*Update 7/27*
Today comes unequivocal confirmation that as we advised in Friday’s Strategy Memo, Senate Finance Committee Republicans are ON THE MARGIN in the healthcare debate. See today’s front-page article in the Washington Post:
“Although the Senate will not vote on its plan until after Labor Day, a Senate Finance Committee deal this week would reassure several dozen anxious House Democrats who are wary of the more liberal course their leaders have taken on health care. Feeling burned by a tough vote on climate-change legislation that is languishing in the Senate, these House Democrats sparked an uprising last week that Pelosi is struggling to contain. . . [while] the Senate, where finance negotiators are trying to write a bipartisan bill that must be melded with a separate health committee version.
“But for [Ways and Means Committee Chairman] Rangel and [Majority Leader] Pelosi, the fate of the House bill may rest with the Senate. At a minimum, House Democrats want to see where talks between Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and ranking Republican Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) will lead. If their efforts result in a bill this week, nervous House Democrats are expected to rally around its more moderate coverage provisions and more aggressive approach to cost savings. ‘There are some members of our caucus who feel it's very important,’ House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) said.”
It is now fair to say the fate of ObamaCare rests in the hands of Senate Republicans. If they stop negotiating and do everything possible to defeat ObamaCare in the Senate, it may actually derail the health bill in the House as Democrats there retreat to prevent from being BTU’d a second time on healthcare the way they stand to be on Cap-and-Trade. At a minimum, shutting down Senate negotiations would send a clear message to the 80 or so House Democrats nervous about voting for ObamaCare in its present incarnation that they should slow down and wait until after the August congressional recess to vote on a bill.
Opponents of ObamaCare should be turning all their resources on key Senate Republicans to convince them to stop negotiating and playing the useful idiot. ObamaCare is on the ropes. It would be a huge irony and great tragedy if Senate Republicans gave it second life by encouraging House Democrats that a bi-partisan bill negotiated in the Senate will come to their rescue in the House.
Message to Senate Republicans: STOP NEGOATIATING; STOP ObamaCare DEAD IN ITS TRACKS, NOW!
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Original Post 7/24
ObamaCare has stalled but it is a long way from dead. In fact, we are at the most critical point in the struggle. Unless we drive a stake through ObamaCare’s heart right now, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will be able to buy and intimidate enough votes to revive it.
There is an old saying in politics, “Never intervene while your opponent is destroying himself.” We should heed that advice.
Democrats are in the process of destroying themselves over ObamaCare. Opponents of ObamaCare should be careful not to get in the middle of this Democratic domestic disturbance.
Yes, ObamaCare opponents should continue letting the Blue Dog Democrats know respectfully of their opposition to ObamaCare but they also must not put the Blue Dogs in a corner. In their enthusiasm to drive ObamaCare from the field, opponents must be careful not to humiliate Blue Dogs by making it appear they were bludgeoned by Republicans to defect from their Democratic congressional leadership and president. Opponents must be careful not to give Democratic congressional leadership leverage over the Blue Dogs by giving Pelosi et al a pretext to paint Blue Dogs as Yellow.
Blue Dogs know how bad ObamaCare is but they are under enormous pressure from their congressional leaders and their president to support the Party Line. Opponents of ObamaCare must be careful, therefore, to give them the maneuvering room to oppose their leaders without committing political suicide and without pushing them into a corner so they have no alternative but to prove their political manhood by sticking with their president.
As Ecclesiastes reminds us, there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven. Americans opposed to ObamaCare set the Blue Dog opposition in motion. Now they should let that tide flow on its own for a while. The best way to keep it flowing and reinforce it is by turning opposition efforts on Republicans who could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by negotiating something with the congressional leadership and White House that can be spun as a “bipartisan compromise.” Any hint of even one Senate Republican getting onboard ObamaCare could be fatal by loosening the noose on Blue Dog Democrats in the House.
Strategically, ObamaCare opponents must ask themselves, “What actions are on the margin?” “What political lever offers us Archimedean leverage at this particular point in the struggle?”
SENATE REPUBLICANS are on the margin at this time.
In particular, it is Senate Republicans still in negotiating mode who are on the margin.
Opponents of ObamaCare, therefore, should spend the next several days loosing a human wave of opposition to convince Senators Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), Mike Enzi (Wyoming), Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Bob Bennett (Utah) to STOP NEGOTIATING and announce their opposition to ObamaCare.
Now is the season to unify Senate Republicans down to every last one of them to oppose ObamaCare in all its many variants.
Kudos to Senator Orrin Hatch (Utah), by the way, who realized finally that all his good-faith efforts to negotiate a compromise were in vain. Hatch has now closed the door on further negotiations. Bravo!
If the Blue Dogs see a united front from Senate Republicans, it will become unambiguously clear to them that they stand to be "BTU'd" if they pass ObamaCare in the House and the Senate can’t deliver. Unified Republicans in the Senate against ObamaCare will give Blue Dog Democrats in the House a place to stand to deflect leadership and White House pressure.
Pass the word: Squishy Senate Republicans are ON THE MARGIN. Go get ‘em.
To Fax Senate Republicans your message of opposition to ObamaCare, CLICK HERE.
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