| Let me state this as plainly as I can.
If you've read this site during the many months that health care reform has been tossed around in Congress, you know I have not exactly been kind to our Congresscritters, particularly the Democratic ones, whom I feared were going to balk at the clear message the voters were sending in 2008.
All that changed for me last night.
This is the single most important piece of legislation coming from the Democratic party in decades. It's not the best bill, but it's damn good. It is meaningful, identifiable change in how way Americans get and keep access to health care. Whatever the faults of this bill, it is not incremental; it is transformational. It is historic.
Last night's vote gave me the confirmation I needed to do everything I can to make sure Carol Shea-Porter gets re-elected, that NH-02's seat stays Democratic, and that Paul Hodes becomes our next US Senator. I now have a justifiable and legitimate reason to go knocking on the doors of the Obama voters to say - you got the change you voted for, and now it's time to acknowledge those that brought that change to the President to sign into law.
(I'm not going to lie; had a bill without the public option passed the House, I would be feeling pretty ambivalent and unenthused about 2010 right now.)
Which leads me to health care reform's next step: the United States Senate.
There are less than 41 Republicans in the United States Senate. A GOP filibuster of health care reform, therefore, is unpossible (as Atrios is wont to say).
Harry Reid, in my view, largely a failure as a leader, has nonetheless staked his claim for a bill with a public option. So to a certain degree the heat is off of him for the moment.
Let me state this as plainly as I can.
Nelson and Bayh and Landrieu and the rest can prance and preen and vote against the repeatedly majority supported public plan all they want.
We've got 51 votes, and I don't care how utterly out of touch they are.
But if non-Republican Senators fail to vote to have a vote, they are not Democrats either.
Of course, there's also Holy Joe, who is threatening to filibuster.
Here's the thing to remember about Joe Lieberman: eight years ago he thought he was going to be one heartbeat away from the presidency. This took his already abnormal ego and engorged it into something unrecognizable in human terms.
Right now Joe Lieberman would like to think he holds all the cards, because that's what gives Joe Lieberman the media oxygen he so cravenly desires at the expense of his principles.
I'm not really worried about Joe Lieberman. He has no integrity, and therefore he can be pushed in the right direction by whatever series of favors he's after at the moment. I'll let the Senate Comity Clubbers figure out the twisted world of Joe Lieberman's desires; I want no part of it.
But I do know this. If Democratic Senators prevent a good bill with a public option from emerging from the senate, if they refuse an up or down vote on it - they deserve the Netroots' full attention.
If they prevent the most important piece of Democratic legislation in decades from coming to a vote, they deserve to lose their seats. They deserve our spending time and raising money for primary challengers, from however many states away.
I, as well as, I'm sure, many thousands of online activists around the country would relish this task. |
