October 20, 2009

10/20: Can Reid Ignore Burris?

Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) hasn't been in the news much lately, but he got the attention of liberal bloggers yesterday when he told the AP that he "would not support a [health care] bill that does not have a public option." On the one hand, lefty bloggers were clearly intrigued by the possibility of Burris pressuring Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to include a public option in the merged bill. On the other hand, lefty bloggers don't expect Reid to take Burris's threat seriously until the IL senator actually comes out and threatens to vote against cloture for a bill that doesn't include a public option. As Joan McCarter explains: "If Burris really wants to be relevant to this debate, he needs to take a page from his progressive colleagues in the House, who've drawn their bright line -- no public option, no vote."

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Sudbay, Wheeler) are buzzing about today's New York Times article alleging that one of ex-U.S. atty Chris Christie's (R) former aides used her U.S. atty's office to assist his campaign. Other lefty bloggers (Singiser, Singer) are promoting an '07 video of Christie discussing his support of George W. Bush. Conservative bloggers still argue that Christie is likely to defeat NJ Gov. Jon Corzine (D).
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Erickson, Johnson, Reynolds, Macomber, Geraghty) are mocking NY-23 candidate Dede Scozzafava (R) for calling the police on Weekly Standard blogger John McCormack after he pressed her to answer several questions following a campaign event. Meanwhile, righty bloggers (Erickson, Ruffini) continue to rally behind Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman.
• Liberal bloggers (Greenwald, Drum, Cole, Dayen, Black) are praising the Obama admin.'s new legal guidelines regarding medical marijuana. Several conservative bloggers (Reynolds, Adler, Morrissey) are also offering qualified praise for the new guidelines, although others (Lawler, Smith) are more critical.
• Conservative bloggers (Johnson, Hanson, Vadum) continue to criticize WH comm. dir. Anita Dunn for citing ex-Chinese leader Mao Zedong as one of her "favorite political philosophers."

HEALTH CARE REFORM: It's All About Cloture

Liberal bloggers weren't too impressed by Burris's threat to vote against a health care bill that doesn't include a public option:

• Daily Kos' mcjoan: "If Burris really wants to be relevant to this debate, he needs to take a page from his progressive colleagues in the House, who've drawn their bright line -- no public option, no vote. He needs to recruit a dozen of his 30 colleagues who've demanded a public option in the final bill to stand with him."
• Firedoglake's Jon Walker: "The important question is what does Burris mean by his support? Harry Reid does not need Burris's vote to pass a bill without a public option as long as Burris still votes for cloture. Reid would need Burris's vote for cloture unless he can convince [ME Sen. Olympia] Snowe to vote with the other 59 members of the Democratic caucus to end a filibuster. If Burris is willing hold firm to a refusal to vote for cloture unless the bill contains a public option, he could really affect the final outcome. If he is only going to withhold his vote for final passage, but not for cloture, Burris is just talking tough and blowing smoke. So far, Burris has not yet made his exact position clear."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "[O]ne Democratic Senator opposing any health care reform bill without a public option is not enough to defeat any such bill, even in the 60-vote culture of the Senate. Given that President Snowe is still dangling the prospect of her support before the Democratic leadership, it would take two Senators (and, given [ME Sen.] Susan Collins, arguably three) for this to be an effective block. So, Roland Burris isn't enough, but if he were joined by another (hopefully more credible) Senator, then maybe we would really have something."

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers (McCarter, Klein, Sudbay, Benen, Walker, publius) are buzzing about the new Washington Post-ABC News poll showing that "support for a government-run health-care plan to compete with private insurers...wins clear majority support from the public." Most conservative bloggers are ignoring the poll, although some are complaining about the way that the pollsters phrased the public option question.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Promoting Electability At The Expense Of Ideology

The Next Right's Patrick Ruffini criticizes the recent endorsements by the NRSC and NRCC:

"...Naturally, the national party is going to go for the 'W' wherever it can in order to bolster its number of seats. And if this were the only thing that mattered, electability alone would be king. The problem, as we are finding out in the health care debate, is that it's not enough to have 60 Democrats to break a filibuster, or 41 Republicans to sustain one. How your members vote in that process matters to the outcome. In deciding which candidates to support, the national party committees -- not just activists -- should be looking at whether the candidates are likely to support leadership on key floor votes. If [ex-FL House Speaker Marco] Rubio is just 10 or 15 percent better than [FL Gov. Charlie] Crist on key votes, Crist's electability advantage is nullified from the perspective of Leader [Mitch] McConnell and the Senate Republican Conference. [...]

The same would go in California. [Ex-HP CEO] Carly Fiorina does not have a particularly strong electability advantage over [Assemb.] Chuck DeVore, and her celebrity CEO past renders her vulnerable to rookie mistakes and greater scrutiny of her private sector activities. It would be one thing for the NRSC to support Fiorina if she were polling 10 to 15 points better than DeVore against [Sen. Barbara] Boxer, but she's not.

In deciding whether to support conservatives like [NY-23 candidate Doug] Hoffman, Rubio, and DeVore, there is a reasonable middle ground between craven winnerism and a kamikaze strategy that ignores electability. The committees should factor in adherence to core Republican principles (in addition to electability) because the job of a political party is not just to win elections, but to win votes on the floor. And though the impact of an errant member is much less in the House than it is in the Senate, Scozzafava's not-so-veiled threats to switch parties if she isn't treated nicely should render her completely unacceptable to [RNC Chair] Michael Steele and [NRCC Chair] Pete Sessions, who should make it clear that they won't be blackmailed."

LEST WE FORGET: Mayan Calendar Warns Of Cataclysmic Roland Emmerich Film On Nov. 13

From The Onion:

"CHICHÉN ITZÁ, MEXICO -- Scholars of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar warned Monday that, according to ancient Mayan calculations, a devastating film by German director Roland Emmerich is set to occur on Nov. 13, 2009. 'On this date, near the end of the 13th baktun cycle, when the sun will converge with the centerline of the Milky Way, we will see the release of an overblown ensemble epic by the man responsible for Godzilla and 10,000 BC that could very well end John Cusack's career as we know it,' said Thomas Haney, an independent researcher specializing in pre-Columbian cosmology. 'At this point, all we can do is hope and pray that the high priests were wrong and the running time is less than 143 minutes.' Hastening fears of an unstoppable late-fall disaster has been the discovery of a tablet depicting Mayan king Pacal storming out of a Loews cinema in disgust."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at October 20, 2009 12:30 PM