Democracy Works: Democrats' Careers Will Be Ended Due To Their ObamaCare Votes

Or at least it can work. It only works if we punish our inferiors (that is, our employees) for violating the terms of their employment.

Take Betsy Markey of Colorado's 4th Congressional District, who in 2008 beat a Republican who seemed fixated on the same-sex marriage issue. Markey cast a late-in-the-roll-call no in November, then publicly switched to yes in the week before the March 21 roll call. She's currently trailing Republican Cory Gardiner by an average of 44 to 39 percent in three polls. Her Web site links to a video she cut the week after the vote saying she had "the honor" to vote for the bill. But otherwise it seems to be silent on the issue.

Or consider John Boccieri of Ohio's 16th District, who switched from no to yes in a TV press conference in which he said the bill would do great things for his constituents. Boccieri's district was represented by Republicans for 58 years until he was elected in 2008.

It looks like it will be again next year. In three polls Republican Jim Renacci leads Boccieri by an average of 46 to 36 percent. Boccieri's Web site links to a recent interview in which he defends Obamacare and challenges opponents to say which provisions they'd give up.

Then there is Suzanne Kosmas, a longtime real estate agent who beat a Republican with an ethics issue in 2008 for Florida's 24th District seat. She announced her switch from no to yes late in the week before the roll call. She's now running behind Republican Sandy Adams by an average of 47 to 40 percent in three recent polls.

To put these numbers in perspective, it's highly unusual for an incumbent House member to trail a challenger in any poll or to run significantly below 50 percent. But these three Democrats are running 5 to 10 points behind Republican challengers and none tops 40 percent.

As you may have heard, the Democrats' big strategy is to run not against Bush, but against... Nancy Pelosi.

As if embattled Congressional Democrats did not have enough on their hands, some are opening up a new front in their fight to save their seats — against Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House and a leader of their own party.

Georgians at the debate on Thursday made their views known on Ms. Pelosi, and equated her with Mr. Marshall, who was first elected in 2002.

Representative Jim Marshall, a Democrat here in central Georgia, spent much of a debate on Thursday night renouncing Ms. Pelosi, whose liberal views and San Francisco district have always been anathema to this region.

“Pelosi was never my choice for speaker,” Mr. Marshall said, eliciting boos from a skeptical audience in an arena here at the Georgia National Fair. Mr. Marshall actually voted for Ms. Pelosi as speaker but said he had not wanted her for the job and would not vote for her again.

This is a double connivance. Not only did Marshall actually vote for Pelosi, but on top of that, Nancy Pelosi has expressly endorsed this strategy of running against her:

And they have Ms. Pelosi’s blessing.

“I just want them to win,” Ms. Pelosi said in a recent interview on “NewsHour” on PBS when asked about the defectors.

“They know their districts,” she added. “They are great communicators, very eloquent communicators to their own constituents.”

In other words, they're great at lying to their hick constituents. "I just want them to win," she says. Run with me, run against me; I don't care. Tell your constituents whatever you have to to keep me in power.

Another Democrat pursuing this strategy is Bobby Bright, who's about to get whooped up on by Marsha Roby in Alabama.

The Times also notes that Rep. Bobby Bright, D-Ala., also is trying to separate himself from Pelosi, airing an ad that says voters in his district “don’t want a liberal running the House.”

Bright also has stated that he won't vote for Pelosi as speaker if Democrats retain control of the House.

Bright’s Republican opponent, Martha Roby, slammed Bright’s new position.

Like Marshall, Bright had voted for Pelosi when she ran for Speaker.

In TV ads flooding his district, Bright even includes images of Republican minority leader John Boehner. The ad states that he votes with Republicans 85 percent of the time.

“Actions speak louder than words, and Democrat Bobby Bright’s first act as a newly elected congressman was to vote to empower San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi as the speaker of the House, a vote he called a ‘no-brainer,’” Roby responded in a statement. “In the two years since that vote, Speaker Pelosi has used her power to ram through a government takeover of health care, the stimulus bill, cap-and-tax and billions of dollars of government spending and debt.”

There will be some, of course, who buy into this. We call such people "idiots." And it's therefore essential to balance the idiot vote with the non-idiot vote. Say, for example, by signing up for GOTV work with Be The Wave 2010.

posted by Ace at 11:24 AM

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