Talk Elections

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/12/17/howard_dean_wont_vigorously_support_obamas_re-election_bid.html

neither will I, but Dean needs to STFU right now.

Why?  For ONCE he's being totally honest and non-partisan and most importantly Franzl, he's not waffling in his beliefs......like everyone else is, including Obama.

I don't fault his principles...I have a lot respect for him and his ideas, but I consider the healthcare compromise to be a HELL of a lot better than nothing.

I think he's just being unrealistic and irresponsible.

For once I agree with him.........you can call it Health Care Reform til you're blue in the face.  That doesn't make it so.

What's wrong with it?

I think it's a pretty good market friendly bill actually.

Over the past few days, i've started to wonder if Dean is firing warning shots of a 3rd party run.

The insurance companies aren't trying to kill it in its present form like they were.......

I agree with you GG in disappointment in the bill. However it's still markedly better than the status quo, and it's shortcomings have much more to do with Sens. Lincoln, Nelson and (especially) Lieberman than Obama.

Dean does need to chill, IMHO. Criticize the bill for what it doesn't accomplish, yes, but abandoning Obama for Mitt, T-Paw or the Huckster??!? Chill Deanie babe, chill.

Byahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

So if Howard Dean ran as a left-wing alternative and Palin ran as a right-wing alternative to Tim Huckaromney... that would get interesting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/17/howard-dean-i-wont-suppor_n_395599.html

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean told the Huffington Post that he was misinterpreted and, subsequently misquoted when discussing his support for President Barack Obama on a morning cable show Thursday. Dean said that despite his call to defeat the health-care bill Obama is championing, he is prepared to campaign for Obama vigorously come 2012.


Oops.

Looks like someone had a trip to the woodshed....

Obama could have put them in line if he wanted to, but instead he chose to attack the left of the party. The guy hasn't even hinted at consequences for opposing the original bill. Bush was able to pass almost his entire agenda(save SS privatization) with 50 to 55 senators, and he did it by putting pressure on them. Can you imagine LBJ just backing down on Medicare or the Civil Rights Act without putting up any effort whatsoever? This is how the healthcare debate has gone:

Obama: I want healthcare reform passed

Conservative Dems: Not unless you make it a complete waste of the paper it's written on and a huge handout to insurance companies

Obama: Ok

Real Dems: This bill needs to be more progressive

Obama: You're irrelevant and should go away, you're blocking my chances of getting something done, even though it's pointless, so I can go on being the celebrity that I am and tout myself as the guy that finally solved the healthcare crisis.

He never wanted a public option and has been nothing but a disingenuous liar. This "reform" is something I could easily see coming out of the Bush administration, just like nearly everything else Obama has done in office. As long as he's in office he's making the Democratic Party look bad and squandering opportunities. I would happily vote for Dean if he was a third party candidate, because frankly...I can't see Romney being any worse and Palin wouldn't win anyway; I'd rather have a clear conscience than be a party to the massive fraud being perpetrated by Obama.

If Dean runs he has my vote.

It would be pretty funny to see a former DNC Chairman running on a third party.

Although a Zionist hack, Dean still would have made a better president than Obama or Kerry.

For me it's too early to say right now. I don't like what he's been doing right now, but hopefully he smartens up and doesn't take the left for granted, otherwise Nader (or another liberal) could scoop up some votes in 2012. He still has to tackle issues such as gay rights, illegal immigration, the Iraq war, etc.

LMAO, I love how quickly Rahm and his team contacted Dean and told him to shut it down.

Dean needs to stop this. He knows very well the political reality of the health care situation. He showed that pretty clearly when he ran a primary campaign promoting universal health care (http://web.archive.org/web/20031204202209/www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_statement_health) that was similar, but ultimately worse than the current bill.

He also endorsed the Senate Finance Committee's version as reforming health insurance, albeit hesitantly due to its lack of a public option. Although the current Senate bill doesn't have the public option either, it is definitely better than what came out of the SFC.

Dean's shenanigans are just as tiring as the centrist Dems, but he isn't providing any substantive ideas and has no actual input in the process.

I hope that what he is doing now is simply an attempt to raise a fuss to prevent the further watering-down of the bill (the reverse of which led Lieberman to request the removal of Medicare buy-in) , rather than any sort of genuine opposition to health care reform or the Obama agenda.

No sustantive ideas or actual input? He says he wants to expand Medicare to cover all and do it through reconciliation. It's the OBVIOUS answer, because it's the most logical and simplest. It covers everyone, sends costs down, and cuts the insurance companies out of the loop.

If Dean doesn't have "any sort of genuine opposition to health care reform or the Obama agenda", then I'd be terribly disappointed. The Obama agenda: more war, handouts to insurance companies, opposing cheap meds to keep big pharma's profits up, not doing anything about gays in the military, making fun of people who want drug reform, shutting the left wing down on every issue, and general arrogance, dishonesty, and weakness.

This "reform" means the end of a viable left in the United States; the Democratic Party is certainly no longer the party of the poor. We elected a candidate that we thought was about as left wing as could be electable, and it turned out he's almost as right wing as his predecessor. Good news for him, it turns out a helluva lot of Democratic members of congress are just as right wing as he is. So now he can pass this farce in order to score cheap political points; isn't that what Bush did? Hurting the country to further his electoral prospects? Where is the difference here? If Dean adamantly opposed one of them, why the hell would he not oppose the other?

That could've either been a huge career mistake or career maker.  I'd put money on it being a mistake.

Yes, Obama has clearly "shut the left down on every single issue," including tobacco (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h1256enr.txt.pdf), fair pay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilly_Ledbetter_Fair_Pay_Act_of_2009), child health insurance (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-111publ3/content-detail.html), stem cells (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/business/23stem.html?_r=1), and hate crimes (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2010/Division_E).

Not to mention the stimulus and what will be, if not perfect, amazing progress on health care.

Liberals seem to believe that Obama's election would suddenly cure the ills the US has faced. He has already spread himself as thin as it gets. How could he have done all this and repeal DADT and withdraw from two wars and fix the immigration system? It has been one year, calm down and let the man work. Your lack of any perspective is stunning.

Meanwhile, on health care, using reconciliation to pass the idea Dean has proposed would: a) not necessarily pass and b) take too long. Not to mention, half of the bill would be gutted. This may be an ideal situation for Dean, but it is anything but politically viable. This is not a genuine or substantive idea at all if it can't pass.

Would you care to explain how expanding health care to 31 million people is a farce only passed for political motives? While you're at it, how are subsidies for the poor to buy health insurance and a further expansion of SCHIP anywhere near President George W. Bush?

Your hyperbole is nice and probably cathartic, but it misses the mark in a superb fashion.

It seems Howard Dean is as unpopular with the new-guard Obama faction as he was with the old-guard Clintonistas. 

DADT and withdrawal can be done with one flash of the executive's wand.

If Dean runs Obama has my vote.

WEEK.

Obama would have lost a considerable amount of political capital in the process without getting much in return.

By the end of his first term, Obama will have accomplished a huge part of the Democratic agenda. Is there a reason why it all needs to be done in the first year? He is stretched incredibly thin, half-assing far too many issues as it is. If you want substantive change, you need to accept that it takes time.

This liberal disillusionment because they found out Obama =/= Jesus is so incredibly stupid. What did you want the guy to do? He is, at the end of the day, the President. He does not control Congress, especially in a 60 vote environment. I forget sometimes that irrationality is not limited to the conservative side of the spectrum, but it is good to be reminded every so often.

good...but too little too late...Dean and bloggerboiz like Kos also tend to make reckless assumptions (the latter is less likely out of naivete and more because he is a shill for a corporatist shill), like that Obama and Dems are caving (instead of being handmaidens to the plutocracy).

hopefully, everyone will wake up from the spell of corporate media and realize Obama isn't leftist...liberal, maybe, but not leftist.  that is, unless leftist means taking cues from banksters, mercenary firms, insurance, and pharma.

even if Palin defeats him, it would be better than a second term.  although, this stuff is going on with the "Democratic" Party for a few decades.  the more they de-Southernize, the more they're like Bourbon Democrats--except more sophisticated in their plutocratic governing tactics.  in short, the entire party needs to become extinct and America needs leftist governance--not a savior.

Willing to elaborate on this?

Hey Guys:

I understand Obama's the prez and the buck stops here and all, but aren't we misplacing the anger over the lack of a public option a bit? Obama clearly wanted a public option and fought for it. Maybe not tooth and nail, but how much did he want to kill the supermajority by pushing Nelson or Lieberman into the GOP?

The real culprits here whom I place my unadulterated blame on are (in order):

1) The GOP which, other than a wee flickering candle of moderation from the Maine sisters, is so utterly and completely taken over by hardcore conservatives that moderation and compromise have become dirty words. This is further compounded by the hardcore rule of 60 implemented after losing the Senate in 2006 that damn near everthing more partisan than a resolution honoring the girl scouts that can be fillibustered requires a 60 vote cloture motion to pass. Can you imagine the outcry this would have caused if Democrats tried this in 2003? You can call it the Senate Republicans simply being more ruthless than the Democrats; I prefer the more accurate term of being out and out bastards.

2) A handful of conservative Democrats who used the rule of 60 to scuttle the process. Some for electoral pressures (Lincoln, Landreau), one for convictions on abortion (Nelson), and one who just wants to stick it to the Democrats out of spite despite pushing for universal health insurance only months ago (Lieberman).

Obama doesn't have a magic wand. Give him two more progressive Democratic senators to replace Lieberman or Nelson (or--better still--any single Republican) and you get a public option.

Want the public option? Don't blame Obama--save your ire for Mitch McConnell and Leiberman who truly deserve it.

That reeks of antisemitism, perhaps in reference to his Jewish wife.

Well, it is from Libertas....