Last week the left-wing activist group MoveOn announced that it had raised $3.6 million to attack any Democratic senator who does not fully support "health care with a public option." Now, MoveOn is raising money to attack the House Democrats who voted against Obama-PelosiCare.
| Even though it was a part of Pelosi's plan? This is just noise. The reason the Dems had 220 votes is that Pelosi gave a pass to as many of the endangered Blue Dogs as she could. She's not mad at them, she's just calculating. She knew exactly how many votes she had, and she let a few of them 'slip' so they could go home and say they voted 'no', while the bill passes. |
"We won a big victory on health care on Saturday when the House of Representatives passed a bill that includes a public health insurance option," writes MoveOn's political team. "But dozens of conservative Democrats sided with Big Insurance to vote against it."
MoveOn says it is essential to show those conservative Democrats that "voters will make them pay a political price for standing in the way of health care reform." Therefore, MoveOn is "rushing to launch a major new TV ad campaign in the home districts of Democrats who voted against the bill."
| Pelosi already has made that calculation; that's why she let some of the Blue Dogs -- but not too many -- vote no. |
It is important to make an example of the errant Democrats, MoveOn says, "because fence-sitting Democrats in Congress are watching carefully to see what happens to those who oppose real change." If those fence-sitters see there is no price to be paid for opposing health care, that will make it harder to pass a final bill. "So we've got to act quickly and forcefully to demonstrate that any politician who sides with corporate special interests will suffer for it back home."
Even though it has been in high gear for more than a week, MoveOn's campaign against both House and Senate Democrats has so far received little attention in the press -- far less than the attention paid to divisions in the Republican party. |