Pennsylvania 2010 - The Official Thread

[Torie]

Some will come back as Pubbies in PA for Specter (I know a couple personally who switched registration to vote for Obama in the primary, including the founder of the Vanguard Funds, John Bogle), but others were really Dems all along, and registered GOP because the Dems were not in the hunt for local races. Those days in the Philly burbs are now gone, and thus the rationale for an ersatz registration ala Sam Spade registering as a Dem in Brooklyn, are now gone.

If Toomey is elected senator, that is bad news, because it means our economy in 2010 will still be in the tank. Other than that, I would be utterly amazed if he managed to get elected.

[Torie]

If he votes for Card Check, they pledge to switch thousands of Dems to vote for Specter in the primary - http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/16/afl-cio-pledges-votes-for-specter/


Absolutely awesome. This gives Arlen reason to stay as a Republican and still lose the primary. No one way they switch enough people. The state Dems would be very uneasy about this.

Pubbies in Pennsylvania should email Specter's office and tell him that if he votes for card check, they will vote against him in the GOP primary, and if he votes against it, they will vote for him. Card check is a big deal issue, and even a bigger deal is the provision which is part of the toxic bill empowering arbitrators if negotiations break down to invoke settlements (the latter provision wherein the government imposes contracts on folks seemingly unconstitutional to boot as, e.g., an uncompensated property taking ).

[Torie]

To quote Trunk Man (from our local political paper)...

"Word on the street is he [Toomey] has already secured the commitment of many influencial Elephant Ward Leaders, potential candidates and assorted Philly movers and shakers. This is not good news for Senator Arlen Specter."


If he has several ward leaders (and influencial ones at that) in Philly, Specter is done here. I haven't heard of many others backing him and I'm very curious who they are. I'll find out soon enough, I guess. The "movers and shakers" list would be interesting to see as well.

Can't you fit the registered Republicans in the city of Philly itself into a something only slightly larger than a phone booth?  It would seem to me the burb GOP influentials would be more salient here.

[Torie]

Will Pubbies in PA vote for Toomey in a primary if polls show him a substantial loser in the General, while Specter is ahead of the Dem?  Is the spirit of Seppuku in their blood?

[Torie]

I think I would find living in PA frustrating Phil.   I suspect I would  be estranged from both parties.

[Torie]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/04/20/specter-staff-threatens-to-trash-letters-in-support-of-employee-free-choice/

Toomey is right - Specter is a "sure fire loser" next year. Now the unions are pissed off and they'll be out for revenge. They're just the latest victims of Specter's backstabbing ways.

Barring something big, this guy can't rebound. He doesn't have a coalition anymore. If he's somehow re-nominated, tons of Republicans won't turn out/will skip the Senate race or even vote for the Dem and the unions will strongly back the Democratic challenger.

The man has finally dug his political grave.

He should be reanimated for his little "epiphany"  on card check actually. His party should reward him darn it, not punish him! There seems to be some sort of masochism abroad out there in my party. Part of my frustration I guess  is that the majority apparently of the GOP find important what I don't, and don't find important what I do. Boo!

[Torie]

He should be reanimated for his little "epiphany"  on card check actually. His party should reward him darn it, not punish him! There seems to be some sort of masochism abroad out there in my party. Part of my frustration I guess  is that the majority apparently of the GOP find important what I don't, and don't find important what I do. Boo!

Torie, with all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about regarding Specter. No, he shouldn't be rewarded because he flipped around on Card Check. He has screwed us far too many times over the years and he loves it.

He's been playing games for decades and revenge is long overdue. No one should expect us to suddenly like the guy because he was spineless (in our favor) on an issue because, as the General rolls around, he'll try to find a way to stick it to us to win back the other side.

Well, I have 'known' Arlen since rocks cooled  -  the good, the bad and the ugly (with the real ugly being his pathetic performance during the Bork nomination hearings, when he revealed himself to be a mediocre lawyer at best).  So with all due respect, I think I do know what I am talking about. You just don't agree with it.  

[Torie]

Those who care about card check with my opinion on the matter owe him something Phil. Are there no Torie Republicans in PA anymore?  Where have all the flowers gone? 

[Torie]

Labor's not giving up on Specter

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/24/unions-see-specter-openin_n_191192.html

If Specter switches back to the dark side on card check, he will indeed look like a total unprincipled vote whore. That I think would effect beyond per adventure his  political destruction. He's crossed the Rubicon, and will drown if he tries to swim back.

[Torie]

By the way, don't be surprised if Gerlach decides to abandon that Gubernatorial campaign...

You think he might run for the Senate?  He might well be a stronger candidate than Toomey, don't you think?

[Torie]

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Arlan for the Senate! I may send him money.   

I do have trouble seeing just how Arlan would win a Dem primary however, given this, and given PA is such a big labor state.

Arlan said he is also not an automatic 60th vote for cloture. He seems to be implying that his voting patterns will not change. I don't believe that for a moment, at least not until the Dem primary is over.

We shall see.

[Torie]

Doesn't it depend in the end on how fast on their feet, and how are articulate they seem to be, and their  mastery of the issues, and ability to seem cognizant that their are competing considerations to wrestle with, and maybe it is time to think a bit out of the box? Or  is PA just too different from my state, and all of that  seems more frightening than stimulating to a state whose polity  in some ways remains in a political time warp more than most states; e.g. it still has  strong unions, a lot of social conservatives, with seculars kind of thin on the ground, and where the tendency is to think pork is one's favorite meat?

[Torie]

Doesn't it depend in the end on how fast on their feet, and how are articulate they seem to be, and their  mastery of the issues, and ability to seem cognizant that their are competing considerations to wrestle with, and maybe it is time to think a bit out of the box?

Sure, it does and Toomey is strong in all of those areas. And that's ignored. All the time.

it still has  strong unions, a lot of social conservatives, with seculars kind of thin on the ground, and where the tendency is to think pork is one's favorite meat?

Hey, that's the case here, too. We're a real mixed bag, my friend.

By the way, I don't like how you say that seculars are "thin on the ground," as if their scarcity means that other groups (like social conservatives) make up all of the "dumb voters."

Scarce means that they are scarce relatively speaking (seculars). It does not mean folks of faith are dumb - which I don't believe - at all. I don't understand how you could draw that logical connection from the text of my post, Phil.

[Torie]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090511/ap_on_go_co/us_specter_health_overhaul

Specter reversess his position on having a public component in healthcare reform.  Shocked, I'm shocked.

Odds of Senator Sestak drop rather substantively.  Health care is something that could come down to a 59-60 wire and there is nothing more important on the Democratic agenda this year.

What do we all think of this Op Ed editorial from the WSJ?  Sam Spade? Does the language, "they'll add a new multitrillion-dollar liability to the federal fisc anyway, using a process that was designed to cut spending and reduce the deficit," refer to circumventing a filibuster cloture vote, and if so, what is the leverage on the GOP wets if the Dems have the power anyway? Is the game here to give the wets a bone, and if so, why would the wets accept a bone?  This part of the editorial is quite opaque to me and does not very clearly present the mechanics of the coercion.

Republicans and the 'Public Option'

A case in which compromise means government health care.

   
So Democrats have declared their willingness to use a parliamentary tactic to force a far-reaching restructuring of U.S. health care through Congress on a partisan vote. Imagine if Tom DeLay had tried to do that on, say, Social Security. Would Democrats have rolled over?

On the one hand, President Obama and his party say they're hoping to strike a good-faith compromise on health care. On the other, they're threatening this "budget reconciliation" maneuver to coerce Republicans into rubber-stamping liberal policy. And if the GOP won't oblige, Democrats say they'll add a new multitrillion-dollar liability to the federal fisc anyway, using a process that was designed to cut spending and reduce the deficit.

The political game here is that Democrats want to use this threat to peel off a handful of GOP Senators before the bill comes to the floor in June. That would short-circuit this year's health-care debate before it begins. Their targets include the likes of Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, all of whom bowed to the Democrats in 2007 on expanding the state children's insurance program (Schip). But those were minor stakes compared to this year's battle, especially over the so-called public option for health insurance.

This new entitlement -- like Medicare but open to all ages and all incomes -- would quickly crowd out private insurance as people gravitated to heavily subsidized policies, eventually leading to a single-payer system. So Democrats are trying to seduce diffident Republicans with a Potemkin compromise. A "soft" public option would limit enrollment only to the uninsured or those employed by small businesses, or include promises that the plan will pay market rates. As recently proposed by Chuck Schumer, it would pay claims entirely with premiums and co-pays. But if the plan can't force down reimbursement rates through brute force, and doesn't get taxpayer dollars, why bother to "compete" with private plans?

The truth is Democrats know that any policy guardrails built this year can be dismantled once the basic public option architecture is in place. The White House strategy is to dilute it just enough to win over credulous Republicans. That is what has always happened with government health programs:

When Medicare was created in 1965, benefits were relatively limited and retirees paid a substantial percentage of the costs of their own care. But the clout of retirees has always led to expanding benefits for seniors while raising taxes on younger workers.

In 1965, Congressional actuaries expected Medicare to cost $3.1 billion by 1970. In 1969, that estimate was revised to $5 billion, and it actually came in at $6.8 billion. That same year, the Senate Finance Committee declared a Medicare cost emergency. In 1979, Jimmy Carter proposed limiting benefits, only to have the bill killed by fellow Democrats. Things have gotten worse since, and Medicare today costs $455 billion and rising.

Medicaid was intended as a last resort for the poor but now covers one-third of all long-term care expenses in the U.S. -- that is, it has become a middle-class subsidy for aging parents of the Baby Boomers. Its annual bill is $227 billion, and so far this fiscal year is rising by 17%.

Schip was pitched a decade ago as a safety net for poor kids, and some Republicans helped sell it as a free-market reform. But Schip is now open to families that earn up to 300% of the poverty level, or $63,081 for a family of four. In New York, you can qualify at 400% of poverty.

Any new federal health plan will inevitably follow the same trajectory, no matter how much Republican Senators might claim they've guaranteed otherwise. The Lewin Group consultants estimate that 119 million people who now have private insurance could potentially be captured by the government under the Obama public option. This is on top of the 90 million already in Medicare or Medicaid. This would guarantee a spending explosion that would over time lift federal outlays as a share of GDP into the upper 20% range or higher. Republicans would spend the rest of their days deciding whether to vote for tax increases to finance this, or stand accused of denying health care to the middle class.

This doesn't mean the die is cast. Democrats also know that durable reforms in America have typically passed with bipartisan majorities. They understand that a national health plan that passes on partisan lines could be pared back as unaffordable or unfair, the way the "catastrophic" health plan for seniors was repealed in 1989.

As New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg recently told us, Democrats also don't want their swing-state Senators to have to defend such a partisan process in the 2010 election. That's why they're eager for even the veneer of bipartisanship that three or four GOP Senators would provide. And that's why they're willing to threaten a procedural bludgeon to intimidate Republicans to provide that veneer.

This health-care debate isn't like the "stimulus" bill, which was largely about short-term spending and deficits. This one is about whether to turn 17% of the U.S. economy entirely and permanently into the arms of the government. For Republicans, this is about whether they still stand for anything at all.

[Torie]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090511/ap_on_go_co/us_specter_health_overhaul

Specter reversess his position on having a public component in healthcare reform.  Shocked, I'm shocked.

Odds of Senator Sestak drop rather substantively.  Health care is something that could come down to a 59-60 wire and there is nothing more important on the Democratic agenda this year.

What do we all think of this Op Ed editorial from the WSJ? 

Reid and Obama have been threatening to do this through reconciliation for a while.

It's less likely now that Specter has switched, depending on what Nelson and Bayh do.  It's a threat that's a negotiating tactic to force the GOP to cede some ground -- accept a moderated form of healthcare reform or let us design it completely.  It would temporarily ruin relations between the GOP and the Democrats, but Obama is determined to get healthcare reform done this year no matter how much unified opposition he faces.

Ya, but then Obama loses the GOP veneer, and he probably wants a more moderate plan anyway, and just wants GOP fingerprints on the moderation part rather than his. I suspect in the end the Dems would do this anyway, and are unwilling to do more to get a few GOP wets. What they want is the both 1) the deal outlined by the WSJ with a fig leaf of a level playing field to be worn down later, and 2) GOP wet fingerprints on it. Getting number 2) however is just gravy, and not essential.

That is my wild intuition without knowing the details of the specifics being talked about like you may, because you may read all that stuff that you find links for.