The public option: how many of us remember when and why it died?

[Agnosticsherbet]

24. He passed the first national healthcare bill in our history, not bad spending of capital.

In the first two years, he saved the auto industry in the US, saving millions of jobs. He finished shutting down the Iraq war (a process started by Bush),

Those were great expenditures of political capitol.

He was unable to shut down Guantanamo because a super Majority of Democrats and Republicans passed laws that refused to allow him to shut it down or move the prisoners. That was an investment of political capitol that did not provide a good return, though I think it was worth the effort.

Once the New Congress took its seat in January of 2011, all the Political Capitol in the world was worth exactly dick. Political Capitol, like any monetary symbol, is worthless if the other side is unwilling to accept its value. If even elected Democrats are unwilling to accept the Presidents Coin, it had no value.

Political Capitol, like the Bully Pulpit, is enormously over rated. Republicans clearly don't give a damn what general public thinks. They get away with what they do because they make a majority of the people who vote in their district happy. A representatives beholding to only a few voters in his district happy is, as I see it, one of the flaws in our system. It made sense at the time, but not anymore.