Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, never jam today.

Polls in Nevada indicate that supporting a public option is in Reid's best political interests. The public in Nevada favors a public option. They disapprove of the current senate bill without a public option. The polling is pretty clear, if Reid doesn't push for a public option some Republican is going to be elected from Nevada this fall. If he does, he at least has a fighting chance.

All the Dems have done for months has been wimp out on everything. If anything can save them electorially (and historically, but that's another matter), it will be, for once, a little audacity.

I say, GO DEMS!

K, call your next book, The Hope for Audacity. And I'm with you!

I will never understand how senators think.

we've been fucked over on hcr so much this sounds more like "first as tragedy, then as satire..."

but then i'm one of the more optimistic commenters re the clown car us senate...

Let's at least demand that the public option get "an up-or-down vote." It's too important to the American people to be killed in back rooms.

The president should jut out his chin and double-dog-dare any senate dimocrat to vote against the public option. If reconciliation is good enough for the bank bailout, it should be good enough for the public option.

My Gawd the Dems are a bunch of p*ssies. I agree with Winkandanod that it should just be put out there and let them vote on it.

Heck, Harry should have dared Ben Nelson and the others to vote against cloture when we had 60. If they did, he should have made it clear that they would have been stripped of any chairmanship or seniority status on any committee.

What would they do? Join the GOP?

Harry Reid, always boldly leading from the back ranks.

What would they do? Join the GOP?

This would have been a particularly low-risk gamble in the early days after the Parker Griffith party switch, where he became a man disliked by all sides.

Does anyone really doubt that if Nelson switched sides the Nebraska Republicans who have been waiting in line would have run against him anyway? He'd have found himself just like Griffith - without a political home.

I'm a fan of the public option, but I'd be happy if it could be used as a bargaining chip to let the "reconciliation fix" get a vote. For example, "OK, we'll split off the public option for a separate reconciliation vote (or get rid of it completely) as long as you conservadems allow the HCR fix to go through reconciliation without screaming like little children."

doubtful, it usually takes about 10 postings for someone to posit that a better "leader" than harry reid would somehow make ben nelson, joe lieberman, evan bayh, blanche lincoln, and other assorted and sundry jellyfish into better people.

no one ever explains exactly how harry reid is supposed to have done this.

even the supposedly greatest majority leader ever, lbj, couldn't get a meaningful civil rights bill through when he was in the senate, and the world has changed in any number of ways since lbj was the leader.

the person who needs to provide leadership is obama. his failure to do so is outrageous, but utterly in keeping with the centrism he has demonstrated for years now. and when some of us pointed out during the campaign that this centrism is a source of concern, lots of know-it-alls at this very site produced reams of vitriol aimed at our counter-revolutionary spirit.

having been proven correct gives me no pleasure at all, but the point is, harry reid's "leadership" is neither here nor there. either obama gets this bill passed or obama fails to get this bill passed because he doesn't have the leverage over the wimps in his party, but it won't be because harry reid didn't sprinkle magic pixie leadership dust....

Nelson would have voted against cloture. He wouldn't care so much about his committee seats - campaign donations from business is more important to him. He could also switch parties. He'd be reelected under any circumstances; he was by wide margins in the past Same for others like Conrad, Bayh, etc.

Nobody has anything on Senators that can force them to vote a certain way. The punishment fantasy is a fantasy.

the lesson Obama and Rahm learned from 1994: Let Congress Do It.

I'm not sure that was the right lesson to learn from 1994, but that's clearly the one they're acting on. Sadly.

Sad thing is, if HCR tanks, Obama will still get a lot of blame, even though, really, he has almost no skin in the game in terms of policy.

It's also the case if Obama had shown more courage, and more leadership, we'd have ALREADY PASSED HCR, and it would have been a better bill than it will be, assuming it passes.

He chickened out, imho.

This is good news. There are really only two ways to get out of the hole the Senate has dug for themselves.

One is to pass a weaker but unambiguously progressive bill. Such a bill would remove the mandate, which may entail removal of some of the things on most people's insurance reform wishlist.

That's not the preferred way forward, but without a public option even being on the table, it's the only way forward.

The other is to make a stronger, progressive, bill. That involves the creation of a government-controlled "honest player" to ensure nobody is forced to buy insurance from an industry that has proven itself time and time again to be dishonest and corrupt.

Either way forward would be an improvement, as opposed to the current Senate bill that forces people to buy insurance at a time insurers are proving that they can't be trusted not to gouge at the worst time possible.

The current Senate Bill is objectively regressive. It's a giant shift of power towards unaccountable and untrustworthy corporations. It doesn't need many changes to fix it so it's progressive, but it needs those changes, because right now it's clearly worse than the status quo.

"On a related note, I should also mention that Health and Human Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Rachel Maddow last night that if a Senate majority is prepared to move forward on a public option, that would suit the Obama administration just fine."

Imagine how different the last year could have been if instead of merely okay with a public option Obama had actually strongly supported it, or better yet strongly supported single player and let himself be talked down to a public option...

"Audacity of hope" my ass.

If they move forward with reconciliation, will it be only if there is also a public option included? These negotiations have been so fluid, and changed so quickly (Medicare for 55+ in, then out; public option in then totally trashed, now maybe back again; etc. etc.). Is it possible that they could vote to move ahead via reconciliation and a pursuit of the public option, and then have the public option fall out (again) even as HCR, once on the reconciliation track, continues forward? (Ideally I'd like both too, but like Steve I also want something -- and nothing at this point will be perfect -- that can then be, as was Medicare originally, revisited and improved.)

Dio you really think that Obama is going to actively work for anything? All talk the talk, no walk the walk is the consistent pattern. No wonder the Democratic base isn't energized.