I’m not sure what you’re hoping for. Are you hoping for Brown to win and derail health care? (I can’t say that I am, though in other respects I like him more than Coakley)

Or are you saying you’re hoping for Brown to win, then win-over the democrats towards revising the bill and then win over some republicans to support this new and better bill? That prospect, ideal as it might be, would never happen.

BTW, my name is spelled GuardiAno — as in “Guardian angel,” but with an “O” at the end. (No offense taken. It’s an easy enough name to mess up!)

Regards,
John

At first Congressman Kennedy might be a great candidate based solely on his family heritage and prior seat in political office —- until he was actually in the race, let alone nominated.

Then his low intelligence, bullying personality, extremely ugly divorce (with special treatment by a possibly corrupt Church hierarchy), poor judgment (injuring his own son through clumsy play with illegal fireworks), and being a stooge of extremist and anti-American Marxist dictator Hugo Chavez would all come out.

Is his last bid for statewide office, way back in 1998, he had to withdraw because of these issues (well the Chavez thing came later). He couldn’t even secure the Democratic nomination!

According to a survey cited by the Washington Post, “One question asked Democratic voters which [Democratic] candidate is “solid, smart and uses common sense.” [Kennedy's Democratic rival] Harshbarger got a 72 percent positive response; Kennedy got 24 percent.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/keyraces98/stories/ma082997.htm

Devastating, and career-ending. How on Earth could Guardino post an article criticizing Coakley as being ill-informed, and in the same piece praise Kennedy?

I never claimed that Obama wasn’t ideological. Complete faith in pure market-oriented solutions is also ideological.

His ideology is that America should be moving towards universal coverage. We aren’t going to get there under a purely market-oriented solution. At least be honest about YOUR ideology – that universal coverage should not something that government takes responsibility for.

You do realize that Teddy Kennedy last summer passed out of his Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee a bill that didn’t get one Republican vote?

Yes, Teddy Kennedy would have loved for Republicans to have joined in a bi-partisan way to pass his bill – that would have included a public option, along with eliminating recissions, mandating coverage of pre-existing conditions, and expanding coverage. But he wasn’t going to wait for them.

Bi-partisan support is a macguffin.

The republicans have made it completely clear that they aren’t interested in any health care reform. Their base has made it clear that they don’t want the republicans to be bi-partisan. If the democrats want to pass health care reform, they have to do so sooner rather than later because of the 2010 elections. They aren’t about to backtrack the process to try to get votes which aren’t going to come anyway.

Thanks for the response, John.

That’s what Teddy would have wanted; and that’s what the people likely will get with Scott Brown in the Senate. Or at least that’s much more likely if Congress is forced to start over.

Regards,
John

Perhaps… were it not for Brown’s promise to block the health care bill. Given that, its a ridiculous assertion.