After the stunning upset in Massachusetts, where the seat of Ted Kennedy went to a far-right Republican in this bluest of states, I’ve been unable to sleep. I’ve been reflecting on how we got here, just a year after the historic election of Barack Obama as our nation’s first black President, and the wave of hope that swept him into office.
In that short year, the Democrats have managed to fritter and dither away everything that we worked so hard to give them during the campaign – the largest mandate for change we’ve seen since the ’60′s, a super majority in the US Senate, and the moral high ground vacated by the Bush Republicans after seven years of war and a destroyed economy.
If we’re to avoid crushing losses in this year’s midterm elections, we need to make sweeping changes, and it has to start in the Senate.
While Nancy Pelosi managed to pass, first in committee and then in the full house, a reasonable health care bill that included a public option, Harry Reid has proven himself inept at managing the Senate. Starting by assigning the bill to multiple committees, he has been incapable of riding herd on the Blue Dog Democrats, and as a result has given away almost everything that made this bill work.
In the meantime, his delays have cost the party dearly, giving the Republicans first the August recess to vilify the bill, and now months to get the final vote they need to try to kill it. Why in the hell has it taken so bloody long to get here?
He’s also accepted the Republicans’ filibusters as the status quo. Never before has EVERY SINGLE BILL needed 60 votes to pass in the Senate. And will someone please tell me why he never FORCED THEM TO ACTUALLY FILIBUSTER? The sight of the Republicans literally talking progress to death would have been a potent symbol in the early days of the administration.
Reid and the White House also coddled Lieberman after this turncoat stabbed us in the back in 2008, campaigning with McCain and saying awful things about then Candidate Obama. He kept his chairmanships, with the promise that he’d support the party line down the road. We all know how well that turned out.
The White House has hardly been blameless here. From Rahm Emanuel’s utter failure to corral votes for the health care bill to President Obama’s continuing insistence on bipartisanship even in the face of universal Republican foot dragging and disdain, it has become clear that this President was unprepared for the vitriol, lies, and gamesmanship of the GOP.
So here we are. We’re heading into the midterm elections with an angry electorate, a health care bill that the left thinks is gutted and the right thinks is socialist propaganda, and a near fatal blow to the Obama agenda.
It’s time to clean house.
Reid has to go. He has proven again and again that he is unfit to lead the Senate Democrats. Whomever takes his place needs to know how to play hard-knucke politics, and needs to remember that Bush got everything done with a much smaller majority than the Democrats still have.
Rahm Emanuel should be replaced with someone who knows how to count and court votes. Obama needs someone who will emulate Bush’s White House and will ask for twice what they want, and settle for half of that. Instead of starting with the Public Option, we should have asked for Nationalized Health Care, and then settled for the Public Option.
And Obama needs to return to his campaign promises. He’s on the verge of losing the progressives in his party because of what at best appears to be benign neglect – choosing banks over blue collars, bigots over the gays, insurance companies over the insured.
In our own little corner of the world, AG Jerry Brown needs to get his ass off the toilet seat and get in the race. Here, like in Massachusetts, the Republican candidates are already out there defining the race, while Brown dithers and plays the “will he, won’t he” game.
There’s still (precious little) time to turn this thing around, but the leadership has to listen to the netroots and the grassroots and get serious about moving the progressive agenda.
Will they listen? Only time will tell. If they don’t, I’m done with this party.
