Gloria Borger
CNN Senior Political Analyst
The story so far: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does everything in her power to get health care reform passed by keeping her Democratic caucus together.
She keeps liberals by insisting on a public option. She works on fiscal moderates by re-jiggering it. She works on lowering the cost of the package. She pays for it by taxing millionaire couples, appealing to the class-warfare crowd.
And to keep the Catholic bishops (and their moderate allies) on board, she keeps severe restrictions on paying for abortion in the measure. The liberals, of course, threaten to bolt - but it remains in the final package.
This is not legislating; it's whack-a-mole.
The challenge is simply to try and keep your unruly team in line, and maybe pick up a stray vote or two from the opposition. If you succeed, it's not about bipartisanship. It's just salesmanship.
| SLM |
November 11th, 2009 12:02 pm ET Any politician that goes along with Nancy Botoxi and her overly Liberal Agenda should be voted out of office. Nancy is lucky she comes from Nutty San Francisco, she NEVER would have been voted in if she came from a Normal district..............she is bad news for our economy. |
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| Tim Gibson |
November 11th, 2009 12:53 pm ET The disconnect between Washington and the country is perhaps the greatest problem at this point in time and every dog, blue or red, eventually reaches the end of the rope. How blind can Washington pretend to be in decisions made in the best interest of our safety, our humanity and our recovery as a nation and a people. How long will the voice of the people be ignored on the hill, or is it that the winds are blowing just hard enough that the sound of our voice is carried off into the distance! Has Washington not heard the knocking on the closed door deals, the request for accountability, for transparency and ignored the issue of closing the lobby doors before the storm arrives. We keep knocking, the porch light is on, or is it. |
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