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.
(more…)
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Posted By TomInReston on June 30, 2009
While I had my secret preferences, I stayed neutral in the statewide races in the Virginia primary, mostly because I thought we had a half -dozen excellent candidates — three for governor, two for LG and one for AG. You could have shuffled them a number of ways and felt good about the outcome. That Creigh Deeds won by the margin he did was simply amazing.
Now that it’s over, I confess I’m very pleased with the way it all turned out. I first met Creigh Deeds during his star-crossed run for AG in 2005, when I had just begun to be active in local politics. I was impressed then, and as I’ve met him many times since and talked to him, I have grown to respect him as a man and as a politician.
Jody Wagner is a finance geek. he’s not going to inspire the kind of fanatical devotion that Hillary got in last year’s primaries, but she ha a technical grasp of the Commonwealth’s budget that will serve the governor well. And in these times, that’s a real virtue.
And then there is Steve Shannon. He’s got a lot of work to do to get statewide name recognition, but nobody will out-campaign him.Steve is a straight up guy, has all the right experience and values, and would be a terrific AG.
He’s got one other advantage: Ken Cuccinelli, his opponent, is so far right of center that if you look out the corner of your left eye, you can just make out the back of his head. On top of that, Cuccinelli is flat out weird when he opens his mouth. You Tube may never be the same.
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Posted By TomInReston on June 30, 2009
I’ve been away from this blog for too long.
May was a wierd month, culminating in the death of my father over Memorial Day weekend. His passing was not as traumatic for me as it might be for most people — he and my mother split when I was nine and we had an intermittent relationship for almost 50 years. Still, the loss of a parent is always guaranteed to mess with your mind. As is dealing with the aftermath.
That said, it’s time to catch up.
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Posted By TomInReston on May 2, 2009
What Digby said.
More later…
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Posted By TomInReston on April 28, 2009
While Democrats inside the beltway are jubilant over Alen Specter’s decision to join their ranks — and I’ll admit I’m not unhappy at the prospect of having sixty votes in the Senate, when we do — I find the fawning over Specter to be an insult to grass roots Democrats across the country.
This is an example of the insiders club taking care of its own, and throwing a pretty strong candidate under the bus in the process. Democrat Joe Torsella had raised nearly $600k toward a contest against Specter (or the GOP nominee) and had Specter lost the primary to Pat Toomey, a Club for Growth half-wit, might well have won the seat for Dems anyway. He’ll likely get pushed out now to clear the field for Specter, who already has promised to continue voting like a Republican.
So never mind about what the Democratic voters want. The big guys want Specter, so those of us who bust our butts to elect real Democrats just have to get over it.
Thanks for nothing.
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