Pat Caddell was Jimmy Carter’s main pollster, and was largely ignored when he warned Carter that the voters were going to throw him out of the White House if he didn’t get his act together:
Caddell was, in the words of Teddy White, the “house Cassandra” … Three decades later, Caddell again is warning his fellow Democrats about electoral doom.
And here’s what he says about all that BS that Obama (and Pelosi and Reid) fed congressional Democrats about how the public would be grateful to them for passing Obamacare:
Well, they hate it … The Democrats had a chance to do this right — most people supported aspects of reform — but because of the way it was passed, as a crime against democracy, the country has simply not accepted it. The lies, the browbeating, the ‘deem and pass’ — all of it was a suicide mission.
Caddell was, BTW, one of the few Democrats who predicted (before it was passed) what a disaster Obamacare was going to be for his party. Like Cassandra, however, he is doomed to be prescient and ignored.
Good. If the Dems were smart enough to listen to people like Caddell they might survive the midterms. That would be very bad for the country.
You know Obama’s in trouble when people are feeling nostalgic about Hillary Clinton. And that’s exactly what happening in some precincts of the progressive community:
The first televised ad for a Clinton-for-President recruitment campaign has officially hit the airwaves, courtesy William DeJean, a Chicago dentist who tells CNN he thinks the former senator and acting Secretary of State is the “most qualified” Democrat to run in 2012.
Some of our progressive friends are suffering from buyer’s remorse about Barack Obama, and this ad is probably not the last of its kind we’ll see:
Donald Berwick, whom our flailing President recently installed as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid with a recess appointment, has long passed himself off as a champion of transparency. It would appear, however, that this is yet another situation in which Dr. Berwick has two standards—-one for himself and another for everyone else.
Before he became CMS administrator, Berwick ran a “nonprofit” health care think tank called the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. But it appears that IHI was funded by a variety of for-profit firms that now stand to make huge profits off Obamacare. It’s hard to know for sure, however, because this champion of transparency refuses to reveal the sources of IHI’s funding:
Dr. Berwick is declining to say exactly who provided funding to the Massachusetts-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement in response to Republicans who question whether the new Medicare chief could have a conflict of interest if medical-device companies or health plans helped make his generous compensation package possible in the first place.
He insists, however, that he is abiding by the applicable ethics rules:
In a letter to Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, Dr. Berwick said he has complied fully with the ethics rules. ‘You can be assured that I will comply with all of the recusal and other obligations contained in my ethics agreement.’
This is a guy who has often demanded that hospitals, physician groups and other health care providers be very transparent about all facets of their internal operations. Yet, when asked for a few pieces of important information about a firm that he founded, he says he can’t do it because he doesn’t work there any longer. What a BS artist!
Is there ANYONE in the Obama administration who is NOT a brazen hypocrite?
On August 3, the voters of Missouri overwhelmingly voted for Proposition-C, which forbids the government (state or federal) from forcing the citizens of the “Show-Me-State” to buy health insurance. It now appears that the voters of Colorado will also get the opportunity to repudiate Obamacare’s individual mandate:
Voters will get a chance in November to decide whether state authorities should be allowed to require Coloradans to buy health insurance … Secretary of State Bernie Buescher announced today that an initiative backed by free market think tank the Independence Institute …
Predictably, the Denver Post parrots the Democrat party line on such measures:
The Constitutional amendment is an attempt to blunt federal health care reforms requiring Americans to purchase health insurance, though a November victory may be largely symbolic since federal law supersedes state law.
OK. Let’s try this ONE MORE TIME: Federal law does not supersede state law if the federal statute is unconstitutional. And the constitutionality of the mandate is very much open to question according to U.S. district Judge Henry Hudson, who recently ruled against the Obama DOJ on this issue.
So, the vote in Colorado will not be “largely symbolic.” It will, instead, be another nail in the coffin of Obamacare.
If you really think about it, it’s actually pretty difficult to believe ObamaCare supporters are serious about the claims they make. My latest column for the American Spectator looks at these people as comedians:
Among the most hilarious ObamaCare claims is that it will reduce the federal budget deficit. No less a jokester than Paul Krugman produced this gag in a recent blog post, “the Medicare actuaries believe that the cost-saving provisions in the Obama health reform will make a huge difference to the long-run budget outlook … “
Apparently, Medicare’s Chief Actuary didn’t get the joke. On August 5, Richard Foster became the first Chief Actuary in the program’s history to openly question the plausibility of a Medicare Trustees Report.
The Nevada Senate race between Sharron Angle and the current Senate Majority Leader is, of course, one of the most closely watched contests of the midterms. Needless to say, the Democrats and the “news” media have told lie after lie about Angle. But, as this ad demonstrates, the truth is a much deadlier weapon—particularly if it is told in a humorous way:
The argument used by the President and his congressional accomplices to justify Obamacare’s individual mandate is that it is permitted by the Constitution’s commerce clause. This video from reason.tv explains the history of the commerce clause and why it doesn’t permit the mandate:
About 50 full-time jobs will be eliminated at the HealthAlliance Hospital — Leominster Campus, and one of two planned expansion projects may be cut back.
And how did Obamacare accomplish this?
[The chief communications officer for the hospital] attributed the cuts to health care reform, with its reductions in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, along with cuts in private health insurance reimbursements and increasing co-payments for patients.
Patrick Muldoon, the hospital’s CEO, gives the gory details:
Health care reform is expected to result in the loss of $24 million in Medicare reimbursements, out of $170 million total, starting in five years.
But what about all those jobs? Maybe Pelosi meant it would create jobs for the apparatchiks who will populate the 111 new bureaucracies that Obamacare created.
Brilliant satire from Heritage: A Dem congressman’s strategy session concerning the best way to explain why he won’t be having Town Hall meetings. The sad thing is that such discussions have obviously been going on in real life all across America. The Dems are afraid of the voters, and with good reason:
Rick Scott, who has been a vocal opponent of Obamacare since it began working its nefarious way through Congress last year, beat the Republican establishment candidate for Florida’s governorship:
With most precincts counted, Scott looked to be overcoming the might of the Republican establishment … The Associated Press and New York Times called the race for Scott just before 11 p.m.
The media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) will no doubt make much of Scott’s former association with HCA, and insinuate that he was responsible for some isolated skulduggery with which he was never actually involved.
But Scott’s real sin, in their eyes, is his opposition to Obamacare. He is the head of an anti-Obamacare organization called Conservatives for Patient Rights, and has been roundly vilified in the media for that heresy.
In reality,of course, is that his opposition to the Democrat health care boondoggle is an asset in the eyes of the voters.
