From John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich, Dionne: Not Right Wing but Still Angry

I just got a subscequent message informing us NY (D) Rep. Weiner

agrees with Conyers and Kucinich and has pulled his Single-Payer

motion from tomorrow's 20 minute consideration.  Read on..... -Ed

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers

To: epearlag@earthlink.net

Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 4:55 PM

Subject: From Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers

From Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers Dear Friends, We thank you for your continued devotion to the cause of health care for All Americans. We have worked together for many years to write, promote and campaign for HR676, a single payer, not for profit health care system. Your work, in communities across America, has been instrumental in helping at least ten states create single payer movements, with many more states to come. Tomorrow, the House of Representatives is scheduled to consider a single payer bill. As the two principal co-authors of the Conyers single payer bill, we want to offer a strong note of caution about tomorrow's vote. The bill presented tomorrow will not be HR676. While we are happy to relinquish authorship of a single payer bill to any member who can do better, we do not want a weak bill brought forward in a hostile climate to unwittingly accomplish what would be interpreted as a defeat for single payer. Here are the facts: There has been no debate in Congress over HR676. There has not been a single mark-up of the bill. Single payer was "taken off the table" for the entire year by the White House and by congressional leaders. There has been no reasonable period of time to gather support in the Congress for single payer. Many members accepted a "robust public option" as the alternative to single payer and now that has disappeared. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has scored the bill scheduled for a vote tomorrow in a manner which is at odds with many credible assumptions, meaning that it will appear to cost way too much even though we know that true single payer saves money since one of every three dollars in the health care system goes to administrative costs caused by the insurance companies. Is this really the climate in which we want a test vote? While state single payer movements are already strong, the national single payer movement is still growing. Many progressives in Congress, ourselves included, feel that calling for a vote tomorrow for single payer would be tantamount to driving the movement over a cliff. The thrill of the vote would disappear quickly when the result would be characterized not as a new beginning for single payer but as an end. Such a result would be seen as proof that Congress need not pay attention to efforts to restore in Conference Committee the right of states to pursue single payer without fear of legal attacks by insurance companies. We are always grateful for your support. We are now asking you to join us in suggesting to congressional leaders that this is not the right time to call the roll on a stand-alone single payer bill. That time will come. And when it does there will not be any doubt of the outcome. This system of health care injustice will not be able to endure forever. We are pledged to make sure of that. Sincerely, Congressmen John Conyers and Dennis Kucinich   Facebook Twitter MySpace Digg

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***

 

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091104_not_right-wing_but_still_angry/

Not Right Wing but Still Angry

 

By E.J. Dionne
Truthdig: Nov. 4, 2009, Originally in the Washington Post

EAST BRUNSWICK, N.J.-Tuesday's elections were a rebuke to the right wing and
a warning to Democrats.

They were also a timely reminder that President Obama needs to tune up his
celebrated political organization and find a way to make Americans feel
hopeful again.

The night's biggest loser was the national conservative political
machine-the wealthy tax-cutters at the Club for Growth and the
Palin-Limbaugh-Beck complex. The Beltway right shoved aside local
Republicans in an upstate New York congressional race, imposed their own
candidate who didn't even live in the district, and went down in a heap.

To understand the importance of the defeat of third-party conservative Doug
Hoffman by Democrat Bill Owens in New York's 23rd District, consider the
narrative that would have been woven if Hoffman had won.

Combined with Republican victories in the New Jersey and Virginia governors'
races, a Hoffman triumph would have been heralded as the beginning of a new
conservative revolution, a reproach to Republican moderates as well as Obama
Democrats, and a sign that "big government," including the Democrats' health
care plan, was on the run

Instead, voters in the district (parts of which have been Republican since
Abraham Lincoln) staged a different kind of rebellion. Furious that big
conservative money and national personalities such as Sarah Palin and Glenn
Beck had forced out Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava-the official, moderate,
locally chosen Republican candidate-they turned to Owens.

The Democrat was the perfect candidate for a middle-of-the road protest. He
had only recently been a political independent and presented himself as
having no ideological edges. The spurned Scozzafava backed him, creating a
moderate united front. June O'Neill of the New York Democratic state
committee called Owens' victory a "backlash" against "the way they treated
our friend and neighbor." We know who "they" are.

The Owens win puts the victories of Republicans Chris Christie in New Jersey
and Bob McDonnell in Virginia in a different light. Both won governorships
by focusing on the need to win voters smack in the middle of the electorate:
moderates, independents and suburbanites. David Axelrod, Obama's senior
adviser, engaged in a bit of self-serving hyperbole when he said in an
interview that McDonnell ran "not as a Sarah Palin Republican, but more as a
Barack Obama centrist," yet his point was right: McDonnell knew where the
votes were.

So did Christie, who capitalized on a deep, personal disaffection with
incumbent New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. Christie, like McDonnell, managed in
reverse the excite-the-base, win-the-middle strategy Democrats pursued so
effectively in 2006 and 2008. Christie ran up huge margins in Republican
counties, but also won over previously Democratic voters who were angry but
not ideological.

Democrats will highlight Obama's continued strong approval ratings in New
Jersey as part of their larger argument that these contests were local in
character. But the disaffection in both Virginia and New Jersey-and the
unexpected narrowness of New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's re-election
margin, despite his record-breaking campaign spending-should worry all
incumbents, particularly governors seeking re-election next year. And after
their strong showings in the last two national elections, Democrats happen
to constitute a large share of the pool of incumbents.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, as he made his way to Corzine's concession speech at
a hotel here, said he sees an electorate in a dark mood. "There are two
things happening," the New Jersey Democrat noted. "One is fear. The other is
punishment. Voters fear for themselves and their families, and they want to
punish anyone who got them into this condition."

What Lautenberg underscored is a spirit far different than the buoyant
confidence Barack Obama inspired a year ago. And the Obama change-agents,
particularly the young, were notably absent from the voting booths this
week. In Virginia, a state Obama carried comfortably last year, a majority
of those who showed up to vote on Tuesday said they had backed John McCain.
This much more Republican electorate produced a GOP landslide all the way
down the Virginia ballot.

That is the fact from this week that Democrats would be fools to ignore. It's
not a resurgent right wing that should trouble Obama's party. Indeed, the
stronger the right's role in shaping the Republican message, the harder it
will be for middle-of-the-road voters to use the Republicans to express
their discontent. But for the moment, the thrill is gone from politics, and
that is very dangerous for the mainstream progressive movement that Obama
promised to build.

E.J. Dionne's e-mail address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com.

© 2009, Washington Post Writers Group