http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/health-care-let-the-major_b_262666.htmlRobert L. Borosage.Co-Director of the Campaign for America’s Future
Posted: August 18, 2009 11:08 PM
Health Care: Let the Majority Be Heard
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Some reporters suggest that Obama is signaling that he's ready to abandon the public plan. In fact, Obama has been consistent. He has argued for the public option, while stating that he's prepared to negotiate any part of the deal to get majority support for something that works. He's for a public option, but it isn't a deal breaker for him.
Former President Bill Clinton came to the Netroots Nation convention last week. He was in his full glory - smart, funny, wounded, a repository of policy and politics. His core message was that it is "imperative for the Democrats to pass a health care bill now," telling bloggers that "the president needs your help and the cause needs your help." Since we need reform to pass, he argued, we can't let the perfect be enemy of the good. So Clinton urged the liberal activists to keep fighting for what they want, but be ready to accept "less than a full loaf." This is a message better delivered by the former president to his old Blue Dog and New Dem gang - to the handful of conservative Dems standing in the way, not to folks supporting the broad majority in agreement with the president.
And Clinton inadvertently sent the bloggers a very different message. Lane Hudson interrupted his speech to challenge him on the unconscionable "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military. Clinton's famed temper flared as he defended himself:
"You wanna talk about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." I'll tell you exactly what happened. You couldn't deliver me any support in the Congress and they voted by a veto-proof majority in both houses against my attempt to let gays serve in the military, and the media supported them. They raised all kinds of devilment. And all most of you did was to attack me instead of getting some support in the congress. Now, that's the truth."
Well, not quite, since many of the bloggers in the audience were teenagers or younger when this debate took place. But the former president provided clear strategic insight for the current moment. We don't want a former President Obama to say, a decade from now, that the reason we didn't get a public option was that we "couldn't deliver" any support for him in the Congress. It's time to deliver that support.
So no surrender; no retreat. Don't start embracing "half a loaf," or thumb-sucking about the reasons for the demise of the public option. Real reform has the support in the country, the Democratic Party, the House of Representatives and the White House. It has support of a majority of Democrats in the Senate. Now it is time to deliver the president the votes he needs for the public option he favors. Full court press on the handful of Democrats that are standing in the way, and then real pressure on the two or three Republicans who have yet to surrender to the obstructionist extremes of their party.
Pull out the stops. Do whatever you can think about doing to weigh in at this time - and then enlist your friends to join you. We are very close. We don't have to overcome a presidential veto, or the opposition of the congressional leadership. All we need to do is to get Democrats and a couple Republicans to commit to giving the president a majority vote on this critical reform, and then get 50 members of the Senate to join the majority of the House in supporting it. Forget the naysayers. This is in reach. Let's make it happen.
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