeated are really a threat.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus
DC has become Jonestown.
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That I hadn’t heard before but it is just about dead on, it says the most in the fewest words of anything I can recall concerning the present situation. Are Kool-Aid sales rising rapidly?
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