This should be obvious. But I really doubt it will change their positions. Particularly Lieberman. Ezra:

"I'm starting to think that Lieberman knows perfectly well that his ever-shifting rationales don't make sense, and that he's inventing them to taunt liberals, not to explain his opposition. He's not just opposing the top priority for liberals, but also dangling the hope that if they can just explain their argument clearly and logically enough, he'll change his mind. It's a deviously brilliant exploitation of liberal psychology that could only have come from a former liberal."
Joe Lieberman understands liberals too well

Lieberman wants revenge on Democrats. That's really all there is to say about him.

On topic: Winners win, losers lose. Why can't Democrats get that through their marble skulls?

I have said it before, Lieberman is a walking, talking conflict of interest. For Lieberman its a family values thing. His wife is paid a lot of money to oppose health care reform. The Lieberman family really values that money.

The level of Congressional corruption in 2009 is similar to the level of corruption during the Grant administration. In other words Congressional corruption, bad in the best of times, is at an all time high.

Nobody seems to be the least bit interested in solving that Congressional corruption. How about changing the way campaigns are financed?

I think this poll underestimates what will happen if Dems pass a bill with the "public option" included. Once people find out what it really is rather than what Republicans say it is, they support it by a wide margin. I think if they pass it their numbers will go up simply because they have shown some competence in getting it done.

The Blanche Lincolns of the world pay attention to tw polls:

1. The public
2. Her industry paymasters.

She needs #2 even more than #1. For example, if she is polling 40% favorability, she can still win by TV ads bought by Blue Cross Blue Shield.

To me, this is do or die for the democrats in terms of my allegiance to them. I have been a lifelong democrat and always voted along party lines. However, if they capitulate to special interests on this one; if the cede their moral and electoral mandate to a party that brought us to the brink of a depression and for the last 35 years polarized this country along social divisions, I will register as an independent and will never vote democratic again.

Ultimately, my one vote may not make a difference, but I'll feel a lot better.

I hope they read these blogs.

In the long run, I don't think it is political suicide if the Dems fail - they tried all that they could to get it to pass and will have another chance after another election. The Repubs will be the ones standing on a pile of 'No.'

Gee, I wonder what would happen if Democrats passed a HCR bill that expands coverage and reduces premiums.

I have been researching job opportunities in Europe - first chance I get I am outta here. Even with a much better president in office, our system is just too broken to be fixed.

K-bye

The Dems should swing for the fences. Push hard to get the best bill through and get what they can. People like winners, not whiners. If we can get a good bill through people will reward them.

To this end, they should do more to make parts of the bill effective as soon as possible. People want to see results.

Dean -- were you following politics in the early 90's? Unfortunately, failure in this arena has never resulted in a backlash against those who kill reform and a stronger effort after the next election. It always results in burned legislators wary of trying again for ten or twenty years, and then always with an even weaker set of reforms.

Dems have to do a much better job of explaining the health care bill. Break it down into a few small bites, including just who will benefit, and when. When I first heard of "single payer", it sure didn't sound like anything that would benefit ME (would *I* be the only person paying for my health care costs??). And use every means available to get the message out. Right now it seems like they're relying on bloggers to sell it -- and the traditional media certainly isn't doing the job. I have never gotten a mailing (electronic or snail) from my Senator or my Rep (both Dems) explaining the bill.

Blanche Lincoln hasn't got a prayer in her next election. Even if she voted to sustain a GOP filibuster and voted against HCR in final passage, whatever mouth-breather the GOP puts up against her in Arkansas next year will accuse her of everything from Communism to Satanism and she'll be clobbered.
Either:
a. she's too dumb to realize this and thinks shifting right will get her re-elected (not likely)
b. she opposes the public option out of honest conviction (yeah, sure)
c. the insurance industry has promised to make a generous contribution to her retirement fund (bingo!)

Doesn't help that the latest Rasmussen poll shows only 38% in favor of the Democratic drafted health bill.

Also doesn't appear to help that with a rising unemployment rate and strong concerns about the economy, that the Democratic congress is perceived to be singularly focused on passing a health insurance bill since Obama took office.

Redshift,
Health care has moved beyond just the political focus of who is saying "We won" or "They Lost" - nothing can compare to the dark images of people left suffering and dying for lack of health care.

If victory means saying "No." to dying people without health care - the images of thousands of people in dire straights left without recourse is what should be the new image of the Republican party - truly the party of the "Death Panel" that their obstruction brings. Their death sentence in taking no actions makes them accessory to the crime.

If the Democrats could muster the backbone to show our citizens the actual travesty occurring - the lifeless bodies of those too sick to fight to live, of children hopelessly lost to curable diseases, of the human toll in blood and pain with the narrative power of a Beck or a Palin - maybe this issue would pierce the politics of "No."

A bill created with the imperfections that the Republicans demand will only be vilified by those very Republicans that say this is the best the Democrats can do.

Our country asks more of us and we should not confuse a battle with a war. This should be done right or not at all.

Those who are against saving the lives of our sick should be held accountable until we provide the standard of health care every advanced country already provides.

The administration has done an extraordinarily piss-poor job of actually selling the bill in general, but the public option in particular. The opt-out concept has been laid down the center of the plate like a big, fat hanging curve -- as a way to put a public option in place in states that want it, while giving reluctant Blue Dogs opponents a fig leaf -- yet Obama has done absolutely zero to promote it. If anything, he tried to defuse the excitement on Sunday talk shows when it was all the buzz for reviving the prospects of a public option.

All you hear is whether someone supports something or doesn't right now, as if it would be impossible to move anyone in a favorable direction. It is totally passive. All Obama would have to do to make the opt-out version a central media topic is to proclaim in a prominent forum -- with Gibbs repetition and arm-twisting to the extent necessary to make sure it doesn't get swept under the table -- that the opt-out concept seems like an awfully reasonable compromise, and that he does not see how a Senator from one state can dictate to the citizens of another state that they cannot have an option they by an overwhelming majority want to have. Jeez, he hasn't even demanded that opponents of the public option actually give a cogent public-policy explanation of their opposition. Instead, they have been able for months upon months to get away with saying they oppose it "because it doesn't have the votes." He hasn't even asked the public to consider why the insurance industry is opposing it so vehemently.

These aren't political dummies. They fully understand the dilemma local debates on the public option will present for Republicans, and the opportunity for Democrats in Red States to make credibility gains. I have to believe, therefore, that when push comes to shove, they do not want to build public support for a genuine public option. It's not that they oppose the public option in principle. They obviously support it in principle, because there is no way for any Democrat to oppose it responsibly from the right at this juncture. However, it seems more and more obvious that Obama has actually promised the insurance industry he will scuttle it, even while cynically pretending to progressives that he supports it. It's quite disgusting to see this charade going on.

In the 19th c. a handful of southern Senators constituted the Slave Power. Today, a handful of "moderates" constitute the Corporate Power.