The strange alliance between hard left San Fran Nan and the Chicago gang headquartered in the White House is pushing hard on first and second term Members of Congress to not only vote for a half trillion in Medicare cuts, the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase and Gator Aid, but to do so while suspending the Constitution in the belief that voters are too stupid to notice.
This is political mass suicide.
As noted in yesterday's column, this vote will not only sear scores of Democrats from swing districts, it will also cripple the Democratic Party for years to come, leaving it responsible for every failure of the suddenly top-down driven American health care system. As the Medicare cuts roll out, Medicare Advantage disappears, doctors refuse patients and the tax burden pushes millions from employees with health care into independent contractor status and looking through the so-called exchanges for plans that include the doctors they used to see, every single complaint, grievance and system failure will rightfully lay against the Democrats.
Many of them won't survive the fall campaign to hear them. Take Ohio's John Boccieri for example. The Canton Democrat is allegedly pro-life, but the Senate bill subsidizes abortion and eliminated the House bills provisions concerning freedom of conscience for providers. Boccieri refused to show up for the underwhelmingly attended rally led by the president in Ohio yesterday, but House Whip James Clyburn said that Boccieri, a "no" vote in the fall, will be switching over to vote yes now --demonstrating not only that he's easily pushed around by San Fran Nan, but that his first vote wasn't an honest one but designed for cover.
Unless Clyburn is spinning, that is, attempting to get Boccieri stampeded into voting yes. If Boccieri is reading his e-mail, he got this one which I was copied on:
Dear Congressman Boccieri, I have a 1976 Jeep CJ-7 gathering dust in my garage. I hear you are going to change your vote on health care and vote to approve the cram-down using this sham reconciliation scheme. If you vote for Obamacare, my Jeep is going on Craig's List and proceeds will go to whoever your opponent will be in November's general election. Whatever the President promised you if you loose in November, a job in the administration, the ambassadorship to Norway, that will be the price your constituency will know you were paid. A bought and paid for man in the service of a one term President.
Don't do it, don't sell out.
That was from a Los Angeles area resident, and it drives home that the 2010 House races are already nationalized, just as Scott Brown's race was. Democrats and their allies are telling their embattled "moderate" members that the pressure will relax after the president signs the nightmare bill passed by sleight-of-hand, that voters will forget, that the story will change, but that is absurd --it
is health care the Dems are fooling around with for political purposes. A family encounters the health system almost every week, and often every day for extended periods of time. Each "touch" of the system ahead will be a remembrance that Democrats rolled the dice and broke the best system in the world. When the final tally shows up, every "yes" vote goes on a permanent post on every blog and the ReverseTheVote.org website gets redone to target voter fury equally at the vulnerable Democrats who provided the margin for San Fran Nan. The issue sweeps out dozens of incumbent Democrats in the fall, but it lives on to burden redistricted House members and every senator up in 2012. It is a lousy bill, a poisoning of our health care system, and Democrats are fighting to the last man standing to pass it --a fact that will never be forgotten by anyone watching right now.
"There goes John Boccieri," someone will be saying at a Canton Timken football game a couple of years out. "He used to be a congressman until he got used by Nancy Pelosi and voted for the Cornhusker kickback and to screw the old folks."
The same will be said about scores of Democrats like James Oberstar who lost their spine and their pro-life camouflage when push came to shove. Rarely has voter intensity been at this level, and the opponents far overshadow the Democratic operatives pushing for a yes vote. This sort of conflict is going to "die down?" The furious opposition will simply get very cold and very determined. The Boccieris have to realize that if they are thinking about this at all.
There are some signs that the Pelosi push is having trouble reaching 216 --
read to the middle of this Politico piece where Demcorats Driehaus, Carney and Costello are signalling "no" votes-- but the union brass knuckles are coming out, and the nutroots are threatening primary challenges etc, even though the idea of a serious primary challenge with this little time over this issue is laughable.
What matters most for the next six days is that the center and the right in the country continue to pound home their intense opposition and their commitment to carry that opposition into November, directed in campaign contributions and volunteer GOTV against the Democrats who vote for this terrible bill passed through trickery.
Here are the Democrats I am urging you contact personally after you hit the
"Say No To Obamacare" button in the top corner of the website. Call their district offices if you cannot get through to the D.C. numbers. Star with John Boccieri.
Boccieri's likely opponent is
Jim Renacci. Before you call or email Boccieri,
make a $25 or $50 contribution to Renacci via his website, and then be sure to tell Boccieri's staff that you did so and there's more where that came from if Boccieri changes his vote and supports Pelosi's assault on the Constitution, seniors, and the health care system.
Boccieri's numbers:
(800) 826-9015
D.C.: (202) 225-3876
Canton: (330) 489-4414