House Democrats Who Voted Against the Health Care Bill

[kentuck]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/08/us/politics/1108-health-care-vote.html

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my comment:

Perhaps if they acted more like Democrats, they might do better?






.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. Better for Dems to support it and then over the next year pressure for more change

[BrklynLiberal]

2. I would really love to see all these Dems defeated in their Dem primary by a much more progressive

candidate

[TygrBright]

3. Some might, some might not.

Frank Kratovil, for example, was elected in a district that sent pro-environment, socially liberal, fiscally moderate GOPpie Wayne Gilchrest to Congress for years and years.

His moderate stance failed to please the wackjob wing of the MD GOP, and they redistricted him, grafting a few troglodyte suburbs of Baltimore onto his territory, which had previously been only the Eastern Shore.

He continued to get elected, however, until a 2008 primary challenge dumped him for a complete wackjob, a creepy, homophobic, bigoted, disastrous fundie pro-business teabagger type. Complete bad news, a total horror. A male Michelle Bachmann, if you can imagine that.

Kratovil may be a conservative Dem, but he's light years ahead of Pipsqueak, I mean, Pipkin. He will have to play it very, very, very low-key to keep that seat in 2010. He won this time only because a third-party candidate split the GOPpie vote. He did NOT get a majority in the district. But if he can win two more elections, he's probably safe-- the Shore hates change. Until then, he'll have to play GOPpie-lite for all he's worth.

Pipsqueak, BTW, is wealthy. Very wealthy. He bought himself a Maryland State Senate seat, and funded all his own campaigns. He'll probably have another go at Kratovil in 2010, and it will be touch and go. But Pipsqueak would be such a complete disaster that I'll probably send Frank a campaign contribution just out of compassion for my friends on the Shore.

So I can see Frank deciding that discretion was the better part of valor on this vote, especially once it became clear that it had the votes to pass without him.

Harry Teague, however, gets less sympathy. He, too, has plenty of bucks and is in a fairly troglodytic district, but he won by 12% in a state that is trending Dem and a district that has a rapidly expanding Dem population.

And Collin "Shithead" Peterson gets no sympathy at all and I hope to hell he gets knocked out in a primary. You listening, Minnesotans?

It's foolish to make generalizations when so many different factors are involved.

regretfully,
Bright