Polimania

Posted By TomInReston on December 19, 2009

A year ago, I had hope.

Not that drink the kool-aid “Yes we can!” kind of hope, but a belief that those who asked me to work for them, asked for my money, ask me to stand outsidea polling place all day in the cold February wind or stand in the hot August sun handing out walk sheets before knocking on a hundred or so doors myself, held the same fundamental beliefs I hold.

I emphatically did NOT expect to agree with everything they did or do. I’m probably the only person on earth who agrees with me all the time, and I wouldn’t wager that will always be the case. In truth, I hold a rather eclectic set of beliefs I’d not expect anyone to match entirely.

But I believe the present majority in the House of Representatives, the present majority in the Senate and the present occupant of the White House have either abandoned the principles of the Democratic Party for which I have worked (the principles, not the party), or never held them in the first place. In truth, the principles they demonstrate are just marginally better than those I despised in the first eight years of this decade.

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Posted By TomInReston on December 18, 2009

Tomorrow will be the second weeked out of three that I’ve been going door-to-door in a snow storm for a Democtratic state senate candidate in a special election in a district that’s not even my own.

I have no idea how many hours I put in during the past general election campaign here in Virginia, and don’t even ask me about 2008. Let’s just say I had to get reacquainted with family and friends afterward. In fact, for the past six or seven years, I’ve done little but work and politics.

So here I am — and what have I got?

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Posted By TomInReston on November 4, 2009

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Posted By TomInReston on July 3, 2009

From Nate Silver at 538.com, talking about the Senate and health care:

The insurance industry’s influence appears to swing about 9 votes against the public option. Whatever number of senators wind up supporting the public option, add 9 to it, and you’ll have a decent ballpark estimate for what the level of support might be if not for insurance industry contributions…

The single senator who’s position on the public option is most likely to have been changed by lobbying money is Mark Warner of Virginia, who has already raised $69,000 from insurance industry PACs in spite of having been in the Senate for less than six months. Absent industry money, the model estimates about a two-thirds likelihood that Warner would support the public option; with it, the model thinks the chances are very low. Indeed Warner has been mum on the public option to date.

Ranking next on the list is Harry Reid, who has taken some $78,800 from insurance industry PACs and who has also yet to articulate a position on the public option in spite of his status as Majority Leader. If the model is right, Reid’s noncommittal stance on the issue might be better conceived of as tacit, if somewhat soft, opposition. Following Reid is Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who has floated a compromise bill that would replace the public option with a co-op system, a version of which the Senate Finance Committee appears likely to adopt.

$69,000. In six months. No public option. No connection? Wanna bet?

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Posted By TomInReston on June 30, 2009

I don’t consider myself part of the far left. My views tend to be a little conservative on some issues and a little liberal on others.

I also am definitely NOT a single issue kind of Democrat. I don’t agree with Creigh Deeds on guns, but then I’ve fired one only once, when I was about eight. I’ll still campaign for Deeds, because he will be a great governor. I think thriving businesses are essential. I think their influence over the political process is so pervasive as to be pernicious.

Health Care Reform, however, is one of those issues that will help me decide which Democrats to support with my limited time and money and energy. I’m addressing this to Sen. Warner, specifically because he sent a reply to a note from my wife, saying he opposed a public option as part of the health care reform legislation in the Senate. So here’s my message:

Forget about the polls showing a vast majority of Americans want a public option in any health care reform legislation. I don’t want a Senator who abrogates his own best judgment because of a poll.

Here is the real issue: All the incentives in the current system are stacked up to guarantee that health care will get ever more expensive, more and more people will be shut out of the system, and the quality of care for most of us will get worse. The most rational way to fix that, is for there to be a competitive entry in the market that has the right incentives in place. A public insurance plan would be incentivized (I hate that word) to provide quality care, non-exclusionary coverage, and at a reasonable cost. Private insurers could (and would) compete only by changing their behavior.

That, my friends, is a market-based solution. And without it, nothing Congress passes will be reform.

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