Politico:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy urged Massachusetts lawmakers last week to give Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick the power to name his successor. But with reactions to Kennedy’s proposal mixed – and with the legislature not due back until after Labor Day – it appears for now that Massachusetts will be without a second senator until a special election can be held early next year.

That sounds right. It presents an interesting situation. Without Kennedy, Democrats no longer have the vote to close debate on a health care bill that is not enacted through reconciliation. If President Obama wants a HCR bill this year, it will have to be done through reconciliation. In a way, he now has an out. He can reset the debate, heck even argue for Senator Kennedy's Medicare For All Bill. What's clear though is anything passing prior to a Massachusetts special election will be weaker than necessary. In short, Democrats should delay a health care reform bill vote until after the Massachusetts special election.

Speaking for me only

What really bugs me about the New "Progressive" Broderism being championed by Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias and Co. is they have absolutely no idea what a final "compromise" health care bill will look like and they are already whipping for it like nobody's business. Today, Yglesias pens a post titled Yesterday's Compromise Is Tomorrow's Triumph:

The [. . .] point for today is that you need to judge legislative outcomes relative to the status quo, not relative to what you enact in utopia. Medicare & Medicaid (especially the very stingy version of Medicaid that was initially created) were really pretty pathetic compared to what Harry Truman proposed. But they’ve done enormous good for a lot of people over the decades.

How in blazes can Yglesias be judging "tomorrow's compromise" when he has no idea what it will be? We can judge Medicare and Medicaid now (and even then) because you knew what it was. Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias do not even have the foggiest notion what a "compromise" HCR bill will look like and they are already declaring it a triumph. Just pathetic.

Speaking for me only

I was listening to NPR this morning and as you would expect, the discussion was about Ted Kennedy and his legacy.

To me, Ted Kennedy meant progressive fighter and achiever. Kennedy talked the talk AND walked the walk. Was he perfect politically? Of course not. Certainly NCLB was a mistake. But he got so much right. And he did it by fighting and legislating. There was rhetoric and principle. And political bargaining from principle.

If anyone should gain inspiration and wisdom from how Ted Kennedy conducted himself legislatively and politically, I hope it is the Progressive Block in the House. Like Kennedy, they come from relatively safe political districts. Like Kennedy, they think big progressive ideas. Like Kennedy, they should negotiate from their ideals and use their principles as a negotiating strength. Let that lesson for progressive legislators be Ted Kennedy's lasting legacy and I believe he would be pleased.

Speaking for me only

Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy passed away last night at his home in Hyanis Port. He was 77.

May he rest in peace. He will be missed. I'm at a loss for words right now, so I've posted some photos below:

Kagro asks:

Maybe I'm just not sufficiently wonky on the health care subject [. . .] [b]ut I don't get how you can possibly hand me a health care bill with an individual mandate and no public option. . . . Paying an insurance company whose product I don't want? That makes no goddamn sense to me whatsoever, and I want nothing to do with it.

Now, it should come as no surprise that the dingbats at Third Way are pushing this nonsense as a "compromise." . . . [W]hile Third Way may get warm in the shorts over a "compromise" that keeps the mandates and chucks the public option, I note that it's once again the DLC and their allies that come up with the plan that has me ready to turn my back on the Democratic Party's Big Plan of the Day.

(Emphasis supplied.) Maybe I am not sufficiently wonky enough on health care, but perhaps someone can explain to me how the Third Way is suggesting anything different from what Ezra Klein, Matt Yglesias, Paul Starr, Mike Tomasky, Mark Schmitt and Kevin Drum are selling? (BTW, that dirty DLCer Terry McAuliffe is on the other side of this fight.) But shooting the the Third Way/DLC fish in a barrel is easy. But the rest of the names I mention? Nope. That would violate the logrolling ethic that dominates today's "progressive" blogosphere.

Speaking for me only

Wishful thinking:

So now, liberals have to fight hard for something they're not terribly excited about. A health bill will likely have a very weak public option or it won't have one at all. But liberals will have to battle for that bill as if it's life and death (which in fact it will be for thousands of Americans), because its defeat would constitute a historic victory for the birthers and the gun-toters and the Hitler analogists. In the coming weeks, building toward a possible congressional vote in November, progressives will have to get out in force to show middle America that there's support for reform as well as opposition, even though they may find the final bill disappointing.

Actually, no they do not and more importantly, no they WILL not. No matter how much Mike Tomasky and Ezra Klein harangue progressives. Time to deal with that reality. Especially the folks in the White House.

Speaking for me only

My series on political bargaining was intended to point out that what "health care reform" will eventually look like is effected by how you bargain for it now. Consider Ezra Klein's most recent post:

I keep recommending this Families USA brief (pdf, but worth it!) outlining the 10 most important elements of health-care reform. The public option is one of them, to be sure, and I think there's a substantial chance it will be present in the final legislation. But what about the expansion of Medicaid to 133 percent of the poverty line? That's a solid 20 million poor Americans who don't have coverage now, and will soon. What about the out-of-pocket caps, so no one goes medically bankrupt ever again? Or the assurance that no insurer can ever discriminate based on a preexisting condition? Or the subsidies for working Americans who can't quite afford coverage? Or the requirements that insurers spend more money on medical care and less money on premiums? Or the guarantee that the gruesome practice of rescission will finally end?

Even accepting Ezra's premise (and I do not), how does Ezra know all of this will be in a final bill? If today the public option can be jettisoned, what can go tomorrow? Max Baucus does not even have a bill on the table. Ezra suggests progressives bargain against themselves. Here's the ultimate question for Ezra, how does he expect all those good things to stay in the bill if progressives follow his advice and bargain against themselves?

Speaking for me only

Kos polled Jim Cooper's (D-TN) district and it turns out people are not happy with his behavior regarding a public option. Cooper responded saying, he did too support a public option:

The whole premise of the poll is that I oppose a public option, and that is simply not true. I have repeatedly said that I’m FOR a public option[.]

Kos rightly notes:

We never said, "Jim Cooper opposes the public option" or anything along those lines. So if his constituents think Cooper is opposing the public option, that's his fault.

But Kos misses a point Cooper rightly makes:

Via Glenn Greenwald (read his great post), Fred Hiatt channels Ezra Klein:

[T]he reality is that, if the Obama administration wants to get health reform done, it's going to have to back away from the public option sooner or later -- and it's getting awfully late. . . . To listen to some Democrats talk, reform without a public option is scarcely worth doing. This is crazy.

Are WaPo Beltway Establishment Types Klein and Hiatt right on the first part? The evidence does not support this. On the second part, Klein, like Jonathan Alter and other professional "Liberal Pundits," sang a very different tune for years. But my own considered judgment is that the health care reform bill likely to emerge is NOT worth doing without a public option. Individual mandates without a public option is a terrible idea.

Letting Obama declare victory on HCR is not a good enough reason to pass a counterproductive health care bill. I think Hiatt and Klein are wrong on the politics and the substance. No public option, then no mandates. The additional Medicaid funding can be passed without calling it "health care reform."

Speaking for me only

Daily Kos' poll demonstrated it and so does the Washington Post poll, as reported by Greg Sargent:

A major factor in President Obama’s slide in today’s big Washington Post/ABC News poll, which is preoccupying the political classes today, is his surprisingly sharp drops among Democrats and even liberals, according to crosstabs that were sent my way. Much talk today has focused on Obama’s difficulties with independents. But the drop among Dems and liberals is also a key driving factor in the President’s skid, according to WaPo polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta, who graciously provided the additional data.

Ahh, the windfalls of the Post Partisan Unity Schtick. See Digby, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Yglesias, AmericaBlog and Steve Benen for more.

Speaking for me only

Nate Silver:

[I]f the only two choices were to pass a bill with a public option and nothing at all, and everyone knew these were the only two choices, I believe at least some Blue Dogs would cave and the bill would stand a decent shot at passing. . . . The reason that I wrote earlier this week that a bill with a public option was "probably" dead is because I've long believed that leadership from the White House might make the difference between a bill with a public option just barely passing and it just barely failing to do so. . . . [T]he situation could also be a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: the public option might have passed, if only the White House had been willing to agitate for it -- but since they weren't willing to do so, it couldn't . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) Maybe Ezra and Co. will pick up on this.

Speaking for me only

Matt Yglesias writes:

Since late July, it’s been clear that the strategy for killing health care reform is to delay it first. And it’s clear that killing health care reform is the top priority of the Republican Party leadership. And Max Baucus has been working hand-in-glove with GOP leaders throughout the process to join them in their delaying tactics, even while presenting himself as the man leading the charge for reform. It’s odd. And it’s continuing[.]

The funny thing is whatever Baucus presents is DOA anyway. Olympia Snowe has insisted, in the most stubborn, extreme and instransigent manner, that it be so, because she demands no public option. Since the Baucus plan will not have a public option, it is DOA with the House, where Speaker Pelosi has said no public option mean no bill. So why doesn't Baucus just let Snowe write his bill, Senate Leader Reid can throw it in the waste can and bring forth a different bill for vote in the Senate, go to conference with the House and formulate a bill (or bills) that can actually be enacted. Why wait for Godot?

Speaking for me only