Yep – blame people like Max Baucus for thinking that if they took enough time on working directly with Republicans, they might actually find some level of bipartisan consensus. It seems that Dems have to discover over and over that Republicans have taken to heart Grover Norquist’s adage – “Bipartisanship is another name for date rape.”

Medicare? The Dems didn’t have 60 Democratic votes for Medicare, either. They only had 57, with 7 Dems opposed. However, 13 of 32 Republican senators voted in favor of passing Medicare. It was a different day. Although it’s worth noting that it wasn’t until 4+ years after Kennedy proposed Medicare that the bill finally passed.

Blanche Lincoln? Recent polling indicates that 55% of Arkansans favor a public option – 38% oppose it. In fact, 22% of Arkansas Republicans favor the public option (along with 56% of independents).

If Blanche Lincoln is worrying about the 2010 election, she’s worrying more about who’s going to fill her campaign coffers than what her constituency really wants.

Republicans might be winning the battle over healthcare reform right now with their exaggerations and fear-mongering

Oh, brother.

The Dems have a 60 vote, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. If the Dems had their act together, they could railroad anything through the Congress they wished. That they have not done so is the fault of the Dem Party and the Dem leadership. (Did LBJ have this problem with Medicare and Medicaid?)

Even liberal blogs like DailyKOS and FireDogLake are saying that now. (Go there and see for yourself)

The real reason why the Dems can’t get their act together is that in the Senate, all states have equal weight. And moderate and conservative states don’t want to pass a Pelosi-style liberal health care bill.

The Dems, in their pursuit of power, ran center-right Dems candidates in conservative districts and states. It worked. Enough center-right Dems won to give the Dems a big majority in Congress. But now the shoe is on the other foot. Their conservative constituents of these center-right Dem politicians are demanding that these Dem representatives and senators represent THEM, not the liberals of San Francisco. These voters are demanding that their new Dem representatives and senators really act center-right.

For example, Blanche Lincoln is in a very tough fight for re-election in Arkansas. To fend off a strong GOP challenger in 2010, she has had to move further and further to the right.

http://www.politico.com/livepulse/1009/Facing_tough_reelection_Lincoln_sides_with_GOP.html

Wilson was censured for breaking the rules of the House, pure and simple.

If you don’t get that, you’re simple, but not pure.

Spot on.

I watched the entire blip on CNN and Castellanos looked shocked; sputtered something about tort reform and transferable insurance across state lines, etc… He had no effective retort except they all jumped on Grayson because he smeared and tarred all Republicans with some strong analogy. Well, someone has got to say it! Because from what I’ve been hearing and listening and reading, Grayson about sums it up for the Republicans stance.

And to which Grayson kept coming back to the main argument- that thousands of Americans are *dying* from lack of affordable healthcare, and the Republicans are doing nothing but obstruct. Do they care? No.

Of course as you so aptly pointed out, the Republicans have been smearing and tarring with their ‘Obama is going to kill Grandma’ meme for months now and your examples above are simple testament to their ability to dish it out but can’t take it.

I hear Grayson now has a following. Why? Because thousands are deeply chagrined about the state of healthcare costs, directly impacting them and their families, and because to most Democrats – the idea that Americans would *die* in this country from something like this is too appalling to behold.

Republicans might be winning the battle over healthcare reform right now with their exaggerations and fear-mongering, but the ultimate war will not be won. Americans ARE paying attention, and one thing’s for sure – it is not the GOP who has taken the reins here on this serious issue, no way, no how. And come 2012, the ads will remind the voters just who cared enough to work hard at it – and who didn’t.

Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) “(the public health insurance option is) gonna kill people.”

No? Then how about this.

Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.) in July: “Last week, Democrats released a health care bill which essentially said to America’s seniors: drop dead.”

As I said – Grayson is just driving 60 in the 55 zone, and the Republicans speeding past him are whining that the cops aren’t giving him a ticket.

And you blinkers are too tight.