Saturday, October 30, 2010

A Few Democratic Obamacare/Pelosi Sacrifices

When Nancy Pelosi needed votes for Obamacare to get it passed through the House of Representatives without any bipartisan support, many Democrats were leery of doing it in case it came back to bite them on the ass, but Pelosi pushed, twisted arms and eventually got the 219 votes it took to pass the legislation.

Now, those politicians that Pelosi/Obama was willing to sacrifice, seem to suffering from that huge fall off the cliff they forced them to jump off.

The Hill reports:

Democratic Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick (Ariz.), Suzanne Kosmas (Fla.), Debbie Halvorson (Ill.), Kathy Dahlkemper (Pa.), Carol Shea-Porter (N.H.), Mary Jo Kilroy (Ohio), Steve Driehaus (Ohio) and Betsy Markey (Colo.) were all late yes votes on health reform. Most, if not all, of them will lose on Tuesday, according to nonpartisan campaign experts.

Other Democrats who announced their support in the last few days before the March 21 vote are in tossup races, including Reps. Harry Mitchell (Ariz.), Paul Kanjorski (Pa.), Chris Carney (Pa.) and Bill Foster (Ill.).


If losses for these politicians are part of the wave expected to hit the Democrats and the GOP takes control of the House of Representatives, not only will Pelosi have sacrificed their political careers to Obamacare, but she will have also sacrificed her own gavel as Speaker of the House.

I still wonder how many of these Democratic politicians, when alone, put their hands to their heads and ask themselves "what have I done?"

If they aren't now, perhaps they will ask themselves that question on November 3, 2010, the morning after the midterm election.

The answer is simple, they betrayed their constituents and then called that betrayal an "accomplishment."

[Update] As a side note here, one of the paragraphs in The Hill's report states:

It is unclear whether lawmakers will survive or fall solely based on their support of healthcare reform. But polling shows that Democrats have lost the message war this year on the landmark health law and in tight races, the yes votes could be the deciding factor.


It may be unclear to The Hill's writer, but it is not unclear to those of us that predicted, at the time of the Obamacare passage, that Democrats that voted for it would suffer in November. It is not unclear to those of us that showed poll after poll showing the majority of the country opposed to Obamacare at the time of passage.

The only people this seems to be unclear to are Obamacare proponents that insists American voters are "detached", "ignorant", "scared", and "not thinking clearly".

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