I’ve been trying to figure out why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (likely following orders handed down from the White House) was so determined to hold a vote on a bill to increase government control over one-sixth of our economy the week after her party suffered its worst shellacking at the polls since President George W. Bush’s in election in 2004. And that year, that good, but flawed Republican, didn’t win New Jersey, Pennsylvania or New York’s Westchester County as did his fellow partisans last week.
Not just that, his margin in the Old Dominion was ten points lower than that of the victorious Republican gubernatorial candidate last week. Voters didn’t just turn against the Democrats; if polls are any indication, people are turning, in increasing numbers against the Obama/Pelosi health care plan:
The Ipsos-McClatchy poll taken at the end of October showed a 15-point drop in support for the plan among independents over the course of last month. That helped drive down overall support for the health bill to 42 percent versus 52 percent against.
So, why did she do it? Perhaps the bill’s narrow passage is, as Ed Morrissey speculates “the high-water mark for ObamaCare.” If Democrats didn’t push it now, the bill would stand even less chance of passage.
Or maybe it’s more than that. Maybe Democrats really do see last week’s election as purely local affairs and think that polling trends show increasing opposition to big government are blips on the radar screen, a temporary reaction to a down economy.
But, I think it’s the Democratic mindset, that of both Mrs. Pelosi and the supposedly post-partisan president. As his far White House staff reveals, this guy is the most partisan figure to occupy the Oval Office at least since Nixon. They really do want to fundamentally transform America, regardless what the polls say and the people feel.
I don’t think I would go with shellacking at the polls, considering they did win two house races that added to their majorities in the House and those seats were pivotal in passing the bill.
I still think local issues played a big role in Jersey, when the issues of Property Taxes and Corruption combined drew more voters than Jobs. That would say to me that those issues were what drew most people to the polls, and those are local issues. Christie won the election cause he won those voters by such big margins.
But I agree, timing in politics is everything. They at least now have a bill passed, even though this will not be the final version. They had a better window to pass it before the elections when the polls seem to be shifting in their favor, guess about a month ago. She did say they would get it passed this weekend, after she said that…it would be a big blow if they didn’t.
do you really think the process has been un-democratic? i find that to be an astonishing statement, since you are essentially suggesting that the national health care debate should be altered in response to a smattering of local elections and 2 governor’s races in which most of the american people were not even eligible to vote. by what standard is it more democratic to allow the outcomes of last week’s election–which were also characterized by depressed turnout– determine the outcome of health care reform?
You see, to Democrats, blocking all debate, breaking all your promises, preventing the American people from reading the bill, not even allowing Republicans to meet amongst themselves, dictating how Americans get health care with imprisonment for those who object, seizing industry, seizing power over the people, trying to silence opposition…to Democrats these things all ARE “democratic”.
To everyone else they are fascist.
But then Hugo Chavez claims Venezuela is a democracy.
uh oh, filter.
Funny, Nancy Pelosi shrieked before that it was undemocratic and an “outrage” not to give people three days to read bills.
But I guess she knows that, with a party full of people like chad who defend and endorse everything the Obama Party does, she doesn’t have to tell the truth, be consistent, or follow her own rules.
Tell us, chad; do Obama Party members like you really have any principles at all? Or do you justify everything as long as the Black Messiah does it? Tell us now, because we’d like to know if you’re going to stop at the Constitution, or if you’re going to ignore that because Obama’s skin color trumps it.
Memo for Obama, Reid, and Pelosi and the Bolshevik wing of the Democratic Party:
Pushback on the healthcare is going to be a motherf***er. Oh yeah.
NDT,
Of course they wont stop at the constitution. Like Obama made clear in his remarks on NPR, leftys loathe the constitution. The only constitutionally protected rights they arent ready, willing and eager to trample are the ones that dont exist like the “right” to abortion, and the “right” to gay marriage.
I’m in NJ and was one of the exit poll respondents who said that corruption was part of the reason for my vote. If the poll would have asked a follow up question, my answer would have been, that the corruption in NJ and in the Obama Administration was a big consideration for me. I did also say that a part of my vote for Christie was a statement about the Obama Administration. Those things were true, even though I knew I would vote for Christie before he announced that he would run. Gov. Corzine was the pre-Obama: a man who lied his way into office and then started grabbing money from the taxpayers every way he could.
Except grabbing money is not Obama’s primary concern — everything he and the Democrats have done has been about grabbing and cementing power. Making as many people dependent on them as possible, and buying the ones who arent.