Look folks, things are grim, and the House Democrats are acting like a bunch of scared little kids. Scratch that — that's a terrible insult to scared little kids.
Every single House Democrat needs to hear from you. All of them. They are right now waiting to hear from you as to how to proceed. They are terrified of passing this bill for fear of pissing off some special interest or other. But read Krugman, who's really gotten to the heart of the matter:
Tuesday’s Republican victory in the Massachusetts special election means that Democrats can’t send a modified health care bill back to the Senate. That’s a shame because the bill that would have emerged from House-Senate negotiations would have been better than the bill the Senate has already passed. But the Senate bill is much, much better than nothing. And all that has to happen to make it law is for the House to pass the same bill, and send it to President Obama’s desk.
Like, duh. It's so blatantly obvious that they may well not do it. Insane.
Please call them and tell them to do the sane thing. And if they give you a straight answer, let us know here:
- Capuano, 8th: (202) 225-5111
- Delahunt, 10th: (Has endorsed the fruitcake split-up-the-bill plan) (202) 225-5601
- Frank, 4th: (202) 225-5931
- Lynch, 9th: 202-225-8273
- McGovern, 3rd: (202) 225-6101
- Markey, 7th: (202) 225-2836
- Neal, 2nd: (202) 225-5601
- Olver, 1st: (202) 225-5335
- Tierney, 6th: (202) 225-8020
- Tsongas, 5th: (202) 225-3411
they understood what happened Tuesday, even as Obama tries to play it off as anger at George Bush. Zerocare is done. Why bother to call? Your congressman, with the exception of Capuano, live in Red districts now!
that they already voted for the darn thing! So they’re already toast. At least if they vote the Senate bill through, and work on improvements through reconciliation, they have a chance to survive.
to follow Obama off the cliff like a pack of lemmings? Don’t you think it’s not right to force something down our throats when 65% of the people don’t want it? Don’t you believe in Democracy?
Alright. Well let’s take a look at the last few competitive statewide election results, by county, only showing the winning percentage.
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p>Barnstable:
2002:
-Romney 56
2006:
-Patrick 45
2010:
-Brown 57
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p>Berkshire:
2002:
-O’Brien 62
2006:
-Patrick 76
2010:
-Coakley 68
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p>Bristol:
2002:
-O’Brien 62
2006:
-Patrick 57
2010:
-Brown 56
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p>Dukes:
2002:
-O’Brien 53
2006:
-Patrick 63
2010:
-Coakley 64
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p>Essex:
2002:
-Romney 55
2006:
-Patrick 51
2010:
-Brown 56
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p>Franklin:
2002:
-O’Brien 55
2006:
-Patrick 70
2010:
-Coakley 62
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p>Hampden:
2002:
-Romney 48
2006:
-Patrick 55
2010:
-Brown 54
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p>Hampshire:
2002:
-O’Brien 59
2006:
-Patrick 67
2010:
-Coakley 61
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p>Middlesex:
2002:
-Romney 49
2006:
-Patrick 56
2010:
-Coakley 51
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p>Nantucket:
2002:
-Romney 50
2006:
-Patrick 56
2010:
-Coakley 50
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p>Norfolk:
2002:
-Romney 53
2006:
-Patrick 52
2010:
-Brown 55
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p>Plymouth:
2002:
-Romney 57
2006:
-Patrick 46
2010:
-Brown 62
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p>Suffolk:
2002:
-O’Brien 59
2006:
-Patrick 70
2010:
-Coakley 66
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p>Worcester:
2002:
-Romney 55
2006:
-Patrick 53
2010:
-Brown 60
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p>2002 Vote Total for Romney: 1,091,988
2010 Vote Total for Brown: 1,168,107
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p>I know, I know. You said CD’s and I did counties, but counties make up CD’s and I’m comparing “apples to apples” in order to demonstrate a trend over statewide elections. That being said…
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p>This special election race is almost a perfect match to what we’ve experienced in Governor’s races over the past decade.
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p>Romney and Brown won by almost the same percentages in Barnstable, Essex, Norfolk, Plymouth, and Worcester counties. However, in 2006, Patrick won every single one of those counties. Does that mean these are “blue” counties now? Of course not. Does it mean they’re “red” counties? No. It means they are a collection of people reacting to what’s happening around them and the candidates in front of them.
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p>To somehow suggest that now every Democratic Congressional office holder, sans Caps, lives in a “red” district would be like urging every Republicans after the last gubernatorial race to throw in the towel because they just got swept.
Don’t let facts get in the way of delusion.
the districts are Red for most of the congressmen.
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p>http://www.boston.com/news/loc…
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p>This is about congressional districts, not counties. But you can maintain you delusion if you like.
I will personally break down the data for you, but only for MA-10 because I don’t have time to do the rest.
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p>MA-10 (Bill Delahunt’s seat) is made up of
-Barnstable County
-Dukes County
-Nantucket County
-Parts of Plymouth County (Abington, Carver, Duxbury, Hanover, Hanson, Hingham, Hull, Kingston, Marshfield, Norwell, Pembroke, Plymouth, Plympton, Rockland, and Scituate)
-Parts of Norfolk County (Cohasset, Quincy, Weymouth)
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p>The first three offer an easy comparison, so I’ll repost my data from above:
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p>Barnstable:
2002:
-Romney 56
2006:
-Patrick 45
2010:
-Brown 57
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p>Dukes:
2002:
-O’Brien 53
2006:
-Patrick 63
2010:
-Coakley 64
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p>Nantucket:
2002:
-Romney 50
2006:
-Patrick 56
2010:
-Coakley 50
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p>In Plymouth County, both Romney and Brown won every single one of the municipalities represented in the 10th.
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p>The three in Norfolk? Both Cohasset and Weymouth were won by Romney and Brown while O’Brien took Qunicy 49/48 in 2002 to Brown’s 53/46 victory in 2010.
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p>Despite both Romney and Brown’s domination of MA-10, they decided to send Bill Delahunt back by 38% in 2002 and 3 more times after that, despite how “red” MA-10 is.
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p>I’m not suggesting that Brown’s victory wasn’t a big one, it certainly is. However, this is earth shattering based on it’s national implications and our history for Senators, not for the state. Now if you’d like to suggest that Congressional races may become more reflective of gubernatorial races, that could certainly be possible, but I doubt that as the power of the incumbent is very strong in Massachusetts. I don’t have the time, but you’d also be interested to see how much of that district Deval Patrick won in 2006, since he swept every district in the state that year.
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p>However, I feel as though it won’t matter what I say, you have your opinion, and that is fine. We’ll just have to wait until November.
seeing as how they ALL elected DEMOCRATS to represent them and mostly haven’t attracted credible opponents. The 5th was drawn specifically to be GOP, but so far even that hasn’t worked out. One special election does not a red state make.
The staffer told me “the Congressman is looking at the options” and sought to reassure me that Markey supports the public option. Which is great, but we’re not getting it this time. I asked him to support the bill, and the staffer said he’d pass that on.
His staffer said the congressman understood that health care problems still existed, but he was waiting for the Senate and White House to provide options. I think this ball is in the House’s court isn’t it?
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p>Anyway, I said I wanted to see a result. If this thing goes down the toilet I have to ask myself (for the 1,459th time) if this is a party I want to be part of.
that government getting involved in anything is going to make it cheaper and better quality. When and what has that happened with before. Why do you want to destroy the greatest health care system in the world?
Got any links for that? Because there’s plenty of empirical evidence that show’s we’re 36th in the world in healthcare outcomes, that we pay the most money and get the least care, and 46,000 people die a year for lack of health insurance. But by all means, please feel free to prove that we have the best healthcare system in the world. I’ll await your proof.
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p>P.S. Fox News and World Nut Daily do not count as legitimate sources.
About thirty five other countries are accomplishing better outcomes at lower costs — right now.
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p>I’m reminded when the rightwing made similar claims about the products of Ford, GM, and Chrysler in the late 1970s and 1980s when the Japanese were cleaning our clocks. The companies, of course, were simultaneously claiming that Japanese automakers were receiving “unfair” subsidies from their government. We weren’t supposed to pay attention to that, though.
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p>What it meant was “we like to keep things mostly as they were thirty years ago, only a lot more expensive and a lot less reliable. Pay no attention to those cheap foreign imitations.”
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p>It didn’t work for cars and it doesn’t work for health care. Every American knows it — the question is how long it will take even Democrats to say so loud and clear, and then fix it.
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p>We have to remember, though, these are folks who claim that any change that involves the government actually doing something is socialist, communist, and fascist.