Harry Reid is trying to stand tall. "Centrist" senators have mobilized to defeat public option. Obama noncommittal.
In pushing to include a government-run health insurance plan in the health care bill, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, is taking a calculated gamble that the 60 members of his caucus could support the plan if it included a way for states to opt out.
Mr. Reid met with President Obama at the White House Thursday to inform him of his inclination to add the public option to the bill, but did not specifically ask the president to endorse that approach, a Democratic aide said. Mr. Obama asked questions, but did not express a preference at the meeting, a White House official said. ...
... Democratic champions of the public plan, like Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, have urged Mr. Reid to take an aggressive posture, by putting the public plan in the bill and forcing opponents to try to strip it out.
“There is a growing sense that we need to lead on this issue and not wait for it to be offered on the Senate floor,” a senior Democratic aide said. “The idea is that it’s better to show some fight.”
As word of Mr. Reid’s intention spread Thursday, centrist senators from both parties said they had come together in an informal group to resist creation of a uniform nationwide public insurance program. ... NYTimes
The House is looking a lot healthier. Pelosi is pretty sure she's got the 218 votes to pass a comprehensive bill that includes, of course, a public option.
... Senior lawmakers said that major sections of the measure have been locked in and that a final bill could be made public as soon as Monday in preparation for debate before the full House early next month....WaPo
Meanwhile, the media are scrutinizing the Virginia for signs that Obama -- and his health reform effort -- are losing support along with the Democratic candidate for governor. The "national level Democrats" are distancing themselves from candidate, R. Creigh Deeds, as Deeds slips in polls.
Senior administration officials have expressed frustration with how Democrat R. Creigh Deeds has handled his campaign for governor, refusing early offers of strategic advice and failing to reach out to several key constituencies that helped Obama win Virginia in 2008, they say....
...A loss for Deeds in Virginia -- which for the first time in decades supported the Democratic presidential candidate in last year's race -- would likely be seen as a sign that Obama's popularity is weakening in critical areas of the country. But the unusual preelection criticism could be an attempt to shield Obama from that narrative by ensuring that Deeds is blamed personally for the loss, particularly given the state's three-decade pattern of backing candidates from the party out of power in the White House. ...WaPo
Tom Schaller at 538 looked at the race a couple of weeks ago and concluded that Obama's Virginia win isn't helping the Democratic candidate much.
Frankly, I don't think Deeds can rely on the projected additional votes from post-2005 registration growth pulling him over the finish line, because so much of that growth was among Virginians who registered in order to vote for Obama--and many of those voters are not going to turnout this November without Obama and the presidential race as a draw.
Forget about health. Forget about the health of the nation. It's all about politics and money and it always was. This time, add in the determination of the right to act as spoilers in every area.
