Saturday, November 6, 2010

Democrats get wake up call and immediately hit the snooze button


Harry Reid says he gets it. Barrack Obama says he gets it. None of them get it. If they had gotten it they wouldn't have presided over the worst most devastating loss of seats in the House by either party since 1934 and wouldn't be clinging by a thread to a senate majority that just two years ago was 60-40 Democrat.

Obama, as always leads the way backwards. He said he wants to compromise. As the most compromised president in history that's no surprise.He's compromised the truth, compromised healthcare reform, compromised financial reform so why not continue to compromise with Republicans who made him look like a court jester the last two years anyway?

Reid said he gets the meaning of the election, that the American people want the Democrats and Republicans to work together. Obama says he wants to work with Republicans. Which shows Obama and Reid are still snoozing because if that's what the American people wanted the Democrats and Obama wouldn't have had the biggest congressional majority of any party in 50 years the last two years.

What they don't want to open their eyes to is that the clobbering they received wasn't at the hands of Republicans and Tea Partiers who never voted for them in the first place. This wake up call was delivered by Democrats, moderates, liberals, and independents, fed up with Obama's duplicity and flagrant lying and reneging and how he and the Democratic leadership sold out what the majority of Americans and especially Democrats wanted.

And what they wanted was all the things that Obama and the Democrats didn't deliver. That's why they got clobbered The American people wanted real health care reform. They wanted overwhelmingly to have the public option and the votes had always been there to pass it using reconciliation. Obama sold it out,making a sleazy back room deal with health industry lobbyists because the town hall crazies made his knees buckle,then publicly spoke out of both sides of his mouth pretending to support it, and Reid went along with it instead of yanking the reins from Obama and passing the public option anyway.

The difference in the election was the difference between what the American people wanted(,which had nothing to do with working and playing well others), what was promised, and what was finally delivered, a tepid mess of a health care bill that Howard Dean correctly said should have been junked and a bill that even the Democrats who finally voted for it could only call "better than nothing". This is why the Democrats got clobbered. Forget the nonsense you hear from people like Lawrence O'Donnell who is still self deluded about Obama, that it was spending time on healthcare and not the economy that was the problem.

Based on all the polls more people wanted the public option than wanted Obama as president According to a CBS News poll in June 2009, 72% said they wanted the public option and 66% said they were willing to pay higher taxes to get it. But Obama, who has a 13 year political history of doing nothing and getting nothing done, sold it out, screwed his constituency and blew it for personal political reasons because he couldnt stand the heat and the Democratic congressional leadership went along. Democrats got their political payback from their constituents not their enemies. Health care was in fact Obama's and the Democrats Waterloo, but not for the reasons Jim DeMint thought. It was because they didn't deliver what was important on healthcare and obstructing that was probably the Republican plan all along. And Obama fell for it.

Obama also blew financial reform, went with a stimulus that economists told him was too small from the beginning, did more for the banks than he did average people and a week before the election, screwed the Democrats in congress who voted for his stimulus by saying that he made a mistake about "shovel ready" projects, proving again that the only thing that is really shovel ready is what comes out of Obama's mouth.

As I predicted in July of 2009 and all through the healthcare debate,into February of 2010, Democrats finally paid the price that was clear would be coming if the public option wasn't passed. I wrote a year ago, and just about every month since that the only way the Democratic congress could save itself was to wrest control of the healthcare debate away from Obama and pass the public option and that if they didn't, they'd be finished. Yes unemployment is the big issue now but had the public option been passed in June of 2009 using reconciliation instead of the useless political game Obama played, all the attention could have then been focused on the economy from that time on and the Democrats would have passed landmark legislation that would have lifted the burden of health care costs off the shoulders of tens, if not hundreds of millions. Not to mention that with a public option, those 10 million ( and probably more ) who are unemployed, many of whom probably lost their work related health insurance would have had one less thing to worry about, one less burden to carry not having to worry about what would happen if they or someone in their family got sick. The handwriting should have been clear that if the congress didn't pass the public option they'd be finished.

They didn't and they are.

If they are looking for a way forward its not to do what Reid and Obama have pledged to do -- compromise with the Republicans. This devastating wake up call wasn't made by people who are sympathetic to Republican ideology. If that were the case the Democrats never would have won in the first place. This wake up call was made by Democrats, liberals, moderates and independents, the people who voted for them in 2008, not the people who voted against them. The Democratic leadership and Obama betrayed their own constituencies and they wont get them back till they acknowledge it, and the Democratic leadership publicly acknowledges Obama's failures with the public option, the failure not to pass it, Obama's catering to banks and corporations and not average people, his two year capitulation to Republicans, and that Obama has been a major disappointment to those who were naive enough to be taken in by his snake oil in the first place. Just admit you were conned and move on. Then completely change leadership to people willing to play as tough as the Republicans and then lay the ground work for a credible primary challenge to Obama in 2012. Or simply convince him not to run.

If they don't do any of those things and Obama is the nominee, they will lose the White House in 2012 without a doubt, make no inroads in the House and lose the senate. Then they can snooze for as long as they want.

8 comments:

amlandoll@yahoo.com said...

They just continue to throw everyone under the bus. Anita learntoreadnow

Anonymous said...

This is all so true...

Anonymous said...

Hit the nail on the head.

Edgeoforever said...

They are not looking for a way forward. Never did.
It's not why they were put there by the same people who usually put Rs there.

Dimocrats said...

Wow. Is that photograph real? I can't believe he would present himself like that in public. Why should he be stressed. He did exactly what he was $uppo$ed to do for his backers on Wall $treet.

Anonymous said...

Obama wanted to outdo Clinton, and he did! Heckuva job, Oprecious!

Anonymous said...

Obama and the Dims know very well that their agenda is too conservative for the American people - but they are not about to serve the people. They are following a classic Rovian tactic - say the opposite of what is true! They don't care if the common people are happy - just their own "class".

Anonymous said...

tdraicer:

I agree with one important exception-the Public Option was never real, it was just a diversion to get Single Payer off the table. So once it had accomplished that goal, naturally it was discarded.