Friday, March 12, 2010
Congress / Politics / Woods Democrats Consider Hiring Lamar as Campaign Consultant
Posted by Jeff Woods on Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 8:55 AM
The ever-helpful Sen. Lamar Alexander has been giving Democrats a lot of heartfelt political advice lately. If they pass health care reform, according to Alexander:
"I think it is the making of a political wipeout" for Democrats "if they pass this unpopular bill" and "jam it through in a partisan way. I could be wrong, but based on 40 years in politics, I believe it will become the symbol of an overreaching Washington and will define every single congressional race. The only thing I can remember that's like it is the Watergate election of 1974," when Republicans lost 49 House seats, four Senate seats and were left with only 12 governorships.
Here's another view, this one from Morton Kondracke:
My hunch, on the question of whether Democrats will be worse off passing health care or not passing it: They will be damned if they do, but damned worse of they don't, demonstrating that they can't govern even with overwhelming dominance of the government and wasting two years without fixing the economy.
I agree with the second part of that. Democrats are screwed if they don't act. They might as well disband the party. They should listen to what the president told Senate Democrats when he met with them last month. If we don't pass this, he said, "I don't know what differentiates us from the other guys."
Comments (8)
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Is Lamar willing to give up his taxpayer medicare/health ins and Pension? I asked one of his staff members that question ,got a blank stare ,ok ,it was silence on the phone.
Republicans are a selfish lot,they support corporations only .
Its time to get rid of Lamar ,he is a useless as a tit on a hog.
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I am proud of Democrats for moving pressing ahead without Republican support, to rein in the health insurance companies, expand coverage, lower costs, and reduce the deficits. If Republicans want us to go it alone, I got no problem with that. The last thing we need is to heed the advice of any Republican. Thanks, Lamar, but no thanks.
"They will be damned if they do, but damned worse of they don't, demonstrating that they can't govern even with overwhelming dominance of the government and wasting two years without fixing the economy."
Yeah jamming a vast new entitlement program down the throats of the public who are overwhemlingly against it is really a demonstration of "governing" all right.
The public isn't buying it despite the Dems best efforts to spin, lie and obfuscate the true economics of what they are trying to do and what is actually in the legislation.
Kondracke's blather is typical inside the beltway thinking.
Proud to Be a Democrat says the Democrats are going to reduce costs. If you were paying attention, you would know that it's going to cost 1.5 trillion over ten years. But there's only one small problem. We don't currently have the money, so we'll be borrowing it from China. Still feeling proud?
Just like the public were and are "overwhelmingly against" Social Security, Medicare, the 40-hour week and unemployment insurance, right Gilbert? In your imaginary world.
When the law is passed, even watered down as it may be, and the right wing fog machine creaks to a halt out of boredom with itself, there will be overwhelming support. Conservatives will generally announce, slowly, that they'd always been for it--just as they do, for the most part, with the other Horror Middle Class Entitlements.
And what wise Republican operatives were saying three years ago--that if the Democrats ever passed this law, Republicans could be an irrelevant minority for a generation--will begin to come to pass. Despite their worst efforts.
"When the law is passed, even watered down as it may be, and the right wing fog machine creaks to a halt out of boredom with itself, there will be overwhelming support. "
You're the one living in an imaginary world, toothpicks - not me.
The public realizes that the country can't afford the entitlement programs that already exist and that creating a massive new one isn't any sort of solution to that.
Entitlement programs are Ponzi schemes and they all come unraveled at some point.That is an economic reality that you lefties can't deal with.
There is a maxim to the effect of when your enemy is committing suicide, stand back and don't interfere. The Republican Party believes in nothing more than gaining and keeping political power.
If Republicans in the Congress actually believe that enactment of health insurance reform will be an electoral debacle for Democrats, why are they seeking vigorously to prevent the enactment thereof?
To paraphrase William Shakespeare, the weenies doth protest too much, methinks.
