Health-Care Reform Celebrations A Go Across the Country
March 25th, 2010Local Supporters to Party in Downtown Birmingham
With the final vote on health-care reform reconcilation behind us in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, the local schedule for a Health Reform Celebration in downtown Birmingham and other cities across America are on track.
There will be a party Friday night, March 26, from 5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., in the Harambe Room at 1813 4th Avenue North, according to a press release passed over the Internet for the event.
“After months and months of hard work and dedication, we now have Health Reform in America,” said Leanne Townsend, director of Organizing For America in Birmingham. “It is time to celebrate!”
Interested supporters are being asked to gather with Organizing For America volunteers, old and new, from across the area “to reflect on the past year and discuss the future.”
Some food and drinks will be provided, and you can bring your own beverage of preference.
The release concludes: “This is a party!”
This sounds like my kind of party. Like I always say, the party that throws the best party wins, in more ways than one!
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March 25th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
HealthCare Reform in America was long overdue and this is just the beginning of change!
The billions of profit industry of health insurance has skimmed the cream from payments due to their insured peoples medical needs for too long! They watched many die instead of paying. Shame, shame, shame!!!!
Now let’s celebrate the stop to this!
March 25th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
I did type a comment. What else do you want?
March 25th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
I wonder if Organizing for America is now, in effect, a new Democratic Party, or has effectively replaced the Democratic Party. The DNC, like its counterpart the RNC, is a top heavy bureaucratic organization managed by professional political operatives in DC, and heavily influenced by its national elected elite, i.e., members of Congress.
The successor to Obama for America, it seems that OFA has all the characteristics of political parties as they were organized 100 years ago and earlier. Most important among those characteristics are a pervasive grassroots base and effective, fast intragroup communications — thanks to the Internet.
And I also wonder if the people who will learn the lesson being given by OFA most thoroughly will be Democrats or Republicans. The latter took over the political agenda in the 1980s and 1990s due in no small part to mastering the techniques needed to win elections in the environment of that time.
The Republicans had been counted out of the political future by pundits following both the Goldwater debacle in 1964 and after Watergate. But the Democrats, as they have shown a recurring tendency to do, got complacent, and the rightwing of the Republican party got busy with organizing and fundraising.
Another take on this is that OFA could be the wave of the future: ad hoc “political parties” that form, win elections, and achieve policy goals, fade and then are replaced by new ad hoc political parties as the civic landscape changes.
Even though that would make for a confusing, and perhaps continually-contentious, public space, it would at least be a change from the duopoly bureaucratic DNC and RNC organizations dominating the political landscape.
March 25th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
A video camera : )
March 26th, 2010 at 6:11 am
It was a lot of fun watching these idiotic Republicans “warning” the Democrats that the passage of health care reform will cost them dearly at the polls in November.
“OH, PLEASE DON’T THROW ME IN THAT BRIAR PATCH, BRER BEAR!!”
It’s going to cost someone dearly, alright, but it won’t be the Dems. Former Bush 43 speechwriter Davin Frum put it perfectly yesterday when he said that it was the Republicans – not Barack Obama – who had met their “Waterloo”. The historical rule of politics, that an incumbent president’s party always loses ground in the midterm elections, will go out the window come November. They will be unable to win without the help of the moderates. At this moment the moderates are abandoning this sinking ship en masse. The extremism of people like Michele Bachmann and John Beohner is starting to scare the hell out of them. Gee, I wonder why!
Then there is the sticky situation of the Tea Party. By this late point it must be obvious to even the casual observer that this is an organization comprised of morons. It was formed as a protest movement against high taxes – immediately after President Obama passed the largest middle class tax cut in American history. There’s no denying it, these are not the brightest people on the planet. Their overt racism notwithstanding, they sure are funny! One self identified Tea Partier called into C-SPAN’s Washington Journal the other day asking the moderator where she could write to her congressman. When host Greta Brawner asked this idiotic woman what her congressman’s name was, she replied (I assume with a straight face) “He’s a Democrat. I don’t know his name.” Ya gotta love ‘em! Ya just gotta!
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
March 26th, 2010 at 9:43 am
I take exception to Tom Degan’s prediction that it’s a foregone conclusion the Democrats will win — meaning hold onto their majorities or increase them — in November.
If the election were held tomorrow, the answer would be yes, that’s what will happen. But it’s months away, and the Democrats will not have Obama at the top of the ticket.
If turnout is low, which often happens in mid-terms, and the Republicans do a superior job of getting out the vote, then the Democrats could be in for some nasty surprises come November. Please note I said “could be,” because there is now the additional factor of Organizing for America, the successor to Obama for America.
OFA could make the difference if it gears up and turns out its base in swing districts and states. So it may come down to who can turn out their base, and then who will attract enough independents.
Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat for a number of reasons having nothing to do with politics in Washington, including, ironically enough, the anti-aristocratic sentiment that no Senate seat should “belong” to a particular party or group of people.
Local factors like that always figure into congressional elections, producing surprise victories that national pundits and pollsters miss.
Ben Erdreich, a fairly liberal Democrat, represented the old 6th Congressional district here for many years, never seriously challenged for re-election until he was essentially re-districted out of a seat. He got into office because Albert Lee Smith, a far right Republican, unseated longtime Congressman John Buchanan in a GOP primary, then went on to one very unremarkable term in the House.
Erdreich, better-known and much better liked by Jeffco votes, easily unseated Smith two years later, despite Erdreich’s politics being center to slightly left-of-center.
Similarly, Don Siegelman became governor because he had spent years building a political-ally network around the state, had held statewide office for many years, and seemed overall much more competent and accessible than Republicans.
Brown probably falls into the same category as Erdreich and Siegelman, and there are likely many like him, both Democrats and Republicans, across the country. Part of the November results may well hinge on who is running in a given district or state — independents are more likely to vote based on perceived competence and accessibility than on ideology.
If the US were a parliamentary democracy like the UK or Canada, now would be the time for Obama to call a snap election and capitalize on the momentum. But we all have to wait, and additionally there are highly local factors, as noted, that will play in our elections to a far greater extent than they do in the UK or other parliamentary democracies.
Bottom line is that it’s way too soon to confidently predict victory for the Democrats in November. But if they are smart, they will be working hard every day from here on out. You can bet the Republicans are.