Going it Alone

Re: 2010 races, if Jay Ackroyd were still commenting here, he might have posted this.

**AR-04, MI-01, GA-12, TX-28: These Blue Dog districts support public option, even if tepid on Obama

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/9/21/784706/-AR-04,-MI-01,-GA-12,-TX-28:-These-Blue-Dog-districts-support-public-option,-even-if-tepid-on-Obama

Thanks, Jay. Any word in Louisiana on Stormy Daniels officially entering the race? Also, since “what if” games are fun to play, imagine what if Frist had gotten his nuclear option in '05. Then reconciliation game theory would be a non-issue; this piece would instead be about Stormy Daniels, oh well. But I think reconciliation is the best choice. Make the @#$%^ numbers work, force it thru, and take total credit for revising HC, leaving the Party of No in the cold. If nothing's passed, the R's could try to use that in '10: “Nothing got done! Vote us back into power, bwahahaha!” Good luck with that, but if recon. goes thru, they can't even try THAT. What do you think, Jay? (I'm typing a reply to your excellent question in last post) Thx.

Jay have you asked the Dems why they think fund raising is down?

I wonder if others are like me and waiting to see how Health Care Reform looks like when passed. Maybe Democratic donors do not want a center right health bill that gives Insurance Companies a bonanza.

Any story that fails to mention the impact of MONEY is worthless on its face.

The dynamic that the Democrats face is very, very simple: Pass a bill that pleases the insurance and pharma corporate donors and risk a backlash from the constituents OR pass a bill that pleases the constituents and risk a backlash from the corporate donors. That's the story.

The Democrats have attempted to get the best of both worlds by passing a corporate friendly bill and blaming the "compromises" on the Republicans. Unfortunately for Obama, Axelrod, Emanuel, et al., the GOP refused to cooperate and give them a fig leaf.

You know, I find politics interesting. And as much as the corruption can be maddening, it is still fascinating to see how the dynamics play out. I cannot for a moment imagine the tedium of writing stories, as JNS does, and constructing a set of potemkin motivations for the various stakeholders (e.g. the public option is being eviscerated to please "independent voters" rather than corporate lobbyists).

Jay, I answered your question in last Baucus post. It's long, my apologies, but thanks for letting me post my flighty ideas.

Ayers, though, has a conveniently short memory:

Yup...plus, there was such a thing as a 'liberal Republican' in US history...another reason why the idea that "passing it with Democratic-only votes" as a bad thing is a fallacy.

There is nothing with going it alone!
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As Bush said, "you're either with us or against us!"
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Public Option or High-water!!
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Oh, and Jay, "You Lie!"
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Bush did it all the time. It is okay to go it alone as long as you doing what a healthy majority of the country wants done. Then the pols get relected, the country gets what it needs and journalists can continue stenography.

"Argument to moderation (Latin: argumentum ad temperantiam, also known as middle ground, false compromise, gray fallacy and the golden mean fallacy) is a logical fallacy which asserts that a compromise between two positions is correct. The middle ground is often invoked when there are sharply contrasting views that are deeply entrenched. While an outcome that accommodates both parties to some extent is more desirable than an outcome that pleases nobody, it is not necessarily correct.

The problem with the false compromise fallacy is that it implies that the positions being considered represent extremes of a continuum of opinions, and that such extremes are always wrong, and the middle ground always correct. This is not always the case. Sometimes only X or Y is acceptable, with no middle ground possible. Additionally, the middle ground fallacy allows any position to be invalidated, even those that have been reached by previous applications of the same method; all one must do is present yet another, radically opposed position, and the middle-ground compromise will be forced closer to that position. In politics, this is part of the basis behind Overton Window Theory."

Wikipedia

Hmm, my comment had too many links, and seems to have disappeared... To sum up-- nice article, Jay, but why is Baucus's plan presented in your article as centrist given the massive popularity of a public option?

So did Paul Lukasiak get scrubbed because he called JNS a liar, or was it because he habitually calls the journalists here liars?
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If, hypothetically, I were to indicate that I also believe JNS deliberately misleads readers, would that get me kicked off?
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Or would I have to adopt a perpetual bad attitude?

I see the conservative posters here attacking the writers all the time. Why are they not being deleted?

Man I remember just a few short months ago (alright, weeks) people on here were saying the Republican Party would soon cease to exist. Remember, the system in place is far too rigid for either of the two parties to go extinct. See you in 2010.