Rockefeller, Harkin Sparring With Insurance Industry

(Sick for Profit)

Senate Democrats are trying to extract some embarrassing information from the insurance industry about their deceptive practices.

First, Tom Harkin, who is seeking to subpoena insurers for failing to provide information requested by his committee.

Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said his committee may demand information from health insurance companies about the reasoning for steep increases in premiums faced by small businesses.

"I've been inundated with letters and information about the exorbitant increases in premiums for small businesses in this country," Harkin said during an appearance on MSNBC. "I asked them to come and testify at a hearing I had yesterday. They refused."

"So now I'm asking them to give us information on which we can make some decisions on why these premiums are going up so much for small businesses," he added.

Here's the video:

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Jay Rockefeller also wants some information about the industry's "medical loss ratio," and how they cook the books to pretend that they spend a substantial amount of premium money on treatment and care.

The New York Times reports: "The health insurance industry likes to cite figures showing that 87 cents of every dollar in premiums is spent on medical claims. But a new Senate analysis suggests that for-profit insurance companies are spending much less than that, especially for policies sold to individuals and small businesses. Instead, as little as 66 cents of each dollar paid in premiums goes toward doctor and hospital bills, while the rest covers administrative expenses, marketing and company profits, according to the analysis. .... The [health reform] legislation that may reach the House floor later this week would initially require insurers to spend at least 85 cents of every dollar in premiums on medical claims."

A long-standing complaint from individuals and small businesses is that they get less for their money. "But insurance companies generally do not disclose how much they spend in different segments of the market. The Senate analysis of the figures does not include information from California, because that state's filings are not available through the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. ... The insurance industry's trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans, said Monday that the 87-cent figure it cited as the industry average was based on information collected by the federal government and was an accurate reflection of how much of each dollar in premiums was spent on medical claims." (Abelson, 11/2).

This comes at a time when the Senate is about to unveil their health care bill. This information could be crucial to massing public opinion against the industry and keeping the entire Democratic caucus on board with reform.

What's In A Name?

What's In A Name?

by dday

Harry Reid is now saying there will be a "public option" in any final health care bill. I'm sure nobody knows precisely what he means by that.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said today there will be a "public option" in whatever health insurance reform bill comes out of Congress.

"We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president's desk," Reid said in a conference call with constituents, referring to some kind of government plan.

"I believe the public option is so vitally important to create a level playing field and prevent the insurance companies from taking advantage of us," he said.

Tom Harkin said almost exactly the same thing today - and he said that Republicans wouldn't be at the table when the two Senate bills get merged together.

Here's the good news about this. Reid is acknowledging that he absolutely cannot get away with having a final bill without something he can call a "public option." And progressives have done a good job of very specifically separating out triggers and co-ops as something that would not fit that definition. This is almost entirely due to grassroots activism. The public option would have been thrown out months ago if nobody was advocating for it from the bottom up. It was certainly not the intention of anyone in Washington to go into October with this issue still up for grabs. They were perfectly content to jettison it to protect insurance industry profits.

That said - there is no definition here for what public option means. And if you asked Sen. Reid point-blank, I'm sure he wouldn't give you a definition. He wants something that he can call a public option so the grassroots can be satisfied. What will that be? Probably not co-ops or triggers because they've been too well-defined by the grassroots. There are other alternatives coming in their place.

Tom Carper is pushing the idea of giving the states the ability to create a public option, which states could then link together for increased bargaining power. They wouldn't be able to use Medicare bargaining rates and they wouldn't have Medicare's provider network. And being state-based, they wouldn't have much leverage to gather the client base necessary to force a lot of competition with the private market. Of course, a lot of the "public options" out there offer weak, "level playing field" provisions similar to Carper's amendment. Jon Cohn says that actually, this is already in the bill:

One interesting question is whether the proposal is already redundant, thanks to an amendment that another member of the Finance committee, Ron Wyden, introduced that Chairman Max Baucus accepted before the hearings even began.

It's Wyden amendment C8, which appears on page two of the modified bill Baucus introduced formally for markup:

Amend Title I, Subtitle A to allow a State to be granted a waiver if the state applies to the Secretary to provide health care coverage that is at least as comprehensive as required under the Chairman’s Mark. States may seek a waiver through a process similar to Medicaid and CHIP. If the State submits a waiver to the Secretary, the Secretary must respond no later than 180 days and if the Secretary refuses to grant a waiver, the Secretary must notify the State and Congress about why the waiver was not granted. – Insert at the end of b)(1) ―and with citizen input through a referenda or similar means;‖ – In b)(2) strike ―a‖ and insert ―this‖ – Insert b)(4) ―the State submits a ten-year budget for the plan that is budget neutral to the Federal government.‖ – Insert at the beginning of c)(2) GRANTING OF WAIVER.— The Secretary shall approve the plan only if it meets criteria consistent with that of the America’s Healthy Future Act, including that it shall lower health care spending growth, improve the delivery system performance, provide affordable choices for all its citizens, expand protections against excessive out-of-pocket spending, provides coverage to the same number of uninsured and not increase the Federal deficit.

What does the gobbledygook mean? Wyden's staff says it's designed to encourage state experimentation. I haven't yet gotten an official reading from Finance Committee staff on their interpretation.

But my own reading, which I've run by a few analysts, is that it gives states the ability to implement coverage schemes that bolster coverage, control costs, and improve quality at least as well--and hopefully better than--the Senate Finance bill. That would include creating a public option. (You could even read it to allow a state-based single-payer plan.) So it's the Carper amendment, but without the restrictions.

Cohn notes that the HHS Secretary would have to rule, in the Wyden Amendment, on whether any state proposal met the proper criteria. Which means that, under a Republican Administration, you could see nothing helping people allowed to go through, or even scale-backs to benefits (though there is presumably a federal floor).

Still, maybe this is what Reid will determine as a "public option." Or maybe he'll dump Wyden's amendment and pick up the Carper idea and call that a public option. Or maybe Maria Cantwell's proposal, which allows states to negotiate on behalf of the uninsured below 200% of poverty level for a basic plan, will fit the bill, even though it sounds like a good policy but in no way a substitute for the public option.

The point is that all the activism and advocacy has gotten us far further than we would normally be in this debate. But there are still plenty of compromises out there that politicians will call "the public option" as an escape valve. It will be important to see these policies for what they are, instead of applying the name and being done with it.

Dodd Stays At Banking

I knew that Tim Johnson would not be permitted to chair the Senate Banking Committee:

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) has decided against succeeding his close friend and mentor, the late Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) as chairman of the Senate's health committee, a senior Senate aide said Tuesday night.

The decision sets in motion a final game of musical chairs involving committee chairmanships after Kennedy's death.

Dodd's decision leaves the chairmanship of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who follows Dodd in seniority. Multiple sources in the Harkin orbit, requesting anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said that he is certain to take over the HELP committee.

Harkin is currently chairman of the Agriculture Committee and would have to give up that position. He would likely be replaced at Agriculture by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who faces a difficult reelection bid in 2010. Other Democrats are more senior than her on the Agriculture Committee, but they hold more prestigious chairmanships already.

Dodd isn't great chairing Banking, but he's ten times better than Johnson, and I'd rather have financial regulation in his hands. Meanwhile, Tom Harkin, who's a great liberal except when it comes to agriculture, now goes to a committee to show off his talents. And I think the Senate just gained some leverage over Blanche Lincoln, who will need to be reasonably loyal to keep that slot on the Agriculture Committee. When Max Baucus was foundering there was talk of switching committee chairs, and that should still be on the table for squishes like Lincoln and Joe Lieberman if they participate in a filibuster of policies Democrats have sought for 60 years.

Enzi Invents New Six-Member Unicameral Parliament, Appoints Self Prime Minister

Steve Benen hit this yesterday, but I just noticed it. Mike Enzi, like most Senators, finds himself very, very important. So much so that he believes the November election leading to 60 Democratic Senators, 258 Democratic House members and a Democratic President sent the message that his word must be law.

With liberal Democrats on and off the Finance Committee already angling to pull the measure to the left when it is combined with a rival passed by the Health Committee, Enzi indicated his support is contingent on Democratic leaders leaving any Finance Committee agreement intact.

“I also need commitments from Sen. [Harry] Reid [D-Nev.] and Speaker Pelosi, as well as the administration, that the bipartisan agreements reached in the Finance Committee will survive in a final bill that goes to the president,” Enzi said.

There are six Senators involved in the Baucus caucus in the Senate Finance Committee. Together they represent about 2.8% of the total US population.

Let's add in some additional facts. Five Congressional Committees are working on health care legislation. The legislative process works like this: the bills coming out of the committees in the respective chambers are merged into single bills for a floor vote. Senators and House members have the opportunity to offer amendments. Those amendments are voted up or down, then there are final votes on passage of the bill in the House and the Senate. The bills coming out of the respective chambers go to a conference committee, where they are merged, with the details ironed out, and then returned to each chamber for a final vote.

That's how government works.

Mike Enzi's conception of government is this: Mike Enzi agrees to a compromise with 6% of the total Senate representing 2.8% of the population, and it becomes law.

I will say that his version has speed on its side.

The bill Enzi wants to fast track has a favorable CBO score going for it, reportedly costing under $1 trillion over 10 years and covering 95% of all Americans. But the only way to do that is to cut subsidies to the bone, making coverage unaffordable; or to phase in the program later in the ten-year budget window, maintaining the current broken, crappy system for as long as possible. It also apparently eliminates the successful Children's Health Insurance Program.

And by the way, they can't get it done until after the August recess.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyoming, dropped the bombshell news to CNN and two other reporters in Capitol hallways Wednesday night. They have spent weeks behind closed doors, trying to hammer out an agreement with their Democratic counterparts on the Senate Finance Committee but said too many issues remain unresolved, making it virtually impossible for them to sign on to a deal before the break.

“There are a lot of tough decisions to make and they aren’t going to be made real quickly,” Grassley said late Wednesday when asked whether negotiators should kick their talks over to September.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, had already postponed Senate floor action on health care legislation until the fall, but Democrats had hoped the Senate Finance Committee could finish its work before the summer break. In fact, one senior Democratic source said meeting that deadline was the central thrust of the president’s meeting with Reid and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, last Friday [...]

Enzi, a soft-spoken conservative, was furious about headlines Wednesday morning that suggested he was close to reaching a deal with the Democrats.

“I felt my reputation was in danger,” he said.

In Enzi's world, signing on to a compromise with Democrats would ruin his reputation. So obviously we should just let him set the policy by himself. After all, 189,046 voted for him last year.

The silver lining here is that liberal Democrats in the House are resisting going along with this nonsense. From CongressDaily (sub. req.):

A trumpeted healthcare reform agreement with conservative House Democrats set off a firestorm of criticism from the party's liberal wing Wednesday, pushing back proceedings in a key committee and casting doubt on the strength of the leadership-backed accord.

Leaders and White House officials worked for days to reach an agreement with Blue Dogs, who had been holding up the legislation in the Energy and Commerce Committee because of concerns about cost, burdens on small business and a public insurance option [...]

"There's angst; there's questions; there's some anger," Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said of the meetings with Waxman. "The question is, have we given up too much for the goals that we need?" he said of the agreement. "I don't want to see the insurance companies subsidized by middle-income taxpayers."

The Progressive Caucus called the Waxman/Blue Dog deal "unacceptable" and vowed to defeat such a compromise on the House floor.

Meanwhile, in the best news I've heard in years, Senate Democrats are making threats to Max Baucus' committee chair.

In an apparent warning to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), some liberal Democrats have suggested a secret-ballot vote every two years on whether or not to strip committee chairmen of their gavels [...]

"Every two years the caucus could have a secret ballot on whether a chairman should continue, yes or no," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. "If the ‘no’s win, [the chairman’s] out [...]

Some senators suggest privately that Baucus might be more open to persuasion if his chairmanship is subject to regular votes.

Another senior Democratic senator endorsed Harkin’s suggestion but declined to speak on the record for fear of angering Baucus.

"Put me down as a yes, but if you use my name I’ll send a SWAT team after you," said the lawmaker when asked about a biennial referendum on chairmen.

Civil rights legislation in the 1960s didn't move forward until the House Rules Committee chair, a segregationist Southern Democrat, saw his power neutered by an expansion of the committee. Process changes often precede policy changes. Sen. Baucus, take note.

Labor's Still Got Some Muscle

A couple days ago, the LA Times, no doubt dripping with glee, printed a story about labor being outmaneuvered on the Employee Free Choice Act and in particular the card-check provision. First of all, the idea that anyone in the labor movement would be surprised by corporate opposition to this bill is kind of crazy. They knew that big business would throw everything they had at this, and that Republicans and key corporate Dems would resist passage.

But rumors of labor's demise are greatly exaggerated. First of all, Tom Harkin is making a smart threat, vowing to either reach a compromise on Employee Free Choice or force his fellow lawmakers to vote on it.

That may not sound like a grave threat, but it may well be. Two of the bills main skeptics--Sens. Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)--face re-election next year, and both, for different reasons, may ultimately need union support to prevail. Specter, who tacked to the right and came out against EFCA before becoming a Democrat, is facing pressure from the Democratic base and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) to move left or face a primary challenge.

And at least one high level union official has suggested that if Lincoln doesn't come around and support an EFCA compromise, she may face a green party challenger, in addition to a Republican challenger, in the general election.

And let's not forget that labor still can throw their weight around on non-EFCA issues, and they came up with a major victory to stymie the Obama Administration's apparent efforts to pass a corporate-written trade deal:

U.S. officials said they will delay seeking congressional approval for a pending free-trade deal with Panama until President Barack Obama offers a new “framework” for trade.

The administration, which in March said it would move quickly to pass the trade agreement with Panama, wants to outline how trade fits with other priorities such as assistance for unemployed workers and health care, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Everett Eissenstat said today.

“It’s clear that trade agreements in the last few years have been much too divisive,” Eissenstat told the Senate Finance Committee. “We want to make sure that Panama doesn’t contribute to that divisiveness.” [...]

Eissenstat’s comments follow remarks by John Sweeney, the head of the AFL-CIO labor federation, that unions would oppose a rush to ratify the deal. The Panama accord was signed in 2007 and was viewed as the least controversial of three trade agreements reached by President George W. Bush and pending congressional approval.

Really, the wolf whistles and hoots hoping that labor is demoralized and devoid of clout really are embarrassing.

Employee Free Choice - Card Check = FTW?

A leading Senator signaled yesterday that the Employee Free Choice Act may go through a revision that would remove the controversial "card check" provision and retain the rest of the bill.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, who sponsored legislation to make it easier for workers to join unions, said the main provision of the proposal may have to be dropped to get the votes to pass it.

There isn’t enough support for a provision called card-check that would allow workers to bypass an election and form a union when a majority of them sign cards requesting one, Harkin said Monday in an interview.

“Compromises are going to be made,” said Harkin, an Iowa Democrat. “It probably won’t be card-check because too many people are opposed to it now.”

There are three elements to the Employee Free Choice Act. One, majority sign-up, has been turned into the entire bill. But there are new rules in the legislation about the timing and process of union elections, as well as stricter penalties for those who break the rules, particularly employers who intimidate their workers into voting against joining a union, or fire union organizers. T.A. Frank wrote about the importance of these measures a few months ago.

If a company illegally undermines a union campaign by threatening to fire workers, or by spying on them, or by promising to shut down the facility, the most serious penalty it can expect to face is being ordered to post notices in the workplace promising not to engage in such activities in the future. If a company illegally fires a worker, and the worker can somehow prove his or her case, the penalty is a requirement to reinstate the employee with back pay—minus whatever the employee has earned elsewhere in the meantime. And if a company negotiates in bad faith, it can perhaps expect an order from the NLRB to start negotiating in good faith. Such punishments are the equivalent of punishing shoplifters by asking them to put the merchandise back.

This is what lawmakers have sought to remedy in devising the Employee Free Choice Act. For all the controversy, EFCA is a surprisingly modest bill, with provisions aimed at strengthening existing labor laws rather than altering them substantively. Under EFCA, if Rite Aid had been found guilty of making illegal threats or of spying or of intimidation, it could have faced a monetary penalty—up to $20,000 per incident in cases of repeated violations. If Rite Aid had been found to have illegally fired a union supporter, it would have been required to pay not just the back wages, but three times the back wages. And if contract negotiations were being conducted without results, either party could seek federal mediation after ninety days. If, after thirty additional days, negotiations were still stalled, then an arbiter would be able to impose a contract settlement that would last two years. This would prevent employers (or employees) from running out the clock with bad-faith talks [...]

The question, then, is how much of a fight the card check provision merits. And the answer is probably a little, but not a lot. What most undermines the secret-ballot process is that employers can violate the law in numerous ways without consequences. Under EFCA, however, every illegal action has the potential to be costly, so firings, spying, threats, or other forms of intimidation would be less likely. Also, there is an alternative way to preserve the secret ballot while guarding against company malfeasance: expedited elections. Under current law, months can go by between when NLRB announces the results of a card check vote and when a secret-ballot election is held. If, however, this campaign window were reduced to just a few days, employers would have less opportunity to intimidate union supporters into changing their minds.

My personal view is that the majority sign-up portion of the bill is inoffensive and makes sense - a recent study out of Illinois found no instances of union coercion in their state's majority sign-up law, compared to many thousands of instances of employer violations nationally under current law. Majority sign-up is a sensible application of the will of workers to organize. But Frank makes a compelling case that the other elements of the bill would aid union organizing efforts as well, and at this point, that's far better than no bill at all.

...Arlen Specter is now promising a compromise on Employee Free Choice that looks suspiciously like Harkin's proposal.

The Senate’s newest Democrat expressed optimism today that he could possibly work out a compromise this year with the primary sponsor of legislation easing union organizing rules.

“We’re going to work on it,” Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter told reporters a week after leaving the Republican Party for the Democratic side of the aisle.

Specter announced earlier this year that he would vote against cloture on the so-called union card check bill (S 560) in its current form. He said today his views on the legislation remain unchanged but that he’s willing to work to find common ground with its sponsor, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.

“I’m opposed to giving up the secret ballot or to mandatory arbitration as they are set forth in the bill,” he said. “But I do believe that labor law reform is past overdue.”

In other words, he wants card check without card check. And that might be okay, for the reasons I set out. But my kabuki antennae are at full blast. Specter comes up with an already-set "compromise," the unions grudgingly agree, they back Specter, and everyone praises everyone for finding the wise middle ground.

Harkin (Hearts) Dean

When I saw the boomlet for Howard Dean as HHS Secretary, I didn't think it was plausible. I certainly didn't think a high-profile Senator would come out and back him.

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, who endorsed Dean's presidential campaign in 2004 and is rumored to be in the HHS running himself, applauded the idea of the former DNC header taking over the cabinet post vacated by Tom Daschle.

"I think that would be a very good move," Harkin told the Huffington Post. "He brings all the background and experience. He's very strong on prevention and wellness, which I'm very strong on. I think he'd make an outstanding secretary of HHS."

Asked if he had spoken to White House on the matter, Harkin demurred: "I'm not going to get into that," he said after a pause.

The thousands on Facebook, I expected, but not this. Color me surprised, and good for Tom Harkin.

By the way, here's a short list of Vermont's health care picture after Dean's leadership. As a small state Vermont has different issues than the rest of the country, but this is an indication of what Dean has done and can do.

Under Governor Dean's leadership, Vermont developed one of the best health care systems in the country.

• 96% of Vermont children have health insurance and 99% are eligible for coverage under Governor Dean's Dr. Dynasaur program.

• More than a third of Medicare recipients in Vermont receive state help in paying for prescription drugs.

• Vermont was ranked the "Healthiest State" in the U.S. in 2001, 2002 and 2003 by the Morgan Quinto Press.

• In 1997, Governor Dean signed a law requiring insurance companies in Vermont to provide the same coverage for mental illness and substance-abuse treatment that they provide for physical conditions.

• As a result of early intervention programs established by Governor Dean, 89% of pregnant Vermont women enter prenatal care in their first trimester and 91% of families with newborns receive a voluntary home visit.

• Vermont has the lowest teenage pregnancy rate in the country – teen pregnancies decreased 49% during Governor Dean's tenure.

• Child abuse dropped 45% under Governor Dean. Vermont was the first state to institute a statewide protocol for abuse investigations.

• Vermont ranks second in the nation in child immunizations -- 81% of children are fully immunized by age 2 and 97% are immunized before kindergarten.

Dance, Senators, Dance!

As I said yesterday, there's a good kind of Democratic disunity, the kind where Senators stand up for liberal values and push against more centrist measures. The New York Times covers the tension on those business tax cuts in the stimulus bill today. And Tom Harkin used the words "trickle down."

"There's only one thing we've got to do in this stimulus, and that's create jobs," Harkin told me. "I'm a little concerned by the way Mr. Summers and others are going on this ... it still looks a little more to me like trickle-down."

Likening Barack Obama's economic recovery plan to the failed supply-side excesses of the Reagan and Bush years is a bit of a Cassandra moment. But Harkin didn't back down. "What I'm hearing from Mr. Summers is that they've got a different approach -- tax breaks, and this and that," he said. Harkin warned that, much like the outcome of George Bush's $600 stimulus package last year, recipients of quick tax cuts "are going to be salting it away, not spending it."

When I asked if he felt his concerns were heard during the meeting, he looked to the floor and slowly shook his head. It was almost forlorn.

Chris Bowers looks at this and thinks we need to fight. But Digby thinks it's a dance, noting that the leaders of this effort have been John Kerry and Kent Conrad.

And this actually may be good news. It seems very unlikely to me that Kerry is acting out of school, but is rather playing the role of the liberal stimulus spending obsessive who will (hopefully) balance out the tax cut fetishists in the senate negotiations, giving Obama some space to compromise at least somewhere to the left of The Club For Growth. (Unfortunately, that still leaves us with the Blue Dog deficit hawks, but maybe Rahm has pictures or something.)

It's all just a guess, of course, but I simply don't believe that Kerry and Conrad are out there running at Obama from the left on their own. They just don't have it in them. They are staking out this position for negotiating purposes on his behalf. Obviously, we don't know how far any of them will go to fight for it, but at least the liberal economic argument looks like it will be made.

I see no reason why they aren't both right. Even if this is a game for the cameras to give Obama space to his left, it doesn't mean that progressives shouldn't rally to Kerry and Conrad and make the argument. In fact, it seems to me that is the whole purpose - to "make Obama do it," as it were, and create a bottom-up rally for a real, liberal stimulus with a focus on job creation.

Which progressives ought to do. But that doesn't mean that Larry Summers is necessarily in on the game. It's entirely likely that he just believes in neoliberalism and corporate power, and is making the argument from the other side. We can win this one, but that's not foreordained.

...significantly, the business tax breaks was practically the one proposal that Obama didn't mention in yesterday's speech. That's something I'd love to see quietly dropped.

Harkin Steak Fry Impressions

So, every year Sen. Tom Harkin puts on a fundraiser in a balloon field in his hometown of Indianola. For those of you wondering, a balloon field is a big grassy field. And there are a lot of steaks and beans and taters and plastic cups of free beer to be had. Six Presidential candidates came out to this year's edition, the 30th annual Harkin Steak Fry. I was there for the first time, here are a few disconnected thoughts.

• About 5 miles out you start seeing the signs. Each campaign puts up a bunch of signs on all roads leading into and out of the event. On the way we came in, Dodd and Obama were winning the sign wars. Apparently staffers get up around 4am to put these things in place.

• To get through the entrance, you have to "run the gauntlet" of various supporters screaming and whooping it up. They're also giving out signs and buttons and stickers. Hillary supporters had popcorn in a plastic cone that could be used as a megaphone when the kernels were all chomped.

• The steak was excellent. There's this photo-op for all the candidates where they appear in front of a grill and flip steaks. That's nowhere near anyone and is pretty much completely staged for the benefit of the cameras. It does allow supporters to congregate and cheer on their man (or woman). Edwards had the most support in the place, I'd say, but all the candidates had sizable contingents. All of the Biden people got down in front of the stage early so that they'd look good on TV, but they didn't follow Biden himself as he walked in. So it was kind of depressing when I was headed to the port-o-johns and saw the Senator just loping in from a side gate.

• There's very little retail campaigning. I saw Biden and Edwards out among the people in the balloon field, and I guess Obama came in from a different direction and did some handshaking, but the real event for them is a speech.

• I only got to see three speeches, delivered at a podium with a big American flag and some tractors and hay in the background. Of Obama, Richardson and Clinton, I thought Richardson actually got the best response among the crowd of 12,000 (a record for the Steak Fry). Of course, he was pandering up a storm, offering practically the moon and saying all the right things (his right-wingish position on taxes never came up). Obama's speech actually had the biggest news in it, because he called for no funding of the war without a timeline for withdrawal. That's a significant change, and puts him squarely in the progressive position on Iraq. Clinton continued the cynical trick of blaming the Iraqi government for their problems, which I find distasteful.

• Iowans seem incredibly knowledgeable about the process and are quick to question campaign promises. I think the campaign on the Democratic side is still fluid, and several candidates could get out of there with positive buzz.

That's all I've got for now.

The Continuing Back And Forth Saga of Bill Richardson

He still adopts right-wing tax frames, he's still an erratic campaigner, but he managed to get off this funny line...

"The President has been allowed to spy on Americans without a warrant, and our U.S. Senate is letting it continue," Richardson said. "You know something is wrong when the New England Patriots face stiffer penalties for spying on innocent Americans than Dick Cheney and George Bush."

... and he did show up at our Drinking Liberaly National Conference event last night in Des Moines. The DL chapter here is really remarkable, and because it's Des Moines, where big offices are already up and running, staffers for all the campaigns routinely show up (except for, I guess, Hillary Clinton). And one of them came through and got Richardson to make it last night. "I'm proud to be a progressive, and I'm proud to wear this (Drinking Liberally) button. And now, I have to leave," he said in brief remarks.

Headed to the Harkin Steak Fry today, which should be interesting. Harkin has promised to remain neutral in the Presidential race, unlike Wes Clark, who endorsed Hillary Clinton yesterday. I remember the rumor that Clark only got in the race in 2004 to split the antiwar vote and stop Howard Dean at the behest of the Clintons. So I'm not too surprised. Hardcore Clarkies, apparently, are crestfallen, though.

Travel Day

I'm headed to Des Moines, Iowa, for the Drinking Liberally National Conference, which lasts through the weekend. You'll be in the capable hands of Vernon Lee. I'll try to post some through the wekeend; I've never been to Iowa at the height of Presidential campaign season, so that should be enlightening. Sunday I'll be at the 30th Annual Tom Harkin Steak Fry along with all of the Democratic candidates, so at some point I'll have a full report.

Cheers!

Fighting Dems

I've often said that Rahm Emanuel may be an asshole, but he's our asshole. And sometimes, it's good to have an asshole on your side.

After Dick Cheney's assertion that he's not part of the executive branch, Emanuel's office put out this graphic picking up on my Fourthbranch idea:



And he released this statement:

Today, we discovered that everything we learned in U.S. government class was wrong. Evidently, the Vice President does not consider himself a part of the executive branch, and therefore believes he can obstruct meaningful oversight and avoid being held accountable. If the Vice President truly believes he is not a part of the executive branch, he should return the salary the American taxpayers have been paying him since January 2001, and move out of the home for which they are footing the bill.

I wish he'd go further and actually submit that legislation on the House floor. Rahm Emanuel should be used as our Patrick McHenry.

A far less belligerent politician, Tom Harkin, offered this brilliant frame when talking about potential Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg. I don't know if it was by design or not, but I love it:

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin this morning said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is like a “little rich kid” who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty with the sort of retail politics involved in presidential bids.

“Mr. Bloomberg, whom I don’t know real well — I’ve met him a few times — kind of reminds me of the little rich kid that if he can’t have it his way he’s going to take his little balls and go home,” Harkin said in a conference call with Iowa Independent and other media [...]

Harkin said Bloomberg, if he is eyeing an independent presidential run, appears to be wanting to “take all his money and do his own thing like this little rich kid that doesn’t know how to get along with anyone else.”

Harkin said that if Bloomberg were a true leader he would have showcased his skills in the two-party structure.

“Why isn’t he a leader in the Republican Party?” said Harkin, a Democrat. “Why didn’t he take leadership positions in the Democratic Party when he was a Democrat?” [...]

“It sounds like he doesn’t want to go around Iowa,” Harkin said. “He doesn’t want to get his hands dirty. He doesn’t want to go out and go to town meetings and he doesn’t want to go in people’s homes and stuff like that. He kind of wants to ride above it.”

There's an upside to Bloomberg changing parties because a lot of citizens in this country have drifted in the same way. The downside is the notion that he's constantly ducking the mechanisms of party government and changing his status for political expediency. And painting him as a spoiled rich kid is an absolutely brilliant way to portray that.

Some pretty good rapid repsonse by the Dems there.