Welcome Back: Shell-Shocked Dems Return from August 'Hell'

Shell-Shocked Dems Return from August ‘Hell’

Month-long Opposition to Government Takeover of Healthcare Leaves Dems on Defensive

House Republican Leader Predicts “Hot, Hot Summer” for Dems Trying to Push Government Healthcare Takeover

“I think it’s safe to say that, over the August recess, as more Americans learn about their plan, they’re likely to have a very, very hot summer,” said House Republican Leader John Boehner, about Democrats. (Robert Schroeder, “Health care’s hot summer won’t cool over recess,” WSJ Market Watch, July 31, 2009)

Democrats Flail as Citizen Outrage Boils Over in Meeting After Meeting

“August is supposed to be the month when Members of Congress escape the heat.

This year, it burned them.

Instead of quiet vacations and sleepy town hall meetings, both Democrats and Republicans faced overflow crowds of angry constituents.

Videos captured the harshest exchanges and loudest voices, with each day creating another Joe the Plumber whose moment in the sun started on C-SPAN and YouTube, percolated through the blogosphere and eventually burned out in an interview on a cable news channel.

The protesters succeeded in drowning out supporters, catching the Democratic Party off guard and changing the storyline of President Barack Obama’s signature effort to reform the American health care system.

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Before Recess

Before August, the focus of the health care debate was on Democrats.

For months, Obama pushed members of his party to pass a mammoth health care bill before recess, but haggling over how to pay for it held up the effort. A House version made it through three committees but not onto the floor. In the Senate, one committee passed a Democratic bill, but a promised bipartisan bill got held up by the Finance Committee.

As July drew to a close, most of the attention was on Democratic infighting, especially between conservative Blue Dogs concerned about cost and more liberal Members who wanted a more progressive bill.

Some Democrats even seemed to look forward to recess: The president could take up the reform mantle while bickering Democrats got a much-needed vacation. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a close ally of Obama’s, said the president would be “in the driver’s seat” in August, while Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) predicted “a positive drumbeat” for reform across the country.

When Democrats did express concern, such as Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen (Md.), it was over the possibility of “swift-boating” by special interest groups — perhaps another “Harry and Louise” style ad campaign like the one that derailed President Bill Clinton’s attempt at reform in the 1990s.

An early sign that things would not go as Democrats expected came when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) were booed by a standing-room-only crowd at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on Aug. 2. Many of the elements were already in place: members of the local Tea Party Patriots group, signs warning of socialism, citizens asking angry questions about the cost of expanded health coverage and the size of a government to administer it.

‘We have a challenge to get the message out,’ Sebelius told a reporter after the event.

It only became more challenging as the month wore on.

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Town Halls Gone Wild

The initial response from the White House was to disparage the protests.

On Aug. 4, spokesman Robert Gibbs said they were coming from a small group of Astroturfers trying to create ‘manufactured anger.’

That same day, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) was confronted in upstate New York by a local organizer with the Tea Party Patriots, an anti-tax group that first became active opposing the stimulus package earlier this year. Hoyer was supposed to be talking about high-speed rail, but Rome, N.Y., resident Don Jeror questioned him about health care and repeatedly called him a liar.

‘Why would you guys try to stuff a health care bill down our throats in three to four weeks, when the president took six months to pick a dog for his kids?’ he shouted.

Jeror was the first of a dozen citizens who briefly took center stage throughout the month. Mike Sola of Milan, Mich., was thrown out of a town hall held by Rep. John Dingell (D) after pushing his son’s wheelchair to the front of the room and shouting that his cerebral palsy would not be covered by the Democratic health care plan. Craig Anthony Miller of Lancaster, Pa., became briefly famous for shouting that Specter would face the judgment of God, while Katy Abram of Lebanon, Pa., warned in a breaking voice that the Democratic bill had ‘awakened the sleeping giant.’” (Ryan Teague Beckwith, “Town Halls Go to Hell”, Roll Call, September 8, 2009)

To read the entire article, click here: http://www.rollcall.com/features/Health-Care_Hits-the-Road/health_hits_road/38166-1.html?page=1

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