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we begin with trouble for the Republican-led anti-health reform effort. In just the last 24 hours, the anti-reform forces have suffered losses on two fronts. On the fake grassroots side of their “scare everyone to death about health reform” campaign, and also on the political side, with signs that the Republican Party‘s united front against health reform might be crumbling.
First, let‘s talk fake grassroots—the implosion of Betsy McCaughey. She is the former Republican lieutenant governor of New York. She is the creator of the “health reform is a plot to kill grandma” lie.
Just yesterday, Betsy McCaughey‘s campaign of misinformation was chugging right along, with an anti-health reform column in Rupert Murdoch‘s “New York Post” that was titled, “The Kill Granny Bill.”
In this charming work of scholarship, Ms. McCaughey cited as an expert on health care reform the tea-partying Florida doctor who was previously famous for mass e-mailing the image of President Obama as a witch doctor with a bone through his nose—a witch doctor with a bone through his nose who‘s also sort of mysteriously a communist, a communist witch doctor. Yes. In an elaborate headdress? Yes, it doesn‘t get any better the more you pay attention to it.
Betsy McCaughey in “The New York Post” cites the man who sent this out as her expert. Her medical expert who predicts that doctors will flee Medicare if—God forbid—there‘s health reform.
Well, following that up last night, Betsy McCaughey took her act out in public to a debate with the un-intimidated Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner of New York. The result was a three-dimensional look at what it means to be off the kook end.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BETSY MCCAUGHEY, FMR. NEW YORK LT. GOVERNOR: I think it‘s more important for people to read the text of the legislation than to rely on all of these political pundits, most of whom haven‘t read the bills themselves before they have come to their conclusions. I would like to ask Anthony if he has signed of the “read the bill” petition in Congress.
REP. ANTHONY WEINER (D), NEW YORK: Well, I‘ve read the bill, and just last week.
MCCAUGHEY: Yes or no?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes or no.
MCCAUGHEY: Have you signed the petition?
WEINER: I‘m a little afraid right now. Are you going to grab this again? This isn‘t a problem of people not reading the bill. In your case, it‘s the problem of reading and the bill and then lying about what‘s in it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: At one point, Congressman Weiner said he felt like he was debating a pyromaniac in a straw man factory.
And this morning on MSNBC, Dylan Ratigan hosted those same two combatants again. Ms. McCaughey was finally forced to admit that her plan for cutting health care costs was to cut off people aged 65 to 70 from Medicare altogether. No Medicare for you!
But even before she had to admit that, things just went very, very, very poorly for her.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCAUGHEY: And that is.
DYLAN RATIGAN, MSNBC ANCHOR: Why do you want to protect large employers, unions and health insurance companies at the expense of patients and taxpayers?
MCCAUGHEY: I‘m talking about Medicare.
RATIGAN: I‘m talking about health care.
MCCAUGHEY: I‘m a patient advocate. I spend my day in hospitals.
RATIGAN: If you‘re a patient advocate, why are you in favor of systems that give patients less options, fewer options.
MCCAUGHEY: This will go down in history as one of the most brow-beating interviews in television history.
RATIGAN: I hope that it does, and maybe you‘ll learn at that point then to answer questions as opposed to go on television and cast accusation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: As anti-health reform spokesperson Betsy McCaughey two-staged rhetorical self-destruction was under way during the last 24 hours, Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona was admitting in a different TV interview that the Democrats just might win at least one Republican vote in the Senate—that of Olympia Snowe of Maine. And in case the Democrats do win that vote, Senator Kyl wanted to make sure to preemptively argue that it still won‘t count, that even if there are Republican votes for health reform, that still won‘t make it a bipartisan bill.
The senator‘s strident denial that health reform will ever be considered bipartisan no matter who votes for it may be borne from evidence that probably makes him uneasy—signs of significant cracking in the “all for no, no for all” Republican party motto.
Today, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Republican governor of California, released a statement saying that he shares the president‘s goals on health reform, and urging Congress to take action.
Governor Schwarzenegger joins a growing list of non-Democrats who‘ve recently come out to publicly support health reform, that include former Republican Senate Minority Leader Bill Frist, former Bush era Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, former Bush era Medicare and Medicaid administrator Mark McClellan, and independent sort of Republican, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
So, as the forces against health reform start to wilt a little, it is worth considered why that might be happening. It turns out that while the anti-reform forces have been busy basking this summer, in the summer of the screaming town hall meeting, progressive groups were planning their own full-court press on health reform to go into effect slightly after the August of screaming. The progressive full-court press involved some intense pressure on Democrats to stay united on reform, and it involved some intensely personal and emotional campaigning to raise the stakes for those who would oppose reform.
For example, this Pennsylvania woman‘s twin daughters were diagnosed with cancer when they were 4 years old. The girls beat the cancer, but they had coverage for their doctor-prescribed growth hormone shots denied by their health insurance company CIGNA.
Health Care for America Now, which is a coalition of pro health care organizations, brought that mom to the mansion of the CEO of CIGNA, Ed Hanway. They brought her to his house for her to ask if her family could stay in his carriage house, a second house on his property, until they recovered financially from what CIGNA‘s decision did to their family.
Also, the group Mad as Hell Doctors spent the entire month of September driving around the country, making the case for a single-payer health care system. One of those doctors crashed President Obama‘s Rose Garden photo-op with 100 other invited physicians who supported his slightly less progressive health reform strategy.
And, of course, there has been a barrage of ads taken out by progressive groups targeting conservative and potentially vulnerable Democrats, like Senator Blanche Lincoln and Congressman Mike Ross, both of Arkansas, both of whom have said they oppose a public insurance option. A brand-new ad, produced by the political action committee Blue America, just started airing last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, POLITICAL AD)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We can barely pay our bills and Blanche Lincoln is worried about the insurance companies?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: This is what a full-court press for health reform looks like, and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for the anti-health reform forces today is what it looks like when a full-court press is working.
Joining us now is Connie Schultz, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the “Plain Dealer” in Cleveland. She‘s also the wife of Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown.
Ms. Shultz, it‘s very nice to see you again. Thanks for joining us.
CONNIE SCHULTZ, CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER COLUMNIST: Dr. Maddow, thank you for having me back.
MADDOW: I like that we‘re going to be very formal. This is going to be great fun.
Let me start with big picture first, your highness. Do you think that... do you think that health reform passes by the end of the year?
SCHULTZ: Yes. I do and I think it‘s going to have a public option.
MADDOW: Do you think that the outside pressure on conservative Democrats has been effective at keeping Democrats on the straight and narrow toward reform?
SCHULTZ: Well, dare I say that I think the progressives—we might actually be on message, probably for the first time ever, because we—you know, and the polling is in support of what progressives are doing and I think that‘s helped a lot, not only in organizing and mobilizing the progressives but setting up the flares to a lot of Republicans who, you know, I‘d like to say that some of these Republicans are coming out because they—from the goodness of their hearts, they just want to help Americans, some of them may.
But also, you look at the polling—and they‘re doing their own poll numbers, running them at this point—and they know where the country is headed and they know where this debate is headed. I‘m so impressed. Governor Schwarzenegger and Mayor Bloomberg, what I think is so significant about those statements is they didn‘t just volunteer them. They didn‘t, you know, some Republicans are trying to tear the statements apart and say, “No, no, no, this is what they meant.” White House asked them for these statements.
And you know how this process goes, it‘s not like the White House says, “Hey, Governor, can you send us something?” “Oh, yes, yes. Let‘s send something up.” No, there‘s a lot of discussion about what‘s going to go in those statements and they are very deliberate about what they were presenting to the American people, that they, too, see the need for a dramatic health care reform.
MADDOW: It‘s—I agree with you that it seems like things are on a roll right now for health reform, that the prospects look good, the polling numbers are in the right place, the outside pressure, the legislative momentum all seems to be there. I don‘t, however, anticipate that those forces who are opposed health reform are going to roll over.
And when they look at their own poll numbers, when they look at what they‘ve been able to do to dampen the chances for reform, it seems like what‘s been most effective for them was their summer of screaming, was the August town halls. That‘s when their numbers ticked up, even though they weren‘t able to maintain them.
Do you think that means we should expect more sort of vituperative tactics from those against—those who are against reform?
SCHULTZ: You know, I‘m not convinced of that, Rachel, and here‘s why. When you—when you mentioned the town halls, I look at what happened at the beginning of the season of the town hall meetings this summer and where they ended up—and even here in Ohio, there were certainly some screamers down in the Cincinnati area of the state, the most conservative part of Ohio. By the time the final town hall that Sherrod held in Cleveland, there were—there was virtually no screaming. It was clear that some disagreed but they were there for an actual discussion. They didn‘t even pack the house that time.
And I think what had happened is it had worn itself out, because people were really angry. And, you know, I—as you know, I spend most of my time in Ohio. I was in Washington all last week, which was really eye-opening only in that it‘s so good to get back into real America where people are actually talking about health care and how much they need it.
And I‘m hearing from more and more Republicans who get mad at me if I write a column and just, you know, with a broad stroke start talking about Republicans oppose health care reform.
They keep weighing in with me in an increasing numbers and saying, “No, no, no, we‘re not all against health care reform. We‘re not those wackos. We‘re not Glenn Beck. We‘re not Rush Limbaugh. We‘re not listening to those shows. We have some real concerns and we want to talk about it but please don‘t lump us all together.”
And that to me, more than anything, has convinced me that they‘re just losing steam on these fear tactics of McCaughey. McCaughey was doing this back in August. You remember, she was on “Fred Thompson Show,” and I wrote about it then when she talked about how senior citizens would be required to meet with their doctors every five years to decide how they‘re going to end their life sooner—flat-out lie. I don‘t understand why anybody‘s still debating her.
MADDOW: Well, where she—where she turns up to debate is certainly a question. I do think it‘s fascinating, though, that even though she‘s been pushing those kinds of scare tactics, she has been a good debater. She‘s been good at maintaining her side of the—her side of the fight, even when it‘s not supported by the facts, and that we saw fall apart.
SCHULTZ: Right.
MADDOW: She got destroyed by Anthony Weiner in front of a live audience last night in that debate, and then on national television today on Dylan‘s show. And I think seeing her sort of lose it, somebody who knows what to prepare for, I think, is a sign that maybe they don‘t know where they‘re going next.
SCHULTZ: I think you‘re right. She got rattled. And part of that she got rattled because she was in front of live audiences, as you said, or she was being questioned by real journalists, not just being on conservative shows where she gets to pipe up with all of this stuff that‘s absolute nonsense—and unconscionable because it‘s just meant to scare the most vulnerable people in our country.
MADDOW: Connie Schultz, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for “The Plain Dealer” in Cleveland, Ohio—it‘s always to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us, Connie.
SCHULTZ: Thanks for having me.
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