I Write To Donna Edwards' Campaign

Image credit: Kristian D.

It's been a bad month for Slobber And Spittle Blue candidates. Of course, most of them weren't elected in the first place. A few weeks ago, Eric Massa quit amid charges that he harassed members of his staff. Now Donna Edwards appears ready to violate a pledge she made to oppose any health care reform measure that did not include a public option. As Jane Hamsher wrote today:

After avoiding direct questions for months, Donna Edwards signed the July 31 letter saying she would vote against any health care bill that didn’t have a public option. I caught up with her at Netroots Nation and she asked me to have a fundraiser for all the members of Congress who signed the letter.

“Carrots, not sticks,” she said.
...
Less than two weeks after the fundraiser she was equivocating: she “declined to speculate on whether she would vote against a conference bill without a strong public option….’That’s a long way down the line,’ Edwards said. ‘I am talking about the House vote.’”

If Donna Edwards Can’t Keep Her Word, She Should Give Back the Money

Edwards is not among the few progressives listed as being a "no" vote on the upcoming health care "reform" bill vote. As I wrote to her today, that isn't acceptable:

As Jane Hamsher pointed out today, Rep. Edwards suggested that a fund be set up back in July to reward the progressive congresspeople who pledged to vote against a health care reform bill that didn't include a public option. Now, not only is she going back on her word to oppose such a bill, but is apparently supporting a bill that, by any reasonable measure, will only make things worse for the people who need health care reform the most.

This bill has no prohibition against lifetime caps, a smaller increase in Medicaid coverage than the bill the House passed last summer, no provision for enforcing the insurance regulations, a more regressive tax structure than the House bill, no public option, and a mandate that every American buy insurance. The insurance we are told we must buy will have large deductibles and can be as much as three times more expensive for people in their fifties than those in their twenties. Without enforcement, insurance companies will be free to violate even the inadequate standards the bill allegedly requires they meet.

In short, this bill makes us buy insurance that won't pay for the health care we need.

What did I support Ms. Edwards for? Do you think I sent contributions just so she could sell out to big lobbyists the way Al Wynn did? Do you really want to say "screw you" to the people who supported her? Apparently, you do.

Last election, Ms. Edwards was one of the candidates on my own ActBlue page. That will not be true this time around, it appears. Someone who can't be taken at her word on an issue this important to the country isn't someone I want in Congress.

Progressives who give money to candidates like Donna Edwards are often giving money they can barely afford in hopes that the candidates will make their lives, or their society, better. When those candidates in turn decide that they can go back on their word, then they have broken their word to people like this. Such people will not be on the Slobber And Spittle Blue slate.

As I've often joked, the SnS Blue slate is a small, but monetarily unrewarding honor. Still, people who go back on their word, and who vote for legislation that makes things worse for ordinary Americans, will not be on it. If Edwards breaks her word, she won't be.

That's a promise I'll keep.

UPDATE: Gregg Levine, after recounting the lengths that President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders have gone to in the last few weeks to support the current health care "reform" bill, then muses about what it's all been in aid of:

It is strikingly educational to note that none of this was done last spring for single-payer. None of this was done last summer for a bill with a robust public option. None of this was done last fall for drug re-importation. None of this was done to stop the health care bill from containing the greatest threat to reproductive rights in a generation. Some yelled, some organized, some worked hard—a group here, a blog there (or vice versa)—but there was no massive, coordinated push, no hard sell, no “win one for the gipper,” and no demonizing of those who were then the obstacles to real, progressive change.

But, today—today everything is different. The White House has the bill it really always wanted. They have their deals with PhRMA, AHIP, and the Hospitals more-or-less unbroken (despite some of their protest-too-much carping); they have their real goal in sight.

Behold, The Power Of Democrats

Let me just emphasize a point for any Democratic operatives who may have inadvertently ended up here: If the Democrats pass this regressive piece of crap, there will be no forgiving those who made it happen. I don't care what else they accomplish in their remaining terms. They will not be supported here, until they have actually undone what they screwed up. The people who support this bill, after promising that they wouldn't vote for any bill that had its features (or lacked features such as the public option) are liars. They cannot be trusted, and I will not trust them.