An email today from Nancy Schwartz of the Getting Attention! blog and website links to her useful template to create a “Nonprofit Marketing Plan – Ready-to-Use.” It covers every base.
Category: Uncategorized
History being made
Congratulations to the President, the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader of the Senate, the Committee Chairs, the Democrats who voted for health reform, and all the people everywhere who worked to make this moment happen – especially the late Ted Kennedy. In the months between now and November 3, people everywhere will come to see that this is a seismic shift in American politics and that this bill represents genuine positive change. And with this achievement, we now have the opportunity to build on a new foundation and improve the structure of health care each year. All in all a remarkable piece of history tonight.
Update: TPM has the list of who got the 20 presidential pens at today’s signing ceremony. My favorite is #19.
Sunday Morning Reading
Three pieces set the stage nicely for today’s House vote:
- Politico on Nancy Pelosi’s role in getting us past Scott Brown’s election and keeping the White House and the entire Congress on the path to comprehensive health reform.
- The SF Chronicle, Pelosi’s home town newspaper, make similar points on the Speaker’s leadership.
Both articles cite the depth of the opposition and the polling numbers in ways that seem to buy into the Republican narrative that the country will punish the Democrats in November if health care reform happens.
I don’t buy it. If the House passes the health insurance reform bill today, the narrative shifts. The media is forced to cover the bill accurately and focus on what it does, rather than covering the opposition to it as if it had an intellectual leg to stand on. Obama and Pelosi, and even Harry Reid will be recognized for having fought and won the fight to recognize health care as a right, a battle that has been waged since FDR’s early days. And the American people will begin to recognize that all the dire predictions of the right have been lies. They made the same arguments against Social Security in the ‘30s and Medicare in the ’60s; they were wrong then and they’re wrong now.
And finally, Maureen Dowd is at her best today as she takes Bart Stupak to task and celebrates the leadership of America’s Catholic nuns on this issue as they took on the bishops and stood up for the best traditions of Christian social justice.
If we win today, Nancy Pelosi and the nuns are the heroes of the end game.
Breaking Unhealthy Habits
Matthew Yglesias, writing in The American Prospect, looks at the “election eve” polling and finds that “once Democrats stopped arguing about health and started getting real on passing reform, voters got behind them.”
Gail Collins: Saints Preserve Us
I’ve kind of lost my sense of humor when it comes to the health care vote tomorrow, so it’s good to see that Gail Collins hasn’t.
But she gets serious in the second half of today’s column, and here’s where we’re in total agreement:
If it passes, the short-term political consequences are unknowable. But in 10 years, people will look back in amazement that we once lived in a time when Americans couldn’t get health care coverage if they were sick, when insurance companies could cut off your benefits for being sick, and when run-of-the-mill serious illnesses routinely destroyed families’ financial security.
And if it passes, Barack Obama will have validated his presidency.
It feels like we’re on the eve of a national election – one that really matters. Here’s hoping it turns out right. Tomorrow looks like a good day for C-SPAN.
NYT: Democrats to Watch on the Health Care Vote
The Times now has an up-to-date interactive chart on its web site showing 32 Democrats still in play on the HCR vote. The current tally according to the NYT’s Caucus blog is 199 Yes and 200 No.
Update: By the Times count there are now 203 Yes, 204 No, and 24 Undecided at the end of today. I have a feeling that the No votes have revealed themselves first and that the Democratic leadership has a good idea where the votes are coming from to get this through. What they don’t know yet is how many Yes votes they will allow to vote No for local political reasons. This may not be as close as it seems – or even as close as the final vote will be. But this article after tonight’s Democratic caucus meeting may mean I’m wrong about all of that.
CJR: The Education of Herb And Marion Sandler
Jeff Horwitz, writing in the latest Columbia Journalism Review, examines the way The New York Times and CBS covered the mortgage lending practices of Golden West Financial Corporation in the years just before it was purchased by Wachovia. This is an important story to get right in all the details, in part because Mr. and Mrs. Sandler, who led Golden West for more than 40 years, have a foundation that is the principal financial backer of the investigative journalism web site ProPublica and other liberal causes.
538: Time to Start Counting Yes Votes
And Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com tackles the game theory of the last House votes to be rounded up.
Andy Stern: “We need to make ourselves more involved in these people’s career planning”
Ezra Klein interviews Andy Stern of Change to Win on the politics of health care reform today.
Andy Stern: “We need to make ourselves more involved in these people’s career planning”
TPM: Countdown To Reform
Given that Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and James Clyburn aren’t blogging about the House vote count, Talking Points Memo probably has the next best thing.
Bali Arts 