Axelrod's advice

I think as the Blue Dogs welcome their new colleague Congressman Owens and remind themselves that he's the first Democrat to hold that seat in 140 years, since Ulysses S. Grant, and that he campaigned on the Obama program, they'll have to say, 'You know what, we're onto something here if we stick with the program...'

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/4/800578/-Axelrods-advice

Other than window dressing, this is about as helpful as tits on a boar. :eyes:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8732683&mesg_id=8732683

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/yesterdays-overwhelming-historic-republican-victory-makes-democratic-health-care-reform-just-a-bit-e.php?ref=dcblt

Yesterday's Overwhelming Historic Republican Victory Makes Democratic Health Care Reform Just A Bit Easier
Brian Beutler
November 4, 2009, 10:04AM

Most of the commentary about last night's elections has centered around Republican pickups in the New Jersey and Virginia statehouses. But what's gone largely unnoticed is that the two congressional seats up for grabs last night both went to Democrats, and that will have immediate ramifications for health care reform.

That creates some simple arithmetic. Yesterday, Democrats had 256 voting members in the House. By week's end, they'll have 258. Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could afford to lose no more than 38 Democratic votes on a landmark health care reform bill. Next week, after Owens and Garamendi are sworn in, she can lose up to 40. For legislation this historic and far-reaching, she'll need every vote she can get--and both seem likely to support reform.

Garamendi is a liberal, and though Owens now represents a GOP-leaning district, here's what he said about the bill at a debate last week with Doug Hoffman and Dede Scozzafava: "I think moving towards this legislation is very appropriate. I think the type or the form of the public option included in this bill is reasonable. It is not one that allows people to move to the government option if they already have health insurance overage. So it's not going to control a significant segment of the population."

...he may be more helpful than a Republican, but not by much.

...LOTS of people if it's going to be useful in keeping insurance companies in line.

If they wanted that, they would have started out asking for single payer.

Baucus has the PO in his white paper from a year ago, and by Feb 09 he was calling it a bargaining chip.

They just used it to organize around and to raise money and sign up door knockers/phone callers with.

Everyone I know who was working for SEIU (and who has been organizing for 20 years)was saying last winter. "Well even if the PO doesn't go through, guaranteed issue and modified community rating are huge. We would have killed for them back in '93" etc.

So they were prepping people last winter to be aware that the PO was expendable and in fact was meant to be expenable. Then think about what came out of the White House, same kind of stuff, and Dean just rolled over when it came down like it did and used the old, "Well, it's better than nothing"

It's pretty obvious that the whole PO fight was just kabuki at it's finest, meant for consumption by the outsiders.

But in order to do that they had to clear the table of single payer first. Which they did.