(Be advised: What follows is just a political musing. Enter with care. You should also be warned that I have occasion to include pictures from both Star Trek AND comic books, so JD might want to run screaming…)

In norse mythology, the pantheon of gods, with their internal conflicts between Aesir and Vanir, and ongoing battles with evil, as personified by beings such as Loki and the Midgard Serpent, was predestined to an unavoidable doom. They were caught in a cycle of destruction and renewal hardwired into their cosmology, and there was nothing to be done but ride it out. This was “ragnarok” – the twilight of the gods.

Regular readers are familiar with the regular conflict on this site – to third party or not to third party? GMD was, of course, set up by liberal Dems who, by their choice of affiliation, lean towards the latter option (although there are undoubtedly front pagers who prefer to keep their options more open). Not to rehash, but for my part, again, I see it as the fundamental structure of our elections; with a distinctly elected executive, power inevitably polarizes out into the party of the executive versus everybody else. This is what happened to the Whigs, the original Progressives, the Know-nothings or whoever. Every new, insurgent political party in our system faces one of two fates – either they supplant one of the existing ones and take their place of prominence in the hardwired two-party system, or they simply fail completely. I'm not saying its a good thing – in fact, it's probably not – but it is an inevitable result of our system as laid out in the Constitution.

And it is the political ragnarok ultimately faced by the divided left in Vermont. 

In Vermont at present, we are living through a period whereby the “winning” left-party will gradually sugar out over time. Given the direction and the progress the Progressive Party has taken, it would seem to inevitably be that the Democrats will maintain their systemic primacy. In fact, Anthony Pollina's gubernatorial candidacy will only accelerate that, one way or the other. Either Pollina loses, and the Progressives' abiding faith in their ability to draw Republicans and Democrats alike into a silent revolution (if only there is no Democrat in the race) stands shattered before electoral reality, or Pollina wins, and he must put together an executive branch without a Progressive political infrastructure that is developed enough to support such a government without depending primarily on Democrats to make it work.

This latter possibility is the most intriguing, and it lays out the real fallacy to a third party pursuing Pollina's top-down model (go for one of the top spots, such as Governor and fill in the rest later), as opposed to sticking with the grassroots, bottom-up model (work more patiently through city councils and state legislative seats, as has worked so well for them in Burlington): if you build from the bottom up, you not only build a case for executive power, you create a body of experienced public officials on which to build your executive infrastructure once you're in.

But that's not Pollina's (and apparently the Progs') way. Ironically, this means a Pollina victory would lead to his Party's being absorbed into that of the Democrats – probably losing several moderates, but gaining disaffected lefties – but a merger nonetheless that leaves us, again, with two parties.

A merger of this sort is the other possible manifestation of this political ragnarok, and is itself hardly unprecedented. Consider Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, or DFL. In 1944, the Democrats merged with the Farmer-Labor third party and have been a potent force ever since, sending several representatives to Congress. The thing is, once in Washington, they're all simply known as “Democrats.”

Which is what they are. Democrats. The “F” and the “L” were completely absorbed by the “D” in all but name only. That's not to say it wasn't a good thing, moving the Dems to the left, but the two-party structure remains.

So it would seem to be a doom, of sorts. We in the left just wait around, dealing with the left wing schism that has led us to so much frustration on both sides around the race for Governor. Ragnarok is coming – either the Progs will whither away or be absorbed in a merger – its a question of when, and how many elections we stand to lose in the meantime. It's a process completely out of our control.

Or is it?

In Norse mythology, the first sign of Ragnarok was the death of the god Balder, who could only me harmed by mistletoe. The story goes (at least in one version), that Loki didn't want to wait, tipped an arrow with mistletoe, and did the deed himself, bringing on the change.

Well, grassroots activists in both parties have access to a little mistletoe themselves…

If the grassroots crowds in both parties got tired of waiting, they could simply bring on a merger by fiat. Imagine activists committed to a merger running for leadership positions across the state – first at the city level, then the county, and then – inevitably and inexoribly – the state. Unless the law has changed, one can't hold offices in distinct and parallel party governance structures, so activists would have to work in teams.

It's a fun thought experiment for a couple of reasons.

One: imagine the scenes among local committees. There would be a lot of contention of course, but I suspect a surprising number of activists on both sides would be all for it. Obviously there are plenty of [ Democrats / Progressives ] of the “better dead that [ Progressive / Democrat ]” persuasion – but just how many would be interesting to see.

Two: If a movement like this were to actually get any momentum, leadership of both parties would likely plotz. It would threaten entrenched powers-that-be, dug in rivalries, and obsessive ideologies like nothing else.

But, if there were actual grassroots support, there is little anyone in either party's leadership could do about it.

One could further imagine it bringing the party's leaders together in a truly ironic way. In the film Star Trek VI, the looming success of a peace treaty between the Federation and the Klingons brought bitter enemies together behind the scenes to scuttle it, rather than be forced to leave their bitter war behind. Kirk, in grappling with his own ingrained prejudices opines “how will history get get around people like me?”

Maybe a coordinated grassroots effort to force a peaceful merger of the two parties despite themselves would finally bring the powers-that-be in both organizations together?

Let me be clear: I'm not advocating for anything – not by a long shot. This is just a little mindgame.

But its one that would drive Progressive and Democratic leadership equally crazy if it became reality.

And that makes it kind of a fun thought, no?

Governor Stuff #1. From VPR, emphasis added:

The gubernatorial campaign of Progressive Anthony Pollina says it’s raised $100,000 in contributions and pledges in the last two months.

Heh. “And pledges.” Wonder what the ratio of contribution-to-pledge is, and how conditional those pledges are…

But I’m not trying to mock. If there’s one thing that’s been consistent about the Pollina campaign, it’s how, since November-ish, they’ve made all the right moves.

One gambit – putting out the uber-reasonable sounding word that they would back off if a “top tier” Dem was interested – backfired a bit when a top tier Dem (Racine) actually did show strong interest (woops), but you can see why they took that rhetorical gamble. The only serious stumble has been Pollina’s apparent unwillingness to pro-actively press the flesh among the grassroots Democratic organizational structure (Town and County committees), despite many folks (myself included) urging his people that he should do just that, if they indeed were serious about a unity paradigm on the left. Frankly, it seems like the obvious step (unless, of course, he really does still find Dems to be too icky). If he’d gone that route starting back when he suggested he wanted to reach out to rank-and-file Dems, he’d be in a dramatically better position already. Very odd, that.

Governor Stuff #2: VPR’s Vermont Edition also had Peter Galbraith on, talking about (among other things) a possible run for Governor (which he says he is “seriously considering”), and he will also be appearing before the Democratic State Committee on January 26th discussing the same topic. He says he is currently “traveling around the state, meeting with people.”

I guess he missed the word from Freyne way back in November that he’d already “ruled it out.”  

Former Governor Kunin (a Hillary Clinton supporter) has an op-ed in the Washington Post (h/t Hemingway) that would seem to reduce the entirety of the New Hampshire primary results to a very simple calculus:

Women came out in droves for the recent Democratic voting in both New Hampshire and Iowa. The numbers in the two states were nearly identical — 57 percent women and 43 percent men. But in New Hampshire those women supported Sen. Hillary Clinton over Sen. Barack Obama 46 to 29 percent, while in Iowa they backed Obama 35 to 30 percent.

Why the difference?

Aside from having elected a woman as governor, New Hampshire has become accustomed to seeing women wield the legislative gavel…. electing women is contagious. The more you see, the more you get…

They have the further effect of demonstrating to the voters that the diversity that women bring to the political process has its rewards: new ideas, priorities and leadership styles….

The difference became clear when Clinton’s voice quavered and she showed deep emotion while meeting with a group of women at a diner. It was a “just us girls” moment, when she felt she could let her hair down and they would understand.

A lot of New Hampshire women apparently did.

It’s easy to infer while reading this piece that Kunin is looking at a piece of the NH equation discretely, until she applies her theory without qualification or contextualization on the upcoming primary states:

When the campaigns turn to Nevada, South Carolina and beyond, will women continue to turn out for Clinton in large numbers? South Carolina will be tough. It has the distinction of ranking at the bottom in the percentage of women in its legislature: 8.8 percent. There are not many female role models to guide voters, and the tradition that a Southern woman’s place is in the home still lingers in some quarters….New Hampshire is ready. As for the rest of the nation, the next primaries may give us the answer.

Kunin starts by laying out a common-sense, positive point that can’t be repeated too often – diversity is in and of itself a desirable goal in institutions – particularly government.

But from there, she makes an astonishing projection onto the entirety of the Presidential Primary process: a State’s vote for Hillary Clinton is a metric of its level of gender equality and justice. If Clinton wins, it means your state has no problem with women in positions of power. If she loses, it’s because your state is still too prejudiced to accept women in power. The Clinton vote will “give us the answer” as to which states still believe that a “woman’s place is in the home.” Change in X equals change in Y.

Much as I’m trying to read otherwise, that seems to be the message. Kunin’s argument is to wholly reduce the Democratic primary to a gauge of our social construction of gender. There is no room given for a dialectic that considers the candidates as individuals, or their policies.

It seems to me that this makes for a simplistic and reductive analysis, and is couched in terms that run the risk of being essentializing.

What do you think? Does Kunin have a point? Does she have a piece of a point? Is she entirely off base? As a poster at dKos just put it, does this reasoning suggest that a state’s readiness for a black leader and a state’s readiness for a female leader are inversely proportional?

When you have a blog like this that a lot of people read, I’ve found you just never know what people are going to react to. Case in point my diary from yesterday expressing my…displeasure…with the latest bill in the Vermont legislature which is designed to move us toward a single-payer health care system. While I, once again, agree with the goal, I take issue with the content of the bill – and in particular the piss-poor communication strategy designed to promote it – a strategy seemingly designed to pick needless fights and utterly confuse potential supporters.

Well, I didn’t know the half of it. Putting aside for a moment its supporters who apparently have only just discovered GMD and decided to make their point by name-calling (yeah, cuz THAT works SO well), I get an official email from Vermont Health Care For All which takes us to a whole new level of debate (I don’t know who sent it. I doubt it was Richter. Last time I got email from this address, I believe it was Terry Doran, but I can’t say for sure).

Bear in mind, this is an email sent to someone who has for many years supported the cause of single-payer healthcare – even inviting their comments during the Catamount discussions. You might think, then, that the tone might be persuasive. That they might feel the need to make their case as to why I should become a supporter of the bill, despite my frustrated misgivings.

HOO-boy, would you be wrong about that. The email I received is below the fold. It consisted of my original diary interspersed with the sender’s responses, so I’ve tried to replicate that format in the blog’s CMS format.

Be advised: if political catfights make you queasy, skip this diary…

Championed by Deb Richter and Con Hogan, the bill is sponsored by a Republican and two Democrats, but no Progressives.

Not true: Some of the bill’s strongest supporters are Progressives.  

A weird point of contention. I didn’t argue that Progressives didn’t support it. In fact in the next sentence I stated they did (“On the other hand, it is quite the topic of organization at the Progs’ official site, including on the Prog Blog. “). I was wondering why none of them sponsored it. I thought this was odd.

What it probably is, is yet another sign that this bill was developed in a slap-dash way. I suspect every single member of the Prog caucus would’ve signed on, along with quite a few other Dems. It would’ve been helpful to spend the extra day to get their names on it.

The bill itself has gotten as much attention for its organizing slogan

as its content (“Take Back Vermont Healthcare,” which has only served to piss people off by evoking “Take Back Vermont” – Richter has since announced a change in its advertising gimmick – and hopefully a reconsideration of

career choice for whatever communications person thought such a name was a good idea).

Some of us – not all – still think it’s a good name because 1. It

rehabilitates a perfectly good concept trashed by the reactionary right wing during the civil unions debate and 2. it perfectly captures what we wish done. The fact that Progressive websites or blogs are in a tizzy over this says more about them and their focus and goals than about us.  

Got that? If you think, as Julie said, that “Fags Go Home Healthcare” is offensive, it’s just your problem, as a stuck-up blogger. Sheesh. Get over it. What, are you a fag or something?

Even the advocacy website set up for the bill  makes it painfully hard to find out anything at all (not a strategy that inspires confidence, which adds to the general sense of chaos around the “grasstops” effort)

Well, perhaps. It’s how you see it.  

It’s your website, folks. What is it you want people to see? Come on!

304 would set up the State of Vermont to become the functional single insurance payer for Hospital care. The idea is that, once implemented, regular premiums will come down 40%, paperwork will be dramatically streamlined and reduced, which could bring down rates even further, and it ultimately becomes a cheaper and more cost-efficient way for the State to meet its Medicare and Medicaid matching burdens. In fact, the bill depends on Vermont being able to pool its Medicare and Medicaid federal monies to cover the system.

Many no’s in the above. Not an insurance payer at all. A payer of health care services. This is a pretty big difference. Administrative paperwork savings don’t bring down insurance rates. The bill has provision to raise the money in case Medicare and Medicaid waivers are not obtained. Under the Bush administration there’s little likelihood they could be.

Now THIS was what we call a “teachable moment.” From my perspective, in this case anyway, it strikes me as a distinction without a difference, at least from a user-end perspective. But no explanation was forthcoming. Just another statement I’m expected to take as fact without explanation.

And the result is that everybody can go to the ER and be paid for.

This is the Hospital Association line of defense.

Uhhhh… yeah, so?

But if that were so why aren’t they going now?

They ARE going now! ERs are being used as primary care by the uninsured in lieu of preventative care. I thought this was a given in this debate.

Their care would be absorbed by a cost shift.

Yes – I get that that’s the argument. I’m just not seeing any particulars beyond a big fat “trust us.”

Sure, some increase might occur under H.304, but that’s a technical problem, not a policy problem.  

Newsflash: That’s a reality problem. That makes it a political problem. And that means,, if you’re serious about passing a bill, you need to address it, otherwise don’t bother – it’s all an exercise in futility.

A 40% premium decrease is not only a dangerously murky figure, the idea that premiums would drop just because it’s “the law” is deceptively simplistic. There is no mechanism by which they have to drop that much under those circumstances.

Why murky? All the numbers are not Richter’s or Hogan’s. They are the JFO’s. And yes there is a mechanism. Talk to BISHCA.  

Murky because the “Take Back Vermont HC” website simplistically suggests that the law will mandate a commensurate 40% drop in insurance premiums, rather than shift the equation by which insurance companies make their case for rates before regulators. The argument may be made that they should drop – and they may or may not. Suggesting that the law states unequivocally that they will is deceptive.

Also painfully murky is the $115 million figure thrown out as the amount of administrative overhead that will be reduced. Maybe, maybe not. There

are not $115 million worth of medical, budgetary line-items cleanly segregated under the “waste and abuse” column. This is not unlike the rhetoric used by Republicans to attack social programs – rhetoric that creates a self-servingly simplistic picture that – among other things – completely ignores the quantum effects of implementing radical change.

Again, figures are JFO’s. No one has said there is $115 million in administrative savings. The figure is $66 million and of course it is not set in stone.  

“Of course” indeed. My point is that the website suggests it is.

I used to be the admin for Planned Parenthhood of Northern New England’s practice management system. These arguments that there is a lot of needless bureaucracy tied up in the delivery of services due to multiple payers is true – but when advocates try to give that figure a specific monetary value, they’re making huge inferences that amount to leaps of faith – and such leaps do not help their credibility.

There’s also the Hospital Association’s argument: that this will simply further encourage people to use Hospital ERs as the medical care of first resort, rather than seeking preventative care. The proponents response is basically “no they won’t”

.

No it is not basically that. See above.  

The “see above” referred to was a link to the very web page I’d referenced that drew me to the conclusion in the first place. Oh well.

Finally, there’s the issue of paying for it. The website offers this on their faq:

4. How will we pay for H.304?

a. We have some numbers derived from work by the Joint Fiscal Office.

b. One example would be a 5.5% payroll tax plus a $200 fee for each Vermonter under age 65.

c. The Legislative committees that deal with revenue can figure it out.

a: Well, that’s nice.

b: Great. More regressive taxes.

c: Punt.

You missed the qualifying” one example”.

Sure didn’t. Just wasn’t impressed. How about an example that actually demonstrates you take these issues of funding and fairness seriously? Honestly, you’re gonna take a me to task because what you wrote is inadequate? Bizarre!

There are other examples using a surcharge on paid Vt. income tax (progressive), sales tax increase (not), etc.

Great!

How about putting those in the website?

Dare we say we’re doing our best, and spending time quarreling with you over this does seem rather stupid.

So why are you quarrelling with me, then?

Your characterization of the bill and

us is nonsense.

Seemed “rather stupid” for just a moment, I guess.

You can always read the bill yourself, check out

sources, and tell your readers about it.  

I believe that’s exactly what I did.

Premiums will come down x amount because we say they will. X amount will be saved from paperwork because we said so. People wont lean on ERs for primary care because they just won’t. It’ll get paid for because

ways and means will fix it, no problem.

And perhaps most extreme of all, the federal government will let us do whatever we want with medicare and medicaid money because they will.

Added together, the rhetoric underplays so dramatically the fundamental changes and the fiscal impacts of what it would wreak as to seem almost deceptive, and it does so in a kind of patrician, leave-it-to-the-experts style that only feeds the worst stereotypes about liberals.

It may be that many proponents don’t understand what’s in the bill. It may be that proponents have been talking to the same old people (e.g.each other) about health care for so long, they no longer feel the need to make a comprehensive case for single-payer, assuming everyone is on their side. It may be that they’ve decided some “radical creep” is called for by sneaking up on people with a dramatic change in the system to show them, despite themselves, that its not so bad once they’re steeped in it.

Whatever the reason(s), proponents seem to have fallen back on vague sleight-of-hand with a touch of snake oil to bypass what really needs to happen to create such fundamental change.

What needs to happen is exactly what happened with the Great Society laws, and even the New Deal; a broadly, clearly, honestly stated commitment to fundamental change.

So far, that consensus is not in play around this bill. I have some

sympathy, as to make such a case, you need someone in a leadership position to stand up and advocate aggressively. Rep. McFaun is trying to play that role, but his platform isn’t broad enough.

Nor is he getting the right kind of support from advocates who have him speaking at the same forums to the same people who are always at these things. The use of “Take Back Vermont” suggests that advocates have some intellectual understanding that they need to look beyond this crowd, but the crude offensive sloganeering demonstrates either how little they

bothered to really consider the best way to do that, or how ill-equipped they are to understand those people.

In any event, the half-hearted “just do it” quality of the bill and the support for it aren’t doing the cause a lot of favors.

Don’t how to respond to such a load of misrepresentation. Only to say that this is exactly how Canada’s system started, by financing hospital care province by province. It’s not as hare-brained as you seem to think. You’re largely wrong or misinformed or determined to misrepresent the details.  

Yeah, that’s it. I’m determined.

Whatever.

Your distress seems to be about the name TakeBackVermontHealthcare, about the website, about the organization, about what you assume are our attitudes, about our honesty, etc.

That covers a lot of it. I’m also distressed about a bill that will never ever pass because of how its written, packaged and presented. I’m very much in the category of people who need a single-payer system, so I don’t like to see time wasted like this.

If you are so troubled, why is it you don’t form a group to work against H.304 or form one to work for a single-payer bill if you can get a legislator to propose one.

Why do you assume I haven’t done work for nonprofits that promote single payer? Oh that’s right, because I’m not cheerleading your bill, your website, and your communications strategy!

Yessir, that’s pretty hard proof.

Attacking people trying to accomplish what they see as the right thing in health care reform right now is self-indulgent and pointless.

Yeh, I know. “Shut up and fall in line.” I get that a lot.

Doesn’t it just suck how people don’t respond well to that?

If you have useful ideas we will listen to them either in person or by email. We need useful ideas, not carping.

What you “need” is to learn how to persuade.

Because you really, really, really suck at it.

Just for kicks, here’s the rest of the email, which consisted only of the rest of my original diary:

….but… wanna hear the punchline?

I’m still glad to see it.

The bill will fail. Miserably, and for a variety of reasons. The whole thing is a leap of faith on many, many levels.

But it’s simple existence does three things:

One, it furthers the single-payer argument in a more concrete way than we’ve yet seen.

Two, it sets the bar for real health care reform closer to where it should be, and hopefully will inform whatever new bill actually emerges from the legislature this year.

Three, it puts a spotlight on the need for flexibility on federal

money and points out the real necessity for federal support to move towards single-payer, or something really resembling single-payer.

These are all good things. Necessary and important things. If I were a legislator, I couldn’t in good conscience vote for it in this form, but that same conscience would demand I not abandon it – rather that I get involved and really take it on to make sure I was part of the solution. I hope other legislators and advocates see it that way.

Richter and Hogan are doing a service by promoting this. Representatives McFaun, Obuchowski and Ojibway may not be doing themselves any favors among their peers putting forward such a flawed bill, but this conversation is in desperate need of a push to the next step, and this is one way to do that.

It could be argued that a screwed-up bill is worse than no bill, as it delegitimizes the overall approach, but don’t think so. Single-payer is the direction the argument is headed, and there’s no changing that .

Witness the odd creature that is H.304, the newest bill intended to make movements towards single-payer health care, and its very existence brings up many interesting questions and points.

First of all, the simple fact that the House still has a Health Care committee post-Catamount is a great thing, in that it invites continued action and creative thinking on this issue. H.304 is a perfect example. But the atmosphere around this bill is especially interesting. Championed by Deb Richter and Con Hogan, the bill is sponsored by a Republican and two Democrats, but no Progressives. On the other hand, it is quite the topic of organization at the Progs’ official site, including on the Prog Blog.

The bill itself has gotten as much attention for its organizing slogan as its content (“Take Back Vermont Healthcare,” which has only served to piss people off by evoking “Take Back Vermont”  – Richter has since announced a change in its advertising gimmick – and hopefully a reconsideration of career choice for whatever communications person thought such a name was a good idea).

Although large crowds have come to a couple rallies, the outreach has seemed fairly limited in scope – almost perfunctory at times. The result is a lot of confusion about the issue, the bill and its relative merits. In fact, I’ve had a hard time finding a proponent who can tell me what the bill actually does. Even the advocacy website set up for the bill makes it painfully hard to find out anything at all (not a strategy that inspires confidence, which adds to the general sense of chaos around the “grasstops” effort)

An attempt to get an idea what’s going on after the fold…

304 would set up the State of Vermont to become the functional single insurance payer for Hospital care. The idea is that, once implemented, regular premiums will come down 40%, paperwork will be dramatically streamlined and reduced, which could bring down rates even further, and it ultimately becomes a cheaper and more cost-efficient way for the State to meet its Medicare and Medicaid matching burdens. In fact, the bill depends on Vermont being able to pool its Medicare and Medicaid federal monies to cover the system.

And the result is that everybody can go to the ER and be paid for.

I think the reason you dont see Progressive and Liberal Democrats lining up to get behind this bill is that it would seem to make so many assumptions as to be a virtual leap of faith. A 40% premium decrease is not only a dangerously murky figure, the idea that premiums would drop just because it’s “the law” is deceptively simplistic. There is no mechanism by which they have to drop that much under those circumstances.

Also painfully murky is the $115 million figure thrown out as the amount of administrative overhead that will be reduced. Maybe, maybe not. There are not $115 million worth of medical, budgetary line-items cleanly segregated under the “waste and abuse” column. This is not unlike the rhetoric used by Republicans to attack social programs – rhetoric that creates a self-servingly simplistic picture that – among other things – completely ignores the quantum effects of implementing radical change.

There’s also the Hospital Association’s argument: that this will simply further encourage people to use Hospital ERs as the medical care of first resort, rather than seeking preventative care. The proponents response is basically “no they won’t”.

As an underinsured person who lives paycheck to paycheck and supports a family, let me just say: yes we will.

Finally, there’s the issue of paying for it. The website offers this on their faq:

4. How will we pay for H.304?

a. We have some numbers derived from work by the Joint Fiscal Office.

b. One example would be a 5.5% payroll tax plus a $200 fee for each Vermonter under age 65.

c. The Legislative committees that deal with revenue can figure it out.

a: Well, that’s nice.

b: Great. More regressive taxes.

c: Punt.

Although the website is pretty, in terms of content, in a lot of ways the website seems to have had as much thought put into it as the unfortunate slogan.

In fact, the message from the site and the rally posters seems to be: Its about single payer. You are in favor of single payer, right? Then forget the details, just show up and support this thing.

The slap-dash, lickety-splittery of this bill and the push for it, in my opinion, do a disservice to the cause and are a bit patronizing to its supporters. As a supporter of single-payer, I have to say that the common theme behind the crude sloganeering, the half-baked bill and the condescendingly incomplete advocacy seems to be that organizers think I’m stupid.

Premiums will come down x amount because we say they will.  X amount will be saved from paperwork because we said so. People wont lean on ERs for primary care because they just won’t. It’ll get paid for because ways and means will fix it, no problem.

And perhaps most extreme of all, the federal government will let us do whatever we want with medicare and medicaid money because they will.

Added together, the rhetoric underplays so dramatically the fundamental changes and the fiscal impacts of what it would wreak as to seem almost deceptive, and it does so in a kind of patrician, leave-it-to-the-experts style that only feeds the worst stereotypes about liberals.

It may be that many proponents don’t understand what’s in the bill. It may be that proponents have been talking to the same old people (e.g.each other) about health care for so long, they no longer feel the need to make a comprehensive case for single-payer, assuming everyone is on their side. It may be that they’ve decided some “radical creep” is called for by sneaking up on people with a dramatic change in the system to show them, despite themselves, that its not so bad once they’re steeped in it.

Whatever the reason(s), proponents seem to have fallen back on vague sleight-of-hand with a touch of snake oil to bypass what really needs to happen to create such fundamental change.

What needs to happen is exactly what happened with the Great Society laws, and even the New Deal; a broadly, clearly, honestly stated commitment to fundamental change. An understanding that its not going to be easy or cheap, so we must be committed to make it happen, come what may.

So far, that consensus is not in play around this bill. I have some sympathy, as to make such a case, you need someone in a leadership position to stand up and advocate aggressively. Rep. McFaun is trying to play that role, but his platform isn’t broad enough.

Nor is he getting the right kind of support from advocates who have him speaking at the same forums to the same people who are always at these things. The use of “Take Back Vermont” suggests that advocates have some intellectual understanding that they need to look beyond this crowd, but the crude offensive sloganeering demonstrates either how little they bothered to really consider the best way to do that, or how ill-equipped they are to understand those people.

In any event, the half-hearted “just do it” quality of the bill and the support for it aren’t doing the cause a lot of favors.

…but… wanna hear the punchline?

I’m still glad to see it.

The bill will fail. Miserably, and for a variety of reasons. The whole thing is a leap of faith on many, many levels.

But it’s simple existence does three things:

One, it furthers the single-payer argument in a more concrete way than we’ve yet seen.

Two, it sets the bar for real health care reform closer to where it should be, and hopefully will inform whatever new bill actually emerges from the legislature this year.

Three, it puts a spotlight on the need for flexibility on federal money and points out the real necessity for federal support to move towards single-payer, or something really resembling single-payer.

These are all good things. Necessary and important things. If I were a legislator, I couldn’t in good conscience vote for it in this form, but that same conscience would demand I not abandon it – rather that I get involved and really take it on to make sure I was part of the solution. I hope other legislators and advocates see it that way.

Richter and Hogan are doing a service by promoting this. Representatives McFaun, Obuchowski and Ojibway may not be doing themselves any favors among their peers putting forward such a flawed bill, but this conversation is in desperate need of a push to the next step, and this is one way to do that.

It could be argued that a screwed-up bill is worse than no bill, as it delegitimizes the overall approach, but don’t think so. Single-payer is the direction the argument is headed, and there’s no changing that

Seven Days has an interesting article looking at the new-ish political website, PolitickerVT. I’d been looking at them myself and had been kicking around a diary when I was contacted by Kevin Kelley, the reporter who was working on the story. I dumped what I knew about ’em onto Kelley and had a pretty good chat in general about new media.

PolitickerVT is one of several “Politicker” sites in several states, coordinated out of a central office (in New York), and all supposedly administered by an anonymous mystery man (“Wally Edge”), who writes his op-eds from a generally hard-right wing perspective. If it sounds familiar, it should; this exactly describes the original PoliticsVT site back in 2001-2004-ish – not the “Dead Governors” blogspot site that Haik crusaded against, but the original, headed by mystery man “Moe Robinson.”

A new blog billing itself as “the primary destination for all Vertmont [sic] political news” is generating low-frequency buzz among local new-media mavens as well as head scratching among in-state bloggers. The slickly produced site, with a come-on offering “inside politics for political insiders,” is being bankrolled by a New York City media mogul, and much of its content is being recycled from Vermont news outlets by a reporter based in Washington, D.C.

Politickervt.com aims to attract attention through a mystique of anonymity. Its editor in chief, who’s also the site’s commentator, goes under the pseudonym Wally Edge. He or she did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Alex Isenstadt, the actual name of the site’s sole reporter, also could not be reached for comment.

Bob Sommer, president of the Observer Media Group, did agree to speak for attribution about politickervt.com and similar sites his Manhattan-based company owns in eight other states.

Clearly, somebody has decided that a cookie-cutter approach to new media might make a local, blog-esque “franchise” profitable. Maybe, but I kinda doubt it, frankly, and I imagine that this will go more or less the same way as the original PolVT – a sort of gradual, steady slide into disarray and kneejerk right-wingnuttery before shutting down (PolVT, of course, resurrected shortly thereafter as something rather different).

But Kelley did get one thing very wrong, despite my attempt to disavow him of his misconception:

But, (Carpetbagger Report’s Steve Benen) adds, the out-of-state sponsorship of politickervt.com and its reliance on a reporter writing from Washington will put it at a competitive disadvantage with regard to Vermont-rooted political blogs such as John Odum’s Green Mountain Daily.

The fact is, GMD is not in competition with Politicker. To an extent that’s because we’re very different sites, with very different agendas and reasons for existing. But really, it’s because GMD is simply not in competition with anybody.

This is a weblog. A piece of software that allows a bunch of amateur busybodies to have their say. Whether that draws 6 people or 600 is not the point. Nobody’s making any money to speak of from this, and if all the attention disappeared tomorrow, I doubt that would stop anybody here from posting. We yak because we’re compulsive – and hopefully we can leverage that compulsion to affect the public debate and do some good netroots organizing. If not – oh well… but so far so good.

Politicker and the Observer are motivated by something else: profit. They’re trying to make money, and as such they need to generate an audience and presumably some revenue. Where GMDers may occasionally catch a story, we’re equally content to comment on what’s already out there. Politicker needs material to be profitable, though, and that means getting out there trolling for gossip – apparently in a rather crude way.

For an example of what I mean, here’s an example of the sort of email they’ve been circulating to legislators:

Hey I just wanted to take a minute to introduce myself to you. My name is Wally Edge and I am the columnist for a new Vermont political website launched the first week of December called PolitickerVT.com

PolitickerVT is owned by the NY Observer group is a sister state to numerous Politicker sites around the Country including PolitickerNJ which has been the leading nonpartisan political website in NJ for over a decade.

At PolitickerVT we update news links from around the state daily. We also have a paid reporter who files regular stories from around the state.

Our goal is to become your one stop shop for political news from around the state. One of my jobs will to produce a weekly winners and losers list from around the state. If you ever have a suggestion on someone I should consider then please pass their name on to me. Also I will be filing regular column articles which will contain interesting tidbits and confirmed gossip in which I am hearing about.

The way I work: Each state around the country which has a politicker website has a Wally Edge. Wally is and will remain anonymous.? I have no allegiances but I do have a good understanding of the Vermont political scene.

There is good reason for remaining anonymous.? When you decide to share a tip or gossip with me I will never reveal who the information came from unless you specifically tell me to do so. I will not source names unless there is a mutual agreement to do so. Unlike a regular reporter in which you need to assume you are on the record, with myself you can always assume you are on background.

This relationship has been working in other states for over a decade and has a history of success.? I understand some will be reluctant at first, but please don’t prejudge. Give me a shot and you will see the working relationship can benefit both of us.

If you have an email list please add my address. Please share with me your press releases, interesting tidbits about you campaigns, candidates and organizations. Also share with me interesting gossip about you opponents and the other party. I will never publish gossip in which I don’t believe to be true or I cannot get anyone to confirm, but I can publish things without

sourcing that a regular reporter (including our reporter) could or would not.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to a long relationship.

Bleh.

No, we’re not competing. “Wally” and the Observer are playing a very different game.

UPDATE: I stand corrected: The Democratic State Committee couldn’t make an endorsement before March, according to the bylaws. My bad. Correction made below.

Some serious (and comical) newsbending going on at – where else? – Fox News, which reported that legendary Bill Clinton campaign staffer and current annoyingly self-important pundit Paul Begala was getting back into the political ring and going to work for Hillary’s campaign. Here’s Begala via HuffPo: Fox News never even tried to contact me to verify their story, and when I contacted Fox, I felt like a character in a Kafka novel…. After I told Fox it wasn’t true — and this is the surreal part — they kept reporting it anyway. In fact, Fox’s Garrett told me he’d “take it under advisement.” Take it under advisement? I realize I’m generally seen as just another liberal with an opinion, but this was not a matter of opinion, it was a matter of fact. Fox now knew their story was flatly, factually wrong, and they took it “under advisement.”

Begala reprints his email exchange with Fox reporter Major Garrett, which includes this plea:

I’d sure appreciate you checking with me before you go with a story about me.

Which reminds me, what’s the latest on local newsbender extraordinairre, Peter Freyne? Freyne, as you recall was caught claiming that Doug Racine was “not interested” in running for Governor, and that Peter Galbraith had “ruled it out.” Both statements were made without checking with Racine or Galbraith, both turned out to be demonstrably untrue, and both were written in the context of enthusiastic narratives about the rise of an Anthony Pollina campaign. Freyne has take a pretty serious hit from that among his peers and in the political community, and has responded by rather brazenly trying to rewrite history here and here to claim that what he really said was that Racine wouldn’t run, not that he wasn’t “interested” (of course, the idea that Racine won’t run has always been the “safe” bet with Pollina on the horizon, and its what every other pundit had been saying for weeks – Freyne took it quite a bit further, though. Still no word on a rewrite of the Galbraith statement, which was equally untrue).

More ridiculous is Freyne’s repeated mocking of Racine for calling other reporters to refute the false statement, but not calling Freyne himself, as if this somehow reflects badly on Racine.

Which is funny when you think about it. If Freyne pulled his “not interested” claim out of thin air, Racine hardly needs to call him to inform him of that, right? I mean, Freyne already knows that – its the other reporters that don’t… besides, if Freyne’s gonna write whatever he wants the news to be anyway, what’s the point?

But the buzz looks increasingly to be that Freyne may get his preferred arrangement after all.  

Pollina has announced, for all intents and purposes, cranking his game of chicken with Racine up to the max. Racine who has been reportedly talking with potential supporters and funders for weeks – both in Vermont and in Washington – has made little secret of the fact that he does not want to get into a three-way race.

The Pollina crowd has for months claimed that they would back off if a “top tier” Dem showed interest. The Racine story has, if nothing else, demonstrated that this was always spin. My guess is that they looked at the field of potential candidates and felt comfortable making that claim, confident that no one in the “top tier” would go anywhere near it. Racine essentially called their bluff, and the Pollina machine put the pedal to the metal – immediately opening a campaign account, absurdly suggesting that former Senate president Pro-Tem, Lieutenant Governor, and highest-electorally performing sitting Chittenden Senator Racine wasn’t “top tier,” and finally following up with an ad in Seven Days.

In addition, the Pollina team spread the word – which was repeated by Stewart Ledbetter on Vermont this Week, that Pollina had spoken to most of the Democratic County Chairs, and that they had been supportive. Coincidentally, when I heard that, I had just been in touch via email with the Democratic County Chairs, asking about rumors to that effect. What I found was that a small minority had been contacted, and that the responses had been generally none too encouraging.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not faulting them for all this. A good solid game of chicken is what I would’ve done (I don’t know that I would’ve spread that word about the County Chairs, given that it was easily refutable, but whatever…). Heck, it’s what I urged Racine to do. Politics is about staying in control of as many of the variables as possible, and Racine’s interest definitely threatened to put the game very much out of their control.

But the last few weeks have unfolded the way they have, and the game of chicken will likely work. The buzz is that Racine is keeping his ears and options open, but with Pollina on the ground, his enthusiasm has waned dramatically (and who can blame him, frankly)?

Do I think that Freyne was somehow colluding with Pollina? No – but his newsbending sure made for a helpful boost.

Congratulations, Peter. Odds are, you’ve managed to help make the news, rather than simply report or opine on it.

What happens next could be the real clusterfuck.

Obviously, somebody is taking that D ballot slot – probably more of a Jack Long type than a Larry Drown, but who knows? With many Dems likely to blame Pollina for scaring off the only real shot at taking down Douglas, that ballot-squatter may actually pull a fair percentage, too.

But on the other hand, there are Democrats who are determined to have somebody –anybody to endorse at the next March State Committee meeting – if for no other reason, then to put up some kind of firewall between Pollina supporters among the Democrats and the resources of the Party – most notably the Party’s new, improved (and truly impressive) voter file. And they have some reason to fear, as most believe that there are plenty of Progressives who wouldn’t hesitate for a moment in screwing over one half of the “Corporate Party” given a chance.

So my guess is that there is no big name D in the race, and Pollina gets the closest thing to a free shot that the quantum nature of Democracy and humanity will allow him.

And still he will lose. And still they will find some way to blame it on the big, bad Democrats.

But there is one lingering question:

What of Peter Galbraith?

Galbraith is reportedly still interested, could raise a ton of money very quickly, and has absolutely nothing to lose politically. In fact, in the words of another political insider I was just chatting with, a longshot run would be a great way to reintroduce himself to Vermonters, and set himself up for a more serious follow-up run in 2010.

Just when it looked like the mind might stop boggling, it boggles up all over again…

We’re a day into the latest session, and not to be a kneejerk contrarian, but the last thing we should have is low expectations. Low expectations lead to low results, and there is reason for optimism from the legislature this season. In fact, all the pieces are in place for a perfect storm, of sorts – but in the opposite sense of last year.

Last year, by the time the session began, impeachment was a grassroots juggernaut. Where I suspect Shumlin wouldn’t have minded a whit passing it on day one and moving on, there’s no question that the pressure from Welch, Leahy, Sanders and Symington to hold the line and ignore the rabble was intense. As a result, that progressive grassroots energy was not only squandered for no good reason whatsoever, it was repressed and supressed until it exploded, and people like Welch and Symington (and Shumlin) have been dealing with the shrapnel wounds ever since (Leahy, as usual, was insulated, even though his office was perhaps the most actively involved in the suppression of the issue).

This year, though, is different.  

While the energy issue doesn’t have quite the grassroots juggernaut presence of impeachment, it is the grassroots snowball rolling into 2008. Shumlin and Symington played it smart last summer and didn’t cave, holding fast on the issue even when some of their own turned on them and supported the Governor’s veto. In the wake of the admnistration’s catastrophic mishandling of the Climate Commission’s report (including its couldn’t-be-better-for-Democrats timing), he is on the defensive and legislative leaders have an opportunity that it sounds like they may not be squandering. Rather than regrouping, scaling down and coming back to the table with reduced expectations, Shumlin and Symington are talking of using the momentum to go the opposite route by enacting more comprehensive legislation than last years H.520, under the banner of enacting the Commission’s recommendations.

What does this mean if they can do it effectively? Expanding their approach could allow them to make legislation that can more cleanly be packaged as an economic-stimulus and job-creation bill, as well as an environmental one. There’s even the potential for cost shifting that could add a fair tax element, if they go that far. Now these efforts may or may not come to fruition, but if I were Shumlin or Symington, I’d do whatever it took to make sure that they did.

However – also on the agenda front and center is the expansion of Catamount – and this is a dangerous gambit. Symington has so consistently oversold Catamount that its limitations all read as promises unkept at best, and incompetence at worst. This only adds to the incentive for the Douglas administration to screw up its implementation. Douglas is so practiced in pressing Symington’s buttons (not that she makes it difficult), that all he has to do is give the program a media-spotlighted ding here, and a dent there, and he can count on her complaining that the Governor is being mean and its all because he’s out to get her. Ugh.

If Symington is smart, she’ll defer on those matters and punt to Shumlin. Shumlin has some single-payer cred, was not part of the legislature that passed Catamount and effectively makes the case that Catamount is simply a band-aid on the system, but one that can help people, as well as make them more comfortable with the idea of government-brokered insurance, thereby thematically smoothing the road for single-payer (which he feels will need federal support to be a viable alternative). Symington personalizes Catamount even more than other issues, so she should never talk about it. Talking about anything else is better. Fake a heart attack if the question comes up… something.

The Governor will be fairly predictable, so hopefully the legislative leadership is predicting and preparing. He’ll continue his attempt to co-opt the energy issue, and will have no problem contradicting his positions and statements on last year’s H.520 if he thinks it helps him do that.

He’ll go full steam ahead with a liberal divide-and-conquer strategy by exploiting and deepening the rifts between affordable housing advocates and environmentalists. This is a no-brainer for him, as he can easily attach his unrestricted growth/sprawl agenda onto that of the housing advocates. If he splinters the liberal coalition in the legislature, it then makes it easier to translate that splintering into gains on whatever his greenwash energy proposals may be.

Expect him to also spend a lot of energy on changing the subject. He’ll talk taxes in ways that he knows nothing will come of, just to keep attention shifted from energy, and to put Dems on the defensive. Nothing will come of it because, as always, he has no ideas on how to address public frustrations on the tax system, other than simply winning re-election on it. But there will still be a lot of talk.

So let’s keep expectations up. They should always be high. If things go better than last time (and they’ve just got to go better than last time), there will be opportunities for netroots and grassroots involvement (and I’m willing to bet legislative leaders will be a bit more willing to listen than last year… hopefully they’ve figured out that making Sanders’, Welch’s and Leahy’s lives easier at their own expense isn’t necessarily in anybody else’s best interest).

There was the first good synergy we’ve seen in ages around last year’s veto override attempts. I’m confident we can build on that, and to maximize that effort, GMD will likely be giving extra attention to some of the weeniecrats in the legislature. The national blogosphere has been actively targeting what have been called “Bush Dog” Democrats, an obvious play on the term “blue dog Democrats” which has been used to describe conservative D’s who more often than not vote as Republicans.

In Vermont, we have a few of what we can call “Jim Dog Democrats” that have a history of standing in the way of successful Democratic policies and priorities, instead choosing to ally themselves with Governor Douglas.

So be it. Jim-Dogs should consider themselves on notice.

…cause I don’t know what the hell is going on.

Record turnout, and it hands the New Hampshire primary to Clinton?

Weird.

What can I say? People confuse me. Democrats are weird.

Where does this leave us? Probably in much the same place as we were before Iowa. Do the results cause Edwards to hemorrhage support as Obama coalesces as the anti-Hillary? Or does the whole thing blow wide open, given that the Obama tidal wave wasn’t a tidal wave at all, but simply a victory in Iowa?

Don’t ask me. I’m getting back to state politics for a while. Maybe if we’re lucky, our votes actually will matter come Town Meeting Day…

…or does that make us unlucky??

UPDATE: Well, color me shocked. It’s too close to call between Obama and Clinton. This is a worst-case scenario for John Edwards, who will now be looking at the potential of a national coalescing behind Obama as the “anti-Hillary” if they finish close (especially if she wins). Stay tuned.

All early indications are that we’re looking at another record turnout on the Democratic side in New Hampshire. Another fantastic day for weather, another election pulling all the independents to the D ballot, and another election blowout for Barack Obama. The question really seems to be twofold: how much will Obama win by, and will Clinton’s collapse be absolute enough to put her at (or nearly at) third place?

Record turnout and an electoral blowout will make the prospects for Clinton and Edwards marginal, as the race for second becomes a race for enough delegates to have some pull at the convention – either towards a VP slot, or some other issue or personnel concession.

You’ve got to love the fact that the straight white southern guy in the race has been struggling to maintain third place against a woman and an African American man. In any event, observers will be eager to see how much of this Obama surge is due to the Clinton collapse (a natural response to the vacuum created by the implosion), and how much of it is Obama-generated himself. Obviously, the safe bet is that its Obama himself, but how this wave gets sustained outside Democratic Primary voters, if indeed he prevails and snags the nomination, is an open question. Will his independent draw continue when the GOP opens up on him? For most of the final months of 2007, Obama consistently polled less well in head-to-heads against leading Republicans in swing states.

But there is some serious perfect storm potential here.

What might be even more fun than a brokered GOP convention, would be a slim Huckabee victory. This could lead to a wild, frenzied, nasty attempt to peel off enough delegates from him to try to leverage a last minute GOP savior like Newt Gingrich to ward off the Religious Right hordes poised to claim total control over the Party. A failure leaves Huckabee damaged and without supporters from the economic and foreign policy right.

Meanwhile, NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg has done what it looks like he’s intended to do all along – entered the race as an independent, running on his pro-business, “beyond partisanship” spiel. The disaffected Republicans – making up a good half of their party – bolt to Bloomberg.

But Obama’s feelgood “beyond partisanship” rhetoric has largely insulated him from any potential Bloomberg draw from Democrats, and that combined with his generally pro-big-business approach seal the deal with independents. The result is something along the lines of 50%-35%-15%, Obama, Huckabee, Bloomberg respectively.

Heh. Sounds like fun, huh?