Obama Asks Advocacy Groups to Leave Democratic Congressmen Alone

[Faeelin]

The same one he claimed to support? I guess?

Obama Urges Groups to Stop Attacks
Advocates Should Turn Attention to Promoting Legislation, President Says
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 4, 2009

President Obama, strategizing yesterday with congressional leaders about health-care reform, complained that liberal advocacy groups ought to drop their attacks on Democratic lawmakers and devote their energy to promoting passage of comprehensive legislation.

In a pre-holiday call with half a dozen top House and Senate Democrats, Obama expressed his concern over advertisements and online campaigns targeting moderate Democrats, whom they criticize for not being fully devoted to "true" health-care reform.

"We shouldn't be focusing resources on each other," Obama opined in the call, according to three sources who participated in or listened to the conversation. "We ought to be focused on winning this debate."

Specifically, Obama said he is hoping left-leaning organizations that worked on his behalf in the presidential campaign will now rally support for "advancing legislation" that fulfills his goal of expanding coverage, controlling rising costs and modernizing the health system.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/03/AR2009070302309.html?wprss=rss_nation

For a discussion of the background issues, see: http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/07/04/will-moveon-cave-to-obamas-pressure/

Hrm. More and more I think 2012 will see the American left stay home.

[Admiral Yi]

Hrm. More and more I think 2012 will see the American left stay home.

Nah, there's always some wacko running in the primaries they will support.

Read an article on Medicare in the NYT; one interesting point it raised is that one of the reasons for the big discrepancy between Medicare admin costs (3%) and private sector admin costs (17%) is that Medicare doesn't put much money into tracking fraud.  Think about it: every couple months there's a story about doctors swindling Medicare, but when is the last time you heard about doctors swindling Blue Cross?

[Neil]

There's still a long time until 2012, and we have no idea who the Republicans are going to nominate.  The left is an ideology of hate, and if the Republicans nominate someone that they hate enough, they'll turn out in droves.

[Razgovory]

Obama seems to be interested in preventing the Democrats from turning on each other.  A Sisyphean task but he's giving it his best shot.  Iraq and the economy are easy compared to preventing democrats from turning on each other.