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So just when Harry Reid starts to look promising, or something, Obama and the vastly overrated Rahm Emanuel are now pushing for the public option "trigger" scheme so as to defer to Her Imperial Highness Olympia Snowe.
To clarify, the White House is preparing to piss away an opportunity to obtain transformational, meaningful health care reform just so they can pretend a bill, any bill, is "bipartisan" for a few news cycles. Yes we can't.
The stream of coverage reporting that Harry Reid has all but decided to include a public option when he takes a health care reform bill to the Senate floor is encouraging, no?
True, it might be just another cycle of ephemeral and irrelevant Beltway media noise (like this) -- speculation about what Reid will or won't include in the bill has been all over the map ever since the task of merging the Finance and HELP bills landed on his desk.
Or as TPM noted when the news began spreading Thursday, the majority leader could be floating a trial balloon designed to see just how much Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and other conservative Democrats freak out.
Meantime, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, the outfit that bought a TV ad and a poll here in Nevada in an attempt to push Reid to include a strong public option, is taking credit for Reid's reported movement in that direction. "The growing sense that it is time for Majority Leader Reid to be strong and lead comes after an intense week of grassroots activism -- and the release of our new poll showing that Reid's political survival in Nevada requires strong leadership on the public option," said PCCC's Stephanie Taylor.
The NYTimes sort of agreed, reporting that Reid's "outlook was shaped, in part by opinion polls showing public support for a government insurance plan," though the Times did not reference PCCC's polling in Nevada specifically, and several national polls have also shown growing support for the public option.
Curiously, neither PCCC nor the nation's paper of record characterized Reid's outlook as a reaction to the relentless, dogged cajoling and needling over several months from a little liberal website in his home state. Nor is any credit given to his ardent supporters in Nevada who behind the scenes have urged Reid not to settle for sham reform.
Oh well. However thankless the task, now is not the time to let up, on either the needling from outside the Reid collective or the encouragement from within.
Details as to what Reid means when he says "public option" are still hazy. And while his defenders say Reid has consistently and repeatedly expressed support for the public option, those expressions of support include but are by no means limited to:
If Harry is headed in the right (which is to say left) direction, well, good on him. But he's a mercurial flibbertigibbet who can -- and likely will -- fold, spindle and mutilate his position a few more times before Obama (who hopefully has decided to finally pull his head out and get in the game, btw) signs something. So the customary temptation to rejoice! over the doings of the Great and Powerful Harry Reid notwithstanding, please excuse your Gleaner for suggesting the dude's just another politician, and you can't trust him any further than you can throw "Willie Horton publicist," Jim Gibbons's sex assault cover-up choreographer and Republicans for Reid figurehead Sig Rogich.
Rory (reid) loves to say that everybody has told him not to take any positions on anything, but he's going to take positions anyway, because goshdarnit that's just the kind of guy he is.
And then of course he proceeds to take no meaningful position on the overwhelming problem that will dominate the administration of whoever is the next governor: a failed fiscal system that can't sustain a state government that is already America's cheapest.
Yes, Rory has proposed a plan to rescue Nevada's economy by painting colorful lines across the country. If the plan reflects Rory's willingness to take tough stands on controversial issues, watch for him to announce that he is "for" education any day now.
Leveling with Nevada voters and talking about taxes -- that's what everybody is actually telling Rory not to do. And he is dutifully not doing it.
But:
By playing coy ... Rory effectively confirms the suspicions of skeptical and cynical voters who are inclined to dismiss him as just another politician who will say anything -- or nothing -- to get elected.
And because of, you know, dad, Rory (reid) can't afford to play it safe. Or so your Gleaner argues in this week's CityLife.
UPDATE: In the same paper, Steve Sebelius has a different view.
Social conservative performance artist and Official State Homophobe Richard Ziser has filed an initiative to outlaw abortion and limit "end-of-life decisions," Ralston reports.
Good. Brian Sandoval, Downy Suekanian and the rest of Nevada's Republican wannabes needed something they could strongly get behind so as to show voters who they really are. Now nobody can say that the GOP is just the party of no! Ziser is giving them something they can be "for."
And nothing makes Nevadans happier than a creepy churchy zealot calling for government control over their bodies and their lives.
The same people who are running the ad asking "Is Harry Reid strong enough" have now asked that question in a poll.
It turns out Nevadans think the answer is no.
The purpose of the poll is to make Reid reject his customary tendency to pander to the right while taking the left for granted and convince him to do all he can to get a strong public option in the Senate health care reform bill.
Not only would that be good policy -- evidently it would be good politics: Nevadans favor "offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan," 54 to 39.
Independents -- that cherished and much-courted group of voters who politicians and their consultants seem to love above all else -- favor the public option by roughly the same margin as the state as a whole -- 55 to 39. Among Democrats, i.e., Reid's base (presumably), support for a public option is overwhelming, 84 to 12.
The poll, conducted by Research 2000 for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, also contains the usual familiar findings -- more people disapprove of Reid then approve of him, and if the election were held today he'd get beat by a dust mop, a potted plant, Sueny Talklowdian, etc.
But it's when the poll asks questions that other pollsters have not that the results get truly brutal for Reid.
Among all Nevadans, 52 percent described him as a weak leader, and only 24 percent said strong. Even among Democrats, 47 percent said weak and 39 percent said strong. Ouch. That's going to leave a mark.
More than half -- 54 percent -- of all those surveyed also said Reid is "ineffective" in the Senate, while 23 percent said he was "effective." Even among Democrats, a soul-crushing 51 percent said ineffective, and only 39 percent said effective.
Asked if Reid should be the Democratic nominee for Senate in 2010 or if it is time for someone new to represent the party, a minority of Democrats -- 38 percent -- agreed that the majority leader of the Untied States Senate should be their party's nominee. Only 13 percent said it is time for someone new, but 49 percent weren't sure.
Among Nevadans with an unfavorable view of Reid, 47 percent think Reid is "too far to the left" while 41 percent think he's "not progressive enough." Among Democrats who view him unfavorably, a whopping 92 percent think he's not progressive enough, and only 6 percent said he is too far to the left.
"The numbers say it all," said PCCC's Adam Green. "If Harry Reid starts acting like a strong leader and passes the public option, he solidifies his standing with Democrats and Independents and has a chance to survive 2010. If he continues to be weak -- refusing to unify the Democratic Caucus behind an up-or-down vote and allowing the public option to be watered down to nothing -- Democratic senators will likely be looking for a new Majority Leader in 2011."
The pollster, Research 2000, is the same outfit that polls for the Reno paper and Daily Kos.
"Remember, Harry is a conservative Democrat from Searchlight."
And so because who knows when if ever such an opportunity will again present itself, let us now note that there is one point upon which His Exalted Highness Steve Wynn and your lowly Gleaner wholeheartedly agree.
A preview of coming attractions on your TV:
“I expect him to vaporize Lowden or Tarkanian or whoever is the opponent,” said a Reid adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss campaign strategy.
The Reid adviser said the campaign’s oppo files on Lowden and Tarkanian are “growing by the day” — and that the only question for the campaign is when to start using them: Wait until the GOP has a nominee, or start tearing the candidates down in advance of the Republican primary.
Oh goodness. Sueny Talklowdian won't have a chance against Reid's Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator.
While finally getting around to reading this item about how getting Harry Reid to keep his mouth shut only cost John Ensign's parents one-tenth as much as it took to (temporarily) silence Cynthia Hampton, your Gleaner stumbled on this item, whereby public support for the public option is going up, up, up. It's a majority, in fact.
The same survey finds that "45 percent of Americans favor the broad outlines of the proposals now moving in Congress, while 48 percent are opposed."
One could parse. But health care polling is asked so many different ways and gets so many different answers, clearly the best thing for Reid and Co. to do is just pass the best, most progressive policy and, you know, see how that works out for them. After all, Democrats have tried everything else over the last 20 years. They might as well try that.
Meantime, inasmuch as Reid only got a fraction as much money as Ensign's mistress, is there a chance that a miffed Reid will put the interest of his constituents ahead of his cherished worship of non-aggression pacts and unflagging fealty to dainty Senate decorum and join the rest of the world in publicly acknowledging that Ensign is a spoiled little self-important shit who can't even fathom the real world inhabited by Nevadans, let alone represent them in the Senate? Think Reid will go there?
Me neither. When Ensigns fly.
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