by von
Charles Mudede of The Stranger writes (some hyperlinks added):
Dan [Savage] points out that Palin is calling for "a conservative third party." The healthcare reform bill, the stabilizing of the economy, and the brilliant maneuvering of the president (the GOP fell into a trap he beautifully set—he tried to reach out, and made a big show of this; the right refused to budge even an inch, and made big show of this), we can now expect the realization of a prediction I made in 2008: the split of the GOP into, one, the base, and, two, the business class. Because the base (our Al-Qaida) will have no ties to the center of politics, America will be solidly center-left in its orientation.
What's this? My Unicorn Warrior of Destiny has arrived? I thought that he would never get here. Oh, my. [Swoon] [And ….. scene!]
I do not know how many different ways to say this. I expect Obama to get a good bump in the polls. I expect Democrats to try to leverage this health care bill to the max — though, as Megan McArdle points out, folks who promised that lives would be saved by this bill now suddenly seem less willing to stand behind their prognostications. But you don't fundamentally reshape the political landscape of the United States in a single day. Obama had large majorities in Congress and had run on health care reform, but he still had a helluva time getting this bill passed even after moderate Democrats gutted its most liberal-pleasing parts.
And the Republican party? Yes, it's fractured along business and "tea party" interests. But Mudede (and Savage) are overreading Palin's call for a third party. She's really pushing for contested Republican primaries to elect conservative Republicans. And what Republicans want more than conservatives are folks who oppose the Democratic agenda. Don't just take my word for it. Look at Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA): tea party hero and liberal Republican.
The trap Mudede should be concerned about is not any trap that Obama set. It's the trap that Mudede sets for himself: his belief that one thing — one bill, one man — has finally reshaped the universe to his liking.
But, then, I never was a believer. So perhaps I shouldn't discourage Mudede (and others).
She’s really pushing for contested Republican primaries to elect conservative Republicans.
she does actually say “third party”, thrice. and they’re not talking about a primary (Hannity clearly says the “nomination” has already happened).
she apparently thinks a 3rd party candidate will be a good foil for the GOP in the actual election.
Quoting McMegan cannot possibly make your case stronger. It can only weaken it.
Really. It was hard to read. Especially her presumption that the left got everything it wanted with this bill.
Um, what?
his belief that one thing — one bill, one man — has finally reshaped the universe to his liking.
Sadly, probably right. But let’s hope the GOP is not completely batsh!t insane next time they get back into power (especially POTUS). I’m not keeping my hopes up.
Cleek –
I read that quite differently in context. Palin previously stated that she preferred to keep the dispute in the Republican primaries. Hannity then pressed about a third party candidate where there is a conservative Republican in the race. Palin responds: “I do have a little bit of worry about that but” (emphasis mine). The rest of her statement after the “but” is spin about how it’s really a positive thing for the Republican if there’s a third party candidate in the race.
That’s not pining for a third party. That’s a completely unconvincing spin on behalf of the Republicans.
I don’t think that Savage’s, Mudede’s or your reading of Palin’s statement is night/day wrong, but I do think that you are all overreading what she said — and reading something into her statementt that is not necessarily there.
Mudede is terrible. And when he’s writing about women he’s downright creepy.
If you’re going to spend any time on the Slog, I recommend Lindy West and Dominic Holden. And Dan Savage, it should go without saying.
And what Republicans want more than conservatives are folks who oppose the Democratic agenda. Don’t just take my word for it. Look at Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA): tea party hero and liberal Republican.
Good call, I won’t just take your word for it. 🙂
Brown, called a ‘traitor’ after he turned out to be a liberal Republican. Tea Partiers were talking him up as a candidate in 2012 until he started voting like a liberal Republican.
Scott Brown’s ‘tea party’ fans feel burned by jobs vote.
I think you have completely misstated the Tea Party movement. They are challenging the sure seat of McCain in Arizona. They successfully punted NY-23 to the Democrats, and called it a victory. Ideological purity is much more important than results to that crowd.
Now, there are a lot of Republicans who want to win elections more than they want ideological purity. But the Tea Party is not like that at all afaict.
The trap Mudede should be concerned about is not any trap that Obama set. It’s the trap that Mudede sets for himself: his belief that one thing — one bill, one man — has finally reshaped the universe to his liking.
There is a difference between liking the bill and recognizing the profound impact it will have on the political landscape in the future. It seems very unlikely to me that we will ever go back to a dog-eat-dog system of rescission, preexisting condition denials, and ER-as-primary-care.
von,
Brown may well be regarded as a liberal Republican based on his record in the MA Senate. What remains to be seen is how he acts in the US Senate. If he persists in being “#41” then his MA record is just ancient history (and his tenure in DC will be brief, I think).
Also, wouldn’t a very conservative third party tend to push the Republicans toward the center?
That’s not pining for a third party. That’s a completely unconvincing spin on behalf of the Republicans.
i can buy that.
and i didn’t mean to imply she wanted a 3rd party candidate – though i kindof get the feeling she’d be glad to try it, if only to keep herself in the spotlight.
i think she knows the desire for a 3rd party run is out there, and that it could grow, if the GOP disappoints The Base much more. so she’s trying to make it seem like a “conservative” 3rd party candidate (in the election – i believe that’s clear from the bit i quoted) would be a good thing for the GOP. “it’s OK you guys! you can have your third party! it will help us all! then we’ll really be ready for winning. such as! also!”
that this doesn’t make much sense is expected. as a Balloon Juice commenter put it (paraphrasing): with Palin, you can often actually see the point where the hamster in her head gets off the wheel for a smoke break.
with Palin, you can often actually see the point where the hamster in her head gets off the wheel for a smoke break.
I can’t decide whether this means her logical reasoning improves or declines at such a point.
And, just so I can make sure I wasn’t hallucinating the whole thing, this Palin person was actually governor of one of the United States and the GOP nominee for Vice President behind a candidate where there was serious doubt he would make it through his first term, let alone two? And is also a prime candidate for the GOP Presidential nomination some 2 1/2 years hence?
Really, I need independent confirmation of this. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
I can’t decide whether this means her logical reasoning improves or declines at such a point.
Her what?
That’s not pining for a third party. That’s a completely unconvincing spin on behalf of the Republicans.
It’s worth noting that Hannity is worrying about a Tea Party candidate siphoning away votes from a “strong conservative”. Hannity and Palin both supported Hoffman in NY-23; they aren’t defending the idea that moderate Republicans ought to be unchallenged in the general election. Just worrying that even an ideologically pure Republican can get right-flanked by someone drawing on the virtually inexhaustible well of crazy.
Ran across this analysis reading on Scott Brown and Dede Scozzafava (suggesting that Brown was supported bc he’s a good fit for his electorate, where Scozzafava wasn’t bc she’s liberal for her district, despite Brown being more liberal on an absolute scale).
There’s a cool chart of the partisanship of the various state delegations. Kind of weird: how is it that Cali’s GOP delegation appears to be more conservative than Oklahoma’s? Dems in Utah are more liberal than those in Illinois? And why the huge gaps between the delegations in CO, CA, UT, WI, FL?
Why was it hard to read? Isn’t responsibility important? Surely you believe that there will be a measurable number of saved lives? Surely you believe the life expectancy at birth will go up? Surely you believe that the savings will be substantial? Why is the left suddenly so hesitant to put actual metrics on it? If you don’t believe those things, why were they included in the argument?
On the payment question, while we were talking about the CBO estimates, shall we go to the CBO on the doc fix question:
CBO letter
So there we have it. The doc fix, which was included in previous versions of the bill and only recently excluded, eats up pretty much the whole ‘savings’. And that isn’t even counting the excise tax being avoided later.
I am fairly sure that this sentence is ungrammatical.
Why was it hard to read? Isn’t responsibility important? Surely you believe that there will be a measurable number of saved lives? Surely you believe the life expectancy at birth will go up? Surely you believe that the savings will be substantial? Why is the left suddenly so hesitant to put actual metrics on it? If you don’t believe those things, why were they included in the argument?
Sure, but quantifying it now is a bit premature. We have to let the thing take hold.
It will save lives, and beyond saving lives, it will vastly IMPROVE lives. If the bill was perfect, then it would save the roughly 40K a year that die due to lack of insurance. It would greatly improve outcomes across the board.
This imperfect bill, some number less than that, but with many thousands of lives saved. It will also improve outcomes. We’ll need to check the studies decades down the road. Besides: I don’t think anyone used the exact number of outcomes improved by an exact percentage in any argument. At least not any that I saw.
But you don’t fundamentally reshape the political landscape of the United States in a single day.
Quite so. Not even in a year, or ten years.
The Goldwater of ’64 wasn’t mainstream until Reagan in ’80. And then it took thirty more years for that to play out to its logical train wreck ending.
And there are still a solid quarter to third of the population who think Bush II was the cat’s meow.
Folks need to be patient.
It’s the trap that Mudede sets for himself: his belief that one thing — one bill, one man — has finally reshaped the universe to his liking.
Yeah, Mudede is going to be disappointed.
No pony, just chaotic incremental change, hopefully more in a positive direction than not.
Personally, I’m very impressed that Obama and the (D)’s got a bill through the meat grinder. A lot of it is going to be crap, but it’s also going to help a lot of people.
And that’s a really good thing.
I’m curious to see how the Constitutional question on the mandate plays out. It is, IMO, a reasonable and serious concern, and it should have its day. And, no doubt, it will.
But the lion’s share of this bill is about making it easier for people to go to the doctor when they need to. I’m hard pressed to see the evil there.
Why do smart people on either side of the political spectrum at OBWI give a crap what an idiot (Palin) and a lying demagogic thief (Hannity) offer in the way of counsel to Republican Party political strategy?
President Obama may not have reordered the universe, but Palin and Hannity, among others, live and breathe the poisonous atmosphere of a death star in that universe.
A sane Republican Party wouldn’t consult the inhabitants of the death star for advice about how to ruin the rest of the universe, they’d help President Obama nuke the place.
I know you don’t expect sanity from the current Republican party John.
Why do you say Frank?
So there we have it. The doc fix, which was included in previous versions of the bill and only recently excluded, eats up pretty much the whole ‘savings’. And that isn’t even counting the excise tax being avoided later.
I thought you agreed before that the doc fix wasn’t related to the bill itself. It’s a necessary thing, but putting it into the HCR bill just jacks the price up. It makes as much sense as complaining that the a permanent AMT fix wasn’t included too, since that also messes with the CBO score.
“Besides: I don’t think anyone used the exact number of outcomes improved by an exact percentage in any argument. At least not any that I saw.”
You mean except for Ezra Klein and Nicholas Kristof, two of the most prominent reporters on the issue? As of March 18, Kristof was making this ridiculous argument:
The real answer is of course a breakthrough technology known as penicillin (commercially available in late 1942 and not widely available until 1943 after the moldy canteloupe in Peoria was found. (No really!)
But if we are taking that argument seriously we should expect to living longer than the Japanese as a result of this!
Klein was suggesting uninsured deaths at 45,000 per year. Surely we will see that number go down?
“Sure, but quantifying it now is a bit premature. We have to let the thing take hold.”
No, that is how testable predictions are supposed to work. Why are you throwing around statistics in support of a program if you don’t believe that the statistics are related to the program? And if you do believe they are related, now is exactly the time to say how they should change in the future.
If people REALLY believe that lack of access to health care was killing 45,000 people a year, and that such statistic had anything to do with this bill, that should mean that some reasonable number of those people will be saved by this bill. If it was REALLY killing 45,000 how could you not believe that this won’t save most of them? If the CBO is correct about the number of uninsured two years from now how could it possibly save less than 30,000 of them? Or at least 20,000? That kind of number can’t possibly hide in the statistical noise for very long. 20,000-30,000 a year, every year. So why so afraid to test that?
It feels like the statistics (used here on this very blog) were used in bad faith if suddenly they are irrelevant.
Carleton, I was responding to this quote (brought up in the comments by Jacob Davies) by Ezra Klein:
The Medicare fix is extremely relevant to this quote because the main thing they did “to cut the deficit more” was remove the Medicare fix from the bill.
The main thing they did “That’s not gaming, it’s governing” was remove the Medicare fix from the bill.
And since the full intention is to ignore the ‘mandatory’ cuts to Medicare payouts sometime in the next two or three weeks, that is gaming.
The process was:
Medicare fix in bill for nearly the entire year long discussion.
Centrist Democrats say they need to save more money with respect to the deficit to be able to vote for the health care bill
Medicare fix removed from the bill.
Savings reported by the CBO
(Two or three weeks from now–Medicare fix enacted and those savings, which were imputed to the differences between the bill in its earlier form and the one most recently analyzed, never materialize).
Now I’m pretty sure that even Jacob, and certainly you will admit that the last step is going to happen. So, system gamed. Hard political choices avoided while giving the appearance of making hard choices.
And that is directly on point with my contention on another really hard choice–the excise tax. Unions hate it and the AARP hates it. They hate it because retired people who negotiated for premium health care instead of salary for decades are going to be paying a large tax. That opposition isn’t going anywhere. But never fear. No politician has to actually worry about that now. Or in the next election. Or the one after that. Or even three elections from now. It isn’t scheduled to take effect for almost a decade.
Just like those Medicare cuts.
Which have been postponed almost six elections now.
Or at least 20,000? That kind of number can’t possibly hide in the statistical noise for very long. 20,000-30,000 a year, every year. So why so afraid to test that?
It doesn’t just have to hide in the statistical noise, there are other trends occurring related to the economy, medical advances, etc. As you ought to realize, having just pointed out a similar error on the part of Kristof.
20,000 deaths among 2.5 million isn’t going to be that big of a signal, either.
Seb, I don’t see Jacob’s comment on this thread, I think that’s for Eric’s post.
Carelton, you wrote “I thought you agreed before that the doc fix wasn’t related to the bill itself.”, and I was telling you what I was talking about/responding in the discussion where you seem to have formed the impression.
Seb- if you were responding to Jacob, he hasn’t posted on this thread. I am thinking that you meant to post your original comment on some other thread.
Obama had large majorities in Congress and had run on health care reform, but he still had a helluva time getting this bill passed even after moderate Democrats gutted its most liberal-pleasing parts.
And it is always worth pointing out that he does not have a “large” majority in the Senate, where it requires 60 votes to move any major administration-favored legislation forward. If the Senate did business on the basis of 51 votes is sufficient, a more liberal bill would have been passed.
I was responding to you Carleton. I was telling you the context around the comment you were remembering.
von,
What? We do not have the socialist revolution? I am distraught, downcast, and defeated.
But I can live with the consequences, watch Obama make an eloquent speech, and yes, smile. Always smile….even when they hand you the blindfold and you take that last suck on some effing imperialist international running dog lacky corporation’s tobacco product.
Next: Finnigan’s Wake.
A third party candidate can really shore-up a Republican candidate in terms of that Republican candidate having to be very strong and sharp and debate aggressively, regarding the positions that they have taken.
Is there really any disagreement about how to parse that?
I was responding to you Carleton. I was telling you the context around the comment you were remembering.
I admit Im still lost. You posted something, I replied, and you were originally responding to me? Or you were responding to something Jacob said in another thread, and we were supposed to follow that? There wasn’t anything about the CBO on the thread before you posted.
On McArdle’s point- of course I think that this will improve eg mortality. And that this effect will be noticeable statistically (given lack of noise and other confounding factors- if we make a leap in cancer treatment in 2015 we’ll have a much harder time teasing this out).
The rest of her predictions seem soft or hedged eg Infant mortality should be no greater than that of the Netherlands by 2018. Again, I predict that this will not happen, and indeed, that infant mortality rates may not fall at all. The solid prediction here is we won’t more into the top 10 from 29th, with another prediction of zero gain carefully phrased so that she can toss it if it doesn’t work out. If we merely improve infant mortality by 33% and move into the teens with many of our developed peers, Megan can claim a win.
Or By 2030, there’s an 80% chance that the government will have imposed substantial price controls on pharma and other medical technology–and this will noticeably slow the rate of innovation. That is a prediction with a percentage (so not really a prediction at all), a “substantial” hedge, and a totally non-quantitative tag-along ‘prediction’ about innovation. In fact, the entire prediction is non-quantitative, except for the faux-accurate 80% bit.
And I really can’t pass up her article without pointing out this piece of self-centeredness: I’m glad that this could bring so much joy to peoples’ hearts, and of course to know that for many people, the happiest part of passing health care reform seems to have been knowing that it made people like me unhappy.
Yeah, it had nothing to do with how we think it’s going to help people. We just passed a trillion-dollar plan to piss in your corn flakes. Being that self-centered almost makes me want to pass another trillion-dollar plan to piss her off more.
Carleton, I was responding to your assertion “I thought you agreed before that the doc fix wasn’t related to the bill itself.”
You got that impression from another thread. I was trying to show the context of that.
John Thullen: Why do smart people on either side of the political spectrum at OBWI give a crap what an idiot (Palin) and a lying demagogic thief (Hannity) offer in the way of counsel to Republican Party political strategy?
Smart people don’t care what Palin has to say.
Pro-lifers like Sebastian think it’s not worthwhile passing laws that might actually improve a few lives and save some people from dying when they didn’t have to, because improving people’s lives and saving life is exactly what pro-lifers are against, especially when it has to do with increased provision of health care. Thanks for making that clear again, Sebastian, for those who didn’t get that Von is also a pro-lifer and hence in philosophical opposition to improved access to health care, especially for women.
Access to abortion is about access to health care. A woman in a country where she has guaranteed access to full health care
will have access to provision of contraception and family planning and prenatal health care, which will continue regardless of her employment status: this is not the case in the US, which leads smoothly to the US’s Third World infant death rate and high maternal mortality/morbity rate. She will have better access to safe legal abortion, and she will statistically need fewer abortions. Pro-lifers have shown that they are against all of the above, with remarkable consistency: if you don’t like women having safe legal access to abortion as required, you also don’t like the idea of improved access to healthcare, especially for people on a low income.
Hence Von, Sebastian, and Marty.
Von, of course the bill isn’t perfect – the US still has the worst health care system in the developed world, because it was so far behind the other developed countries and has so far to go to catch up.
It’s just an improvement, in an area where American conservatives have for so long resisted the idea that just because you’re poor doesn’t mean you and your children deserve to die for want of health care. Baby steps.
John,
I think “thank you” is a perfectly reasonable response, you’re welcome. In that vein (I never do this), my thoughts on socialism as a reasonable democratic choice are reflected here.
I am actually surprised that it continues to get such a negative response among progressives who, in most countries, would be Social Democrats. I think we should begin to use the term more to lessen it’s historic negative connotation in the US.
oops wrong thread
All of this parsing of Palin’s interview assumes that she knows the difference between a third party candidate and an independent candidate. I’m not prepared to accept that assumption without further investigation.
What’s this? My Unicorn Warrior of Destiny has arrived? I thought that he would never get here. Oh, my. [Swoon] [And ….. scene!]
Can we get a new ill-natured sneer here? This one is starting to wear out.
“It’s the trap that Mudede sets for himself: his belief that one thing — one bill, one man — has finally reshaped the universe to his liking. ”
Yes!
Democrats must accept the inevitability of their demise and never sketch out any alternative!
What do you mean! I am not sure what point you are enthusiastically trying to make!