How pragmatic were the pragmatists when it came to the Iraq War and gay marriage?

[JoePhilly]

69. Ok, let's work through something here ...

You said ...

.. if dems had a mandate, wouldn't a bomb be appropriate instead of a reasonably decent approach ...

The word IF is important.

Let's go back to 2009 (including up until Feb 2010). The Democrats had a 60 vote, veto proof majority for about 72 days during that period. Many forget that. Franken wasn't seated until July of 2009, and Kennedy died that August, was replaced about a month later with another Dem, and then Scott Brown (R) won the special election for Kennedy's seat and was seated in Feb 2010. When you do the math, the Dems had about 72 days to implement any "mandate" you think they might have had.

And then ... we have to discuss the 5-6 blue dogs in the Senate. Those folks were never going to vote YES for a Public Option, let alone Single Payer or Medicare for all (the latter 2 being the goal of throwing a "bomb&quot .

So for your line of thinking above to work, we had to get 5 or 6 Dems to vote YES during that 72 day period. How do you as President make that happen? To demonstrate how hard it well be to get all of thoe votes, I'm going to spot you ALL of them, except one, Joe Lieberman.

You are now the President. Its 2009, and you have 59 YES votes for your "bomb" (a PO, single payer, or Medicare for all, doesn't really matter which). All YOU need to do is figure out how to get Lieberman to vote YES.

When you try to explain how you get his vote, please discuss these three facts.

1) Lieberman campaigned against Obama in 2008, campaigning for McCain instead. McCain was going to make Lieberman either SecDef or SecState (Lindsey Graham was getting one of these spots as well). Do you have something this big that Lieberman wants? He's pissed you took these away from him.

2) Lieberman is not running again and has said so. Which means polls and threats of removing support inhis next election is irrelevant. He's setting up a 7 figure think tank position for after he leaves congress (and where is he now ... in that 7 figure think tank position). And a vote for your "bomb" will get in the way of that.

3) Lieberman's nickname was "Senator from Aetna". He has family members who's careers are bound tight to the health insurance industry. A vote for your plan puts those in jeopardy.

So there it is ... I've laid out the defense that you face. Explain how you as President get Lieberman to vote YES. btw, I've put this test to many on DU, no one has ever come up with a viable path.

But please try.

(Its not the BOG causing you issues, its facts.)