Thursday, June 28, 2012

Shout It, Dems!


Even hanging on an odd hook on the side of the judicial closet, today's SCOTUS affirmation of the Affordable Care Act, is beautiful to behold. This first go at universal health care was many decades in the troubled making.

Now Democrats, including that President Obama one, need to focus and shout.

Even those who claim not to like the health-care reform really do. They want to keep nearly every provision of it. If they don't already benefit, their parents and others they know do.

For God's sake, Dems, don't play Blanche Dubois, depending on the intelligence of voters! Tell them, tell them clearly and repeatedly what they keep and what they stand to lose, depending on who's in the White House and Congress. Don't figure if you say it once on national TV that everyone understands.

For some unfathomable reason, Democratic pols and party officials have not been making their case strongly and plainly. This November election is no time for whispering and implying.

I'll read the big, honking decision a time or two, and wait a few days for the wingers to circle around their bonfire of lies and camp of hyperbole.

My dual takeaways today are:

  1. This is a brief breather. There's more to be done, from reelecting Obama, to keeping control of the Senate, to shaming those obstructionists in Congress into meaningful jobs-bills support. Speaker Boehner claimed smugly before the ruling the GOP would not spike the football. I don't care if Dems do, but that should not distract them for more than a moment from the big tasks ahead.
  2. We have only a few months to make our case. American voter too often have chosen the fantasy (think guns and butter, or trickle-down-economics [still in play]) over reality. Dems have to, absolutely have to, make it plain that we can recover economically quickly, if the Republicans stop the crap. We have to make as plain that taking a huge, blind leap on a fantasy this time is madness. Even with the GOP fighting all the way, the Administration has improved our lot substantially. It is essential for Obama and Dems to leave no doubt where the path is to a good future. 

We can let the Republican pols and funders sit in their corners muttering and cursing, speaking of how they had a better plan. They should just stay out of the way of those who mean to repair and advance the nation.

PM Update: On the way home from a broken-bone followup, I listened to NPR in the car. It was easy to believe that the news voices kicked around the meaning for the POTUS election. It was nearly impossible to hear one say that the victory today put a huge target on Obama for Romney. What century and continent did Mara Liasson recently emerge from? The winger elephants have been trying and trying to depict this stumbling start at universal health care as something terrible, while nearly all Americans love some or most of its features. Now that the SCOTUS has OK'ed it constitutionally, how can that mean anything other than much more widespread acceptance? Romney is erring in continuing to call the ACA Obamacare, adding the only way to get rid of it is to replace Obama with him. The only worthwhile accomplish of MA Gov. Romney was the nascent version of health-care reform that became the model for the ACA. Tell me how he's going to target this successful program that already benefits millions of us without shooting himself with every arrow at Obama. Lackaday, Mitt, Obamacare is not the pejorative you imagine.

No comments: