Love to Hate: Democrats drive skepticism of health care reform

November 11, 2009 8:22 AM

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

Why ask a Republican when you can ask a Democrat?

Start with, say, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who listened to former President Bill Clinton say inaction is the "worst thing we can do" and then said he wouldn't mind inaction one bit if the alternative is the House-passed health care bill:

"It's got a totally government run plan, the costs are extraordinary associated with it, it increases taxes in a way that will not pass in the Senate, and I could go on and on and on," Nelson told ABC's Jonathan Karl, in his latest "Subway Series" interview. ("I won't vote to move it," Nelson said.)

Move to Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., who voted for that same bill but doesn't sound like she'd make the same vote on final passage:

"Has Congress become like an episode of Mad Men? The Stupak Amendment slams women back to a time of stenographs and unsafe abortions," Sanchez writes in a Politico op-ed.

Add Diana DeGette, D-Colo., who's among those threatening to help sink the health care bill if it still has the abortion provision worked in at the insistence of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops:

"Every group should be listened to, but I don't think one group should be given veto authority over what we do," DeGette tells the AP's Julie Hirschfeld Davis.

Then choose a liberal activist or three, who are making noises about primary challenges against Democrats who vote against health care:

"It was kind of like a slap in the face from someone you'd expect to be a friend," Tony Fransetta, president of the Florida chapter of the Alliance for Retired Americans, said of Rep. Suzanne Kosmas, D-Fla, per Politico's Alex Isenstadt.

Health care was supposed to energize the base -- and by that measure, maybe it succeeded beyond anyone's expectations.

Reform efforts are back in one of those limbo states, now that the House has voted and the Senate awaits word on what an actual bill would actually cost.

These have been dangerous times for reform efforts in the past, since they opened the news cycle up for introspection and recriminations. This one's no different -- and addition still looks like subtraction for the vote counters.

"Yes and yes," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said when asked whether the bill would be on the floor next week and be finished by Christmas. (Except the answer really might be "no and no.")

Has hope changed sides? Yes -- that's a GOP lead on the generic ballot:

"Republicans have moved ahead of Democrats by 48% to 44% among registered voters in the latest update on Gallup's generic congressional ballot for the 2010 House elections, after trailing by six points in July and two points last month," Jeffrey M. Jones reports in his Gallup Poll write-up. "In the latest poll, independent registered voters favor the Republican candidate by 52% to 30%."

Cue the Big Dog: "The worst thing we can do is nothing," Bill Clinton said he told Senate Democrats Tuesday. (Think of the implications of taking that sentence literally.)

From one who knows -- and who knows what it's like to be a red-state Democrat: "It's not important to be perfect here. It's important to act, to move, to start the ball rolling," the former president told reporters after his meeting with the Democratic caucus, per The Washington Post's Shailagh Murray. "There will be amendments to this effort, whatever they pass, next year and the year after and the year after, and there should be. It's a big, complicated, organic thing."

On why the anger's out there, Clinton's argument, according to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.: "The reason the teabaggers are so inflamed is because we are close on health care," Whitehouse said, per ABC's Z. Byron Wolf.

"The appearance by Mr. Clinton, whose own attempt at a health bill failed 15 years ago, reflected the urgency Democrats feel to maintain the momentum behind the bill following its narrow House passage Saturday and signs of a tempestuous debate ahead in the Senate," The Wall Street Journal's Naftali Bendavid and Janet Adamy report.

(And Time's Karen Tumulty solves a mystery: "A source close to Bill Clinton confirms that the cellphone call he received while talking to reporters in the Capitol was indeed from the Secretary of State. However, he informs us that the intriguing ringtone we heard this afternoon was a generic jazz one, which the former President picked because, well, he just likes jazz.)

Bring in the funk: "The latest Associated Press-GfK poll shows that Americans grew slightly more dispirited on a range of matters over the past month, continuing slippage that has occurred since Obama took office as the year began," per the AP's Liz Sidoti.

"They were more pessimistic about the direction of the country. They disapproved of Obama's handling of the economy a bit more than before. And, perhaps most striking for this novice commander in chief, more people have lost confidence in Obama on Iraq and Afghanistan over the last month. Overall, there's a public malaise about the state of the nation."

Harry Reid's other headache: "Republicans in New Jersey and Virginia didn't just benefit from a decrease in the so-called Obama ‘surge' voter turnout. They also did better among groups that went for Obama in 2008," Amy Walter writes for National Journal. "What happens if similar patterns emerge in '10, namely a decrease in the percentage of Democratic-leaning voters as well as a narrowing of the margin of victory among groups that were key to Obama's victory?"

Ready for another round of this? "Republicans are looking to resurrect the angry town halls of August in the last few weeks of November," Manu Raju writes for Politico. "Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander said Republicans are ‘quietly' planning some 50 in-person and telephone town hall gatherings over the next three weeks to drum up opposition to Democratic health care bills."

Your White House day: The president and first lady, joined by the Bidens, host a Veterans Day breakfast in the White House East Room. Then it's on to Arlington National Cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns at 11 am ET, with remarks at 11:25 am.
 
At 2:30 pm ET, the president meets (for the eighth time on the subject) with his national security team on Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the Situation Room.

ABC's Sunlen Miller has details, White House photos, and attendee lists from all eight meetings.

Look for an Afghanistan decision to be announced the week before or the week after Thanksgiving, ABC's George Stephanopoulos reported on "Good Morning America" Wednesday.

Four options on the table -- with a low end of 10-20,000 troops, to a high end in line with the McChrystal recommendation.

Today's they're talking exit ramps: "The president wants to press his advisers today for a clearer understanding of the American bridge out of Afghanistan," Stephanopoulos reported. "He's still not satisfied by what he's heard about how this message ends."

The Wall Street Journal's Peter Spiegel and Yochi Dreazen: "President Barack Obama on Wednesday will consider a new compromise plan for adding troops to Afghanistan that would deploy 30,000 to 35,000 new forces, including as many as 10,000 military trainers, over the next year or more. The new scenario combines reinforcements for fighting Taliban insurgents with trainers aimed at rapidly increasing the size and capabilities of Afghan troops to take on more operations themselves. It wouldn't aim to eliminate the Taliban, but weaken it until Afghan forces can secure major population centers themselves."

Can the president count on Democrats in Congress to back him up? "I think that there is a great deal of reluctance to committing any more combat troops in Afghanistan," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said on ABCNews.com's "Top Line" Tuesday. "I think most members of the Democratic caucus believe it's up to the Afghans to take responsibility for the internal security within their own country -- that we should be focusing on the war against terror, against the terrorists organizations, most of which are now in the Pakistan area, not Afghanistan."

Fort Hood fallout: "Two high-profile anti-terrorism task forces did not inform the Defense Department about contacts between a radical Islamic cleric and the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in last week's rampage at Ft. Hood, a senior Defense official said Tuesday," the Los Angeles Times' Julian E. Barnes and Josh Meyer report. "The possible communication lapse recalls the kind of breakdowns of intelligence-sharing that plagued U.S. agencies leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks. However, it is striking because the interagency task forces were created in large part to make sure information is more easily and routinely shared."

"As the nation mourned the 13 people shot dead last week at Fort Hood, Tex., finger-pointing in Washington intensified Tuesday about whether officials at several agencies had failed to coordinate as they tracked the suspect's activities or to react to possible warning signs in the months before the attack," Carrie Johnson and Spencer S. Hsu report in The Washington Post.

A New York Daily News headline the White House has got to like: "Obama to feds, Army: What did you know about Fort Hood killer and when did you know it?

Also making it a really interesting day at the Pentagon: "Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials," Mark Mazzetti and James Risen report for The New York Times.

At the White House, Anita Dunn is moving on, and Dan Pfeiffer is moving up.

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, on the next White House communications director: "Over the summer, the White House's Pfeifferian coolness on health care -- even as the political world was going into a tizzy -- came in for much external criticism. ... Pfeiffer, colleagues say, was among those who regularly counseled his colleagues -- and Democratic allies --- not to panic. He and Dunn pushed to shift the president's focus from cost containment to the concerns of middle class voters who worried that they might lose their insurance or their choice of doctors under the new plan."

More fallout from the abortion provision:

"Once again, a group of mostly white men have decided to put additional burdens and increased difficulties of women -- particularly low-income women," Karen Finney writes at Huffington Post.

"The president has handed us a bill that reverses Roe v. Wade," Terry O'Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women, tells ABC's Jake Tapper.

(O'Neill will appear on ABCNews.com's "Top Line" today, live at noon ET, right after a meeting at the White House.)

Stupak blowback: The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is launching online ads Wednesday (staring with 1 million-plus impressions) blasting Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., for his leadership on the abortion provision in the House bill.

From the others side -- more from Sen. Nelson's interview with Jon Karl: "Federal taxpayer money ought not to be used to fund abortions. ... So whether it is subsidies on premiums or whether it is tax credits or whatever it is ... it should not be used to fund abortions."

In the Massachusetts Senate race -- closing an opening? "US Representative Michael E. Capuano, in a significant departure from his forceful rhetoric a day earlier, said yesterday that he would vote against a final health care bill if it includes a provision restricting federal funding for abortion," The Boston Globe's Matt Viser reports.

"If the bill comes back the same way as it left the House, I would vote against it,'' Capuano said in an interview. "I am a prochoice person, and I do believe this is [necessary] to provide health care for everyone.''

Next up on financial regulator reform: Senate Democratic Policy Committee has a Thursday meeting set up for staff -- to review polling on the subject. From the e-mail out to Democratic Hill staffers:"Please join us for a review of recent public opinion polling and recommendations on proposed regulatory reform, featuring discussion of recent polls conducted by: Lake Research Partners for Americans for Financial Reform; Benenson Strategy Group for the Service Employees International Union."

From the annals of stimulus spin: "While Massachusetts recipients of federal stimulus money collectively report 12,374 jobs saved or created, a Globe review shows that number is wildly exaggerated. Organizations that received stimulus money miscounted jobs, filed erroneous figures, or claimed jobs for work that has not yet started," Jenn Abelson and Todd Wallack report in The Boston Globe.

"The federal stimulus report for Massachusetts has so many errors, missing data, or estimates instead of actual job counts that it may be impossible to accurately tally how many people have been employed by the massive infusion of federal money."

The Kicker:

"Are you from this planet?" -- A Transportation Security Administration screener, caught on an iPhone recording questioning an aide to Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, in an incident that prompted a change in TSA screening policies.

"I don't care what you write." -- Gary Jackson, former Blackwater president, to The New York Times.


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