The Democrats now have the votes. If they don’t use them to get this done, what they risk losing are the independents who joined the election cause to throw out the Republicans in November. A large majority of Americans have wanted national health care for many years. This is as critical for the economy as it is to save those who don’t have insurance.

All the educated people know this. The only ones who don’t are the Republicans who can manipulate the uneducated minority on the right by whipping up fear. This plays into the hands of the insurance and drug lobbies.

Funny, but I checked in on Glenn Beck on Fox the other day, mainly because of the attempt to boycott him, to see what kind of nonsense he was pushing. His litmus test is you must be a “capitalist,” and that to him means, even though he doesn’t use the term, “run amok corporate capitalism.”

He is so uneducated about what American democracy is supposed to be about that it really is pretty scary that he gets paid at all to be on TV. But he gets his audience from the same crowd that elected Bush twice, other uneducated people who like the idea that there are people just like them on TV and in high office.

They really don’t have enough votes by themselves, however, so it takes the corporate greed-heads and the religious right to make them into a majority. It is pretty obvious from what happened in 2008 that some of that crowd decided electing anti-government Republicans to run the government was in the end a bad idea.

That is our hope. If Obama can show them he can run the government, he will be re-elected in an even bigger landslide. The trouble is not Obama, for he is a great salesman. The problem he has is with his staff, the likes of White House Council Greg Craig, Attorney General Eric Holder and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

I had this conversation with JS last night. I predict there will be a fairly quick turn over of Obama’s staff in just a few short months. He had to put an administration together from scratch very quickly, and in fact, there are many positions still not filled. That’s not Obama’s fault. His staff members better start pulling some all nighters and get things done — or they will be gone sooner than they think.

And then there is Dick Cheney, out there yesterday defending the “interrogation techniques” (torture) used at Guantanamo and elsewhere, diverting attention at a critical moment, using the occasion to accuse the Obama administration of politically-motivated investigations and potential prosecutions.

Who says Cheney is not the reincarnation of Machiavelli? If rightists can keep brouhahas going on any and all issues – and the mainstream media is only too happy to oblige, usually – they can stall any meaningful action on anything and possibly everything.

So far, unfortunately for the Obama administration, the rightist strategy seems to be working. Progressives should remember that there was not a sudden, huge ideological shift last fall, as much as they would like to believe that. Rather, it was a typically American election in which those perceived to be incompetent and corrupt (Republicans) were thrown out in favor of those who appeared to have an actionable plan and confidence (Democrats).

If nothing much gets done between now and fall 2010, then there could be a swing back toward Republicans in mid-term congressional elections, and if enough are elected the next two years will be very difficult for the president.

The next month is critical for the administration to regain the initiative.