Progressives Raise Over $3.5 Million to Oppose Any Senator Who Blocks Vote on Health Bill
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The progressive organizing group MoveOn.org has announced huge success in collecting funds to mount primary challenges to any Democratic senator who acts to block an up-or-down vote on healthcare reform. In just one week, their Health Reform Accountability Pledge campaign collected $3,578,117 in pledges.
The organization’s statement about the fundraising success reads:
That’s how much progressives pledged this week to fund primary challenges against any Democratic senator who blocks an up-or-down vote on health care reform with a public option.
It’s a huge sum, and the clearest signal yet that any Democrat who helps Republicans filibuster health care reform will face an enormous backlash from the grassroots.
The news clearly marks a shift in the dynamics of the healthcare reform risk-calculation for conservative Democrats who have been operating on the assumption they will see their electoral chances dashed if they vote to pass the bill. On the one hand, there’s concern voters won’t comprehend the complex nuance of health reform, and that ideologically driven rhetoric will sink the chances of anyone who doesn’t fit the arch-conservative “small government” narrative winning reelection.
But on the other hand, any moderate has to win by blending strong turnout among the party faithful with a convincing argument that draws indepedents in large numbers. Te last two elections (2006 and 2008) have shown not just a shift toward Democratic ideology as toward a more active and engaged continuing effort on issues. The Democrats convinced independents in those two full election cycles that their candidates were better equipped to deliver that kind of sustained and fruitful engagement with the issues that affect their degree of personal freedom and wellbeing.
The Republicans hope they can scare voters into believing Democrats are now engaged in a sinister “left-wing conspiracy” to rob them of freedom and prosperity. But they are planning to do this by pushing even more vehemently for the very policies that over the last 8 years plunged the nation into near depression, bankrupted record number of millions of American families and made the average American less free and less hopeful of a restored prosperity.
Joe Lieberman is throwing in with that lot, and the progressive groups that now seek to hold him accountable for his radical departure from the common-sense Democratic values he campaigned on are aware that his reliance on the logic of Republican laissez-faire ideologues and obstructionists to justify a position he cannot explain in rational terms is his Achilles’ heel.
The $3.5 million comes in the form of pledges, which will have to be produced if the time comes to stage that challenge, against Sen. Lieberman or any other Democrat who moves to block a floor vote in the Senate. But it’s a major change of momentum in favor of the pro-public-option position and the clearest sign to date that Pres. Obama’s coalition of young and independent progressives remains a force that can challenge even the most seasoned veterans.
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