Why the "Nays" Must Face Primaries
By Steve Harrison
Rep. Steve Israel believes we should support the Democrats who voted against healthcare in order to keep a technical majority. I disagree. A technical majority is valueless in the absence of a substantive majority. What does it gain the party to bring a bill to the floor only to lose?
With the help of the pseudo-Democrats, the Republicans are now within four votes of a substantive majority. That became painfully obvious in the healthcare vote. If the Democrats lose only four seats in November the substantive majority could swing to the Republicans, thwarting core Democratic initiatives on jobs, finance reform, immigration, education policy, labor policy and more.
The solution is not to give the pseudo-Dems job security but to replace them with true Democrats.
Recently, Joe Klein wrote a great column in Time magazine. It well explains the bitterness many Democrats harbor because of those anti-healthcare votes. Starting with a quote from President Obama to the Democratic members of Congress on the eve of the historic vote, Klein writes:
"I know this is a tough vote", and, for many of them, it was - politically. But in another way, it wasn't: it was ground zero of what being a Democrat has meant for the past 80 years. It rectified an astonishing injustice in American life; most of the nonworking poor are guaranteed health care, through Medicaid, but the working poor are not, unless they're lucky enough to have an employer who provides it. Another injustice: insurance companies determine who receives coverage and can deny it at will. For Democrats this represented a gaping hole in the safety net. Arguments about the details were inevitable, but a yes vote was embedded deep in the party's
Klein is not referring to Progressives or Liberals but to mainstream Democrats.
Politics will always play a role in
Bring on the primaries.