Hullabaloo

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

 
How To Lose, Lesson XXXIX

by dday

Can everybody in the Democratic leadership in the Congress be required to take a political science class?

Congressional Democrats have scrapped plans for another vote on expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, thus sparing Republicans from a politically difficult vote just weeks before elections this fall.

Before the summer recess, Democrats had vowed repeatedly to force another vote on the popular program. But Democrats say they have shifted course, after concluding that President Bush would not sign their legislation and that they could not override his likely veto.

Mr. Bush vetoed two earlier versions of the legislation, which he denounced as a dangerous step toward “government-run health care for every American,” and the House sustained those vetoes [...]

Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said: “We are not going to change any votes on the children’s health insurance bill. We still don’t have enough to override a veto. Those who opposed this bill can face the voters and explain why they believe 10 million kids should not get health coverage.”

Yeah, no kidding, Rahm, and it'll be easier for Democratic challengers to draw this contrast if YOU PUT THE BILL UP FOR A VOTE AGAIN and showed yet again the callousness of the Republican caucus.

There were 2 SCHIP votes over a year ago. In news cycle time that might as well have been during the Eisenhower Administration. Everyone knows that SCHIP wouldn't pass - the point is to make the Republicans vote on it. It's part of the perks of being in the majority, forcing the opposition to make inconvenient votes in an election year. You might want to look up the vote for military force in Iraq (2002), the Homeland Security bill (2002), the Military Commissions Act (2006), and on and on...

Because there's no way the bill would pass, it's a free vote. You could tie the revenues to removing tax breaks for the oil companies and make the vote a two-fer. "Congressman X would rather give oil executives a new yacht than help sick children!" But alas, the leadership sees no reason why that would be a useful vote.

Thanks for making life harder for the dozens of challengers trying to unseat the bozos on the other side. Really nice work. Be sure to pass an offshore drilling bill while you're at it, because we should definitely play on Republican turf with our votes in an election year when we hold the majority. Great strategery.

UPDATE: There's a counter-claim to my view, in the comments and elsewhere, that the Democrats canceled the vote because it would just give an opportunity for some threatened Republicans to vote for SCHIP.

That would be compelling if many of those vulnerable Republicans that they're talking about didn't already vote for SCHIP in 2007. They got to 265-270 votes in the House before, after all.

Don Young - already voted for it. Chris Shays - already voted for it. Jon Porter - already voted for it. Dave Reichert - already voted for it.

What you want to do is draw out the hardcore wingnuts who could then be hammered over their vote. There are quite a lot of them, many in competitive races, and to them, voting against SCHIP is a matter of principle - they think it'll give illegal immigrants health care or something. There aren't enough slots for all of them to escape because then they'd get to the 289 votes needed for a veto override. This is particularly true because many of the retiring GOP Congressmen, lots of them moderates - Gilchrest, Wilson, Ramstad, etc., etc. - voted for the bill last time around and have no reason not to do so again.


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dday 9/09/2008 06:00:00 AM |