Over the moon with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Morning Joe this morning. She was superb.

[karynnj]

39. I would argue that to have any big change, you NEED the passion of the activists AND the establishme

on your side. Not to mention, some people are BOTH. Ted Kennedy was a key person in creating ACA. Yet a few years before in the 109th Congress, when the Republicans controlled the Presidency, the Senate and the House, he introduced a single payer plan.

If only the Kennedy wing of the party supported ACA, it would not have passed. In 2009, Baucus, who chaired the Finance Committee and Harkin, who replaced Kennedy as chair of the HELP committee, had to put forward a plan that could get 60 votes. Even though many Republicans actually co-sponsored similar legislation in the past with Bob Dole and others, the Republicans clearly had a caucus wide rule not to vote for the legislation. Not being able to get any Republican votes, they needed every Democratic vote. This gave enormous power to people like Lieberman, Nelson of Nebraska and Lincoln of Arkansas.

I agree with you that the establishment was needed, but in fact, the entire spectrum of the party had to be united to pass the best bill they could get the votes for. Credit goes to everyone -- including people like Baucus and Reid, who DU criticized as they worked to thread the needle to get something that could pass both Houses. Then, after they got a bill passed in the Senate, Scott Brown won the MA seat. This meant that rather than the norm - a Senate/House conference and votes on their compromise bill, the House passed the Senate bill as is - creating ACA. Then, as part of a package, they passed a second bill that made some corrections and fixed problems in the college loan program.