Word on the street is that Dennis Kucinich, who voted "no" on the House health care bill because it didn't go far enough, has agreed after a full-court press by the president to vote "yes" on the Senate bill (which doesn't go as far as the House bill did).
Dennis Kucinich just made it official: He's voting for the Senate bill, making him the first member to go on record fliping his vote from No to Yes.... Kucinich's stance was being closely watched by both sides, partly as a test of President Obama's ability to corral the support of reluctant Dems. Obama wooed him directly with a lift on Air Force One and gave a big health care speech in his district earlier this week....
Kucinich said Obama didn't make any promises to take up the public option later.
"What he committed to was to continue to work with me on the broad concerns that I have," he said. "He didn't make any specific commitment."
I don't necessarily think Kucinich is doing the wrong thing. But it's really a shame that he didn't get any kind of commitment for, well, anything in exchange for flipping his vote. Which, by the way, is going to to cost him a ton of cash, since he will return all the money that people who wanted the public option raised for him.
Now, here's the excellent thought experiment conducted by blogger Adam Green at Open Left:
Air Force One took off from suburban Maryland today at 11:13 a.m. and landed 48 minutes later in Connecticut.
For Sen. Joe Lieberman -- who says he plans to vote no on the president's health-care bill -- it must have felt like a much longer flight. Obama invited Lieberman to the ultimate pressure cooker as he tries to nail down a majority for his top domestic priority.
...there was a public hint of the kind of pressure he is under. When Obama introduced Lieberman at his rally, someone in the audience called out, "Vote yes." Obama, not missing a beat, turned to his traveling partner. "Did you hear that, Joe?" he asked.
Near the end of his speech, Obama said he had told Lieberman on the flight: "You know what? It's been such a long time since we made government on the side of ordinary working folks, where we did something for them that relieved some of their struggles."
This is the presidential bully pulpit at work. Using the full force of the presidency to pressure opponents. Awesome!
UPDATE: Sorry for the typos. Turns out all references to Joe Lieberman were actually Dennis Kucinich.
We'll never know if the full-court press on Joe Lieberman would have had any effect on Lieberman's position that might have moved the bill in a more constructive direction. We'll never know, because no one ever tried. Funny, that. |
