Desperate Insurance Industry Now Running Ads Against Reform

(This post is part of my role as a blogger fellow with Brave New Films' Sick For Profit campaign)

Their strategy to blow up health care reform now blowing up in their face, the insurance industry kicked it up a notch today, by purchasing a million-dollar ad buy designed to scare seniors:

In a late-effort push to alter or torpedo health care reform, the major lobby for private insurers has made a multi-state, million-dollar ad purchase claiming that seniors will see their care cut under Democrat-crafted legislation.

America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), which released a highly critical (and widely criticized) report slamming the Senate Finance Committee's reform proposal, has quietly put out a new spot claiming that millions of seniors will see their Medicare slashed by Congress.

"Is it right to ask 10 million seniors on Medicare advantage for more than their fair share?" the ad asks. "Congress is proposing over 100 billion in cuts to Medicare advantage. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says many seniors will see cuts in benefits."

You can see the ad here. It's airing in swing states with Democratic Senators: Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Missouri, Louisiana and Nevada.

One of two things is going on. The industry may truly be worried about the shape of reform and whether or not it will preserve its profits. Or they are giving space to the Baucus bill, the only one without a public option and the friendliest to their interests, so that liberals can be motivated to pass it or something like it. Savannah Guthrie just said this on MSNBC:

I think there will be courtship of those moderate Senators, but look, one thing I heard this morning here at the White House was that the insurance company report, the Price Waterhouse Cooper report, has actually been helpful to some extent (now granted this may be spin but let me just tell you what their argument is) is helpful because some of the liberal Senators who are concerned that the Baucus bill was just way too easy on the insurance companies, now have some cover. If the insurance companies think it's so objectionable that they're getting off the train and writing this report and signalling they're no longer at the bargaining table on health reform, it must be something that really hurts them.

Reform advocates are having NONE of that. MoveOn has slammed the Baucus bill, which just passed the Senate Finance Committee, in a video featuring health care hero and former CIGNA executive Wendell Potter.

"Take it from me, the Senate Finance bill is a dream come true of the health insurance industry. If there is not public option insurance companies aren't going to change. The choice of a public health insurance option is the only way to keep insurance companies honest."

This is only the beginning of the health care fight, not the end. But the insurance industry has laid their cards on the table. They are against reforming the system in any way that cuts into their profits. And they should not be appeased with a forced market and a monopoly on insurance.

Pauline Kael Syndrome

This John Boehner quote, where he says he hasn't met one person who supports the public option, reminds me of the famous quote that has been attributed over the years to Pauline Kael, though there's compelling evidence that it was apocryphal. The quote usually goes like this: Kael was told that Nixon bested George McGovern in a landslide in 1972, and Kael replied, "How can that be? No one I know voted for Nixon!" It's often used by Republicans to prove how East Coast elites who read or write for the New York Times are so out of touch with everyday 'Murcans.

In this case, it's the conservative who is deeply out of touch with American needs and desires. Like the stereotype of Kael, for Boehner to say that proves he self-selects a very narrow band of people as his companions, the sample of which bears no resemblance to the public at large. And people have rightly pounced on the quote. Here's a testimonial from a woman in Boehner's district, from Oxford, Ohio, who has consistently argued for a public option to Boehner's office. Health Care for America Now is gathering signatures of people who support a public option in the hopes that Boehner will meet with one of them. And Americans United fit this into a narrative of an out of touch Republican leader:



It was simple to find statistics like 57% of Ohioans supporting a public option, to throw into avid golfer Boehner's face. Even garlic lovers slammed Boehner for calling the public option as unpopular as a garlic milkshake (I've been to Gilroy, CA, home of the Garlic Festival, and everyone there swears by the garlic ice cream and milkshakes).

The narrative has really started to turn. It's the Republicans who look out of touch and out of ideas to deal with America's health care crisis. Alan Grayson started this ball rolling. And John Boehner's Pauline Kael impression cemented it.

...the Facebook group, "Hey John Boehner, I'm an American and I support a public option!" has over 1,000 members in the first five hours, and is growing.

...The Progressive Campaign Change Committee also has an ad up and is encouraging Boehner to meet with folks in his district.

Deal Of The Century

So Max Baucus will reveal his long-awaited wet kiss of a bill tomorrow, with subsequent votes in committee in the coming week. We've already seen an outline of it, so we know that it would still cripple people financially who have the temerity to get sick, it would criminalize people who do not buy inadequate private coverage from the insurance industry, it would incentivize employers to offer crappy coverage and discriminate in hiring against people who have no coverage from a family member, and it would not include a public insurance option to compete with private plans. It won't even include a trigger, because the original trigger backer, Olympia Snowe, has decreed that it's a dead letter. Those weak state-based co-ops designed to allow nonprofits like Blue Cross, some of which control 90% of the insurance market, to access billions in government seed money, will be as close as we get in the Finance Committee to a public option. Seemingly, the only reason for the death of the trigger is that Susan Collins said they might lead to a (horrors!) public option, and Snowe probably wants her along as cover for a final bill.

You can pretty much tell what a steaming pile of garbage the Baucus bill would be by the fact that the drugmakers are going all in to support it.

The drug industry’s trade group plans to roll out a series of television advertisements in coming weeks specifically to support Senator Max Baucus’s health care overhaul proposal, according to an industry official involved in the planning.

The move would be a follow-up to the deal that drug makers struck in June with Mr. Baucus and the White House. Under that pact, the industry agreed to various givebacks and discounts meant to reduce the nation’s pharmaceutical spending by $80 billion over 10 years.

Shortly after striking that agreement, the trade group — the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA — also set aside $150 million for advertising to support health care legislation.

President Obama has cited the deal with the group as signifying a new era of cooperation. But some critics say the advertising fund could be wielded against alternative approaches to health care legislation. Some House Democrats, including Henry A. Waxman of California, are seeking drug industry givebacks not covered in the deal with Mr. Baucus and the White House.

You rarely see bribes like this spelled out so succinctly and directly. $150 million is certainly more money than has been spent on health care advertising to date. And it's all going toward the Baucus plan, based on a quid pro quo agreement. Other committee chairs like Henry Waxman want to find more savings that what Big Pharma agreed to by letting the government to bargain for lower drug prices, like many other industrialized nations. But Baucus dutifully abided by the deal, and so his plan will get the ad backing. Matt Taibbi further explains.

The $150 million it committed to support Obama’s bill is now being rolled out in pro-reform ads, which are being aired mostly in the districts of freshman congressmen. The ads are cheesy, half-hearted tripe blandly supporting the weak-as-fuck remnants of Obama’s health care plan, an example being this “Eight Ways Health Reform Matters To You” ad that salutes the end of coverage denials for those with pre-existing conditions.

Now we’re also seeing pressure from a group of freshmen and Blue Dogs, who have composed a letter to a quartet of House Committee chairs requesting that the Waxman language be removed from the health care bill and replaced with the PhRMA language, which happens to be the language the White House is pushing and which will appear in the Baucus bill in the Senate. The pro-PhRMA language retains the preposterous government subsidy to the pharmaceutical industry in the form of laws banning Medicare from negotiating market rates. It is completely useless and of no possible social benefit to anyone except pharmaceutical companies, but this group still managed to get 60 people to sign this bill.

What does this letter say? Does it argue that the PhRMA language is better for America than the Waxman language? Does it say it will cost taxpayers less and provide cheaper drugs to more people? Hilariously, no. What it says is that this PhRMA language, while worse than the Waxman language, is not quite so bad as you think (it doesn’t save as much as the Waxman language, but it still has a 50 percent price reduction, which isn’t terrible!). Moreover, the letter says, substituting this language will help the bill get passed! Here’s the actual language, addressed primarily to Waxman:

“Your efforts to remove this onerous burden on Medicare beneficiaries… are to be greatly commended. However the commitment by President Obama and the AARP to support legislation that would provide a 50 percent reduction is a dramatic step forward in helping fill the doughnut hole. Equally important, it moves us toward our goal of health care legislation.”

In other words, your attempt to put in a real reform is cool and all, but PhRMA has us by the balls, so help us out.

At the same time, the drug industry is employing scumbag from way back Tony Coelho, who may be single-handedly responsible for Democratic silence in the face of the decimation of American manufacturing in the 1970s and 1980s, to attack comparative effectiveness research, another part of the Obama plan. I guess there's nothing two-way about that loyalty.

While we were going back and forth on a public option, this backroom deal to fund future Democratic campaigns (I don't believe for a second that the $150 million will be spent now, but on protecting conservative Democratic incumbents who protected drug industry profits next year) in exchange for backing off a huge subsidy to giant corporations was put into motion. Baucus' delay actually may have crimped this and forced Big Pharma to start spending now. With industry out in front, however, a bill will probably pass.

Just don't read it so closely.

Might Have Worked 5 Months Ago

This series of DNC ads blaming Republicans for wanting to eliminate Medicare is dead-on, ruthless, and entirely too late. In August, the Republicans got the jump on defining Democrats as wanting to finance health care reform by cutting Medicare. That opinion hardened, and even though 80% of the GOP did indeed vote to eliminate Medicare back in April, it's a useless data point now, just a comeback in the debate instead of a powerful tool to frame the opponent before they get to frame you. I'd say these ads were completely worthless, except maybe they can be pulled out the next time there's a debate over Medicare. But not now. It looks completely reactive and defensive now, even though it's fundamentally correct.

Way to go, DNC.

Left-Wing Demagogues Found!

Republicans really aren't the problem right now on the health care bill, but here's a message that the Democratic National Committee could have put out in April, when 4/5 of the GOP caucus voted to kill Medicare:



Ryan Grim has the report.

I would have gone with that "Republicans want to end Medicare" line and repeated it 15 times to fill the 30 second spot.

This is at least a bar fight. They can do endless variations off of this. One senior's story: "Medicare saved my life. And Republicans wanted to end it?" A kid talking about how his grandmother was kept alive through Medicare and Republicans wanted to kill his grandma. Get creative!

...The DNC's actually been slugging it out pretty well. This spot calling Dick Cheney wrong about everything is pretty nice. They're a little late and a little reactive on these, however. Take the offense, all the time. Tomorrow, put out a spot about how Republicans think kids should drop out of school. Then one about how they think old people should eat cat food.

Fixing Our Left Coast Mistake

For so many people, the passage of Prop. 8 last November represented a civil rights failure. But it was just as much a political failure. A campaign that could have been about neighbor-to-neighbor contact and recognizing what brings us together rather than sets us apart was instead waged at 30,000 feet. The TV ads for the No campaign never showed one gay couple, and they never spent any resources on door-to-door canvassing. The consultants who ran that campaign (into the ground) claimed that visibility mattered more than personal persuasion (they actually told volunteers to get on a street corner and hold signs instead of interacting directly with people), and the entire race was waged in a defensive crouch, as the Yes campaign would post one lie after another to which the No campaign would belatedly respond.

In November there will be a chance to right this wrong, to apply the proper political means to achieve a civil rights victory. Gay marriage has been legalized by the legislature in Maine (that activist legislature!), and the same forces that passed Prop. 8 in California have qualified a ballot measure to overturn it. Instead of a state with 17 million registered voters, the universe of likely voters in Maine is just around 500,000. The No on 1/Protect Maine Equality campaign figures that they will need between $3-$5 million to wage a successful campaign. Considering the netroots provided nearly $1.5 million for the failed No on 8 campaign, putting a similar amount into a campaign that will actually identify supporters and turn them out to the polls should be an easier task.

If you have any suspicion that the Maine folks don't know what they're doing, take a look at this first commercial, one of the best I've seen on this subject:



The theocrats are targeting Maine as the place where they can turn back the momentum on marriage equality from the past few months. Civil rights campaigns are long and often painful, and sometimes they have to go directly to the people. We can win this time. Support Maine Freedom to Marry.

CA-10: Garamendi Grabs Newspaper Endorsements, Buchanan Posts Ad

The San Francisco Chronicle, which is not completely the local paper in CA-10 (I would imagine the Contra Costa Times has more readers) but which is a large regional paper with reach into the suburbs, endorsed John Garamendi for Congress today.

Lt. Gov. John Garamendi stands out in this crowd because his vast portfolio of experience is so well aligned with the issues of the times and the big concerns of the district.

Garamendi said he withdrew from the governor's race when this seat became open because "these are the issues I've spent my life on." Others might suggest his decision was conveniently pragmatic - his bid for the Democratic nomination was going nowhere - but there is no doubt about his qualifications for Congress, especially in this district. He was an aggressive and effective insurance commissioner (think health care, consumer issues such as foreclosure), deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior (delta, climate change) and a state legislator from 1974 to 1991.

The 64-year-old Garamendi has the confidence and depth of knowledge that would allow him to hit the ground running in Congress - and his history suggests he would be unabashed in doing so.

The op-ed had good words for practically everyone running, particularly Anthony Woods, but went with Garamendi. In a weird example of symmetry, Bruce Brugmann and the SF Bay Guardian wrote almost exactly the same editorial today.

Meanwhile, Joan Buchanan debuted a spot for the last two weeks of the campaign, which looks pretty much like a generic bio spot, although with her being the only prominent woman in the field, an ad just repeating "Joan Buchanan, Joan Buchanan" for 30 seconds would be somewhat effective (and basically that's what this spot does). The three electeds are all up on cable TV now. Will Anthony Woods use some of his money for TV?

CA-10: Is That All You've Got?

I'm baffled by Mark DeSaulnier's decision to run a goofy Jib-Jab attack ad on John Garamendi based on the one thing we pretty much know voters could give a crap about - district residency.

First of all, Jib-Jab ads are to 2009 what using Matrix-style graphics were to 2005 - dated, uncreative and boring. Second, look merely to the north and the election of Tom McClintock, who lived 400 miles away from the district, or to the east of him and at one of the SUBJECTS of the ad, Dan Lungren, who has represented Long Beach as well as the Sacramento area, for evidence that Voters. Just. Don't. Care. They want a candidate who will fight for them and who will make bold stands on big issues. Garamendi has done that and so has DeSaulnier on occasion, and I understand that the campaign must be looking for something to use as an attack in the absence of policy. But this ain't it.

Also, if this is about running where the party needs someone the least, couldn't that also apply to DeSaulnier, attempting to leave the state legislature at a time when the Yacht Party uses the 2/3 rule to hijack state government, and any vacancy in the Assembly or Senate just emboldens them and raises the bar? Why even bother with an attack like this if it can be plausibly turned on its head so easily? Maybe because DeSaulnier reads the polls and figured that he had to go on the attack.

Primary fights are so rarely about issues, but we have tried at Calitics to dig down and see what each candidate in CA-10 believes. You can read those interviews at the CA-10 tag, or educate yourself further by watching this candidate forum.

...by contrast, the ad Garamendi released today is simple and straightforward and issue-based, with him talking to the camera about health care, although I could do without using the same footage of him on the horse twice.

Money For Nothing

I think Ezra Klein hits the saddest part of Max Baucus' largesse from the health care industry - the Montana Senator simply doesn't need the money.

Imagine that Baucus is, at best, bemused by the lobbyists and corporate chieftains autographing checks in a futile effort to purchase his affections. Why let them? Baucus is from Montana. It's one of the smallest states in the country. It has a cheap media market. And Baucus -- who faced no serious competition in his last campaign -- isn't up for reelection until 2014.

Baucus could have shut off his fundraising operation and avoided the appearance of any and all impropriety. Instead, on June 10, he held his "annual fly-fishing and golfing weekend in Big Sky, Mont., for a minimum donation of $2,500." Sometime this month he'll preside over "Camp Baucus," a "trip for the whole family" that touts horseback riding and hiking on the list of activities. The problem with this is not that it necessarily influences Baucus's thinking on health-care reform. It's that all this industry money reduces his credibility to make necessary concessions and hard decisions. And there's no reason for it. He doesn't need the money.

I would guess that Baucus takes the money because he's supposed to take it. It makes him a major player in Washington, someone whose boots the lobbyists have to lick. It probably flatters him to have all these rich folks plying him for attention. If he has higher designs - and I'm thinking Majority Leader, not President - that money will come in handy, considering he can pass it around to other Senators to make allies for the next four years. Like any politician, he relishes the power.

The people are trying to turn the tables on that this week.

Progressive groups are launching a new round of advertising against Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, (D-Mont.), in an effort to persuade him to support a public option.

The Montana Democrat was the (unfortunate) winner of a contest sponsored by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America, in which the groups allowed members to choose which senator to target in an ad campaign. Baucus has, at times, indicated he supports a government run plan but it is not certain if the proposal will make it into the final version of his committee's bill.

For this, 15,000 progressive voters determined that he should get an additional bit of political pressure. The ads being run against the senator, which will air in three media markets in Montana -- Billings, Butte-Bozeman, and Helena - are duplicates of an old PCCC spot. Only it is customized for Baucus, pointing to the $3.9 million he has taken from "health and insurance interests."

Baucus is holding up the bill over how to pay for it, and I'd prefer to see some progressive action on that. But putting money into opposing Baucus rather than flattering and fluffing him is certainly something I can get behind.

Schwarzenegger's Gambit?

The oddest thing about the Governor's one-minute yawp against the the scourge of increasing taxes to fill a budget deficit is that legislative Democrats essentially already scrapped the plan to raise taxes on cigarettes and oil extraction two weeks ago. Vowing to not raise taxes polls well for the Republican base, of course, but by vowing to resist something on which the Governor has no resistance, the Governor can basically declare victory on at least one front of his series of stands on the budget.

Does that mean the other stands are in trouble? The Governor has taken a political hit for his comments about smoking a stogie in a Jacuzzi regardless of the suffering of California's citizens, and the rumor of suspending Prop. 98 has set off a frenzy among groups who supported Arnold in his failed special election. The claims of rampant fraud in social services programs has lacked evidence.

Obviously, the topline belief from Schwarzenegger's team, one assumes, is to just show him on a fake set that looks like the Governor's office talking tough. But I'm wondering if this isn't a climb-down, an effort by the Governor to plant a flag and say after the fact that he didn't raise taxes, at least. I wonder if he knows he'll lose on his shock doctrine efforts.

Going after Blanche Lincoln on the public option

The HELP Committee's release of a more affordable health care reform that covers more people and includes a public option highlights the essential truth of this issue, that more reform actually lowers the cost and increases the effectiveness. Kay Hagan, once thought to be the lone holdout in the Committee on the public option, reportedly supports the final bill. Perhaps she wanted to avoid the spectacle of breast cancer survivors coming to her office and demanding that she not stand in the way of real health care reform. Other moderate Dems, like Mary Landrieu, are feeling the pressure from their constituents.

Now it's time to take on Blanche Lincoln (D-AR).

Like other so-called moderates, Lincoln has so far rejected the public plan option for health care, preferring the pale alternative of state-run co-ops. She fears that consumers would have better choices, lower premiums and better care, for all intents and purposes.

“One of our biggest concerns is that it doesn’t need to be a government plan that usurps that ability to compete in the marketplace, which I’m concerned that a totally government-run option would do,” she said.

Blanche Lincoln is one of the few Democrats wavering on this element of health care reform who faces re-election in 2010. Unlike some of the others, she is more directly accountable to the voters. But she probably feels more accountable to insurance companies - she's taken hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions from them over the years, and in those years Arkansas has practically become a one-horse town when it comes to insurance:

The Justice Department considers an industry to be “highly concentrated” if one company has 42 percent of the market. In Arkansas — Senator Lincoln should take note — Blue Cross Blue Shield has 75 percent of the market. If you take government self-insurance plans out of the equation, it's higher. The state ranks as the ninth most concentrated in the country. Is it any wonder that insurance premiums have risen five times as fast as wages?

If we can highlight this inequity and bring Lincoln around, we can win this debate. Blue America PAC, which includes progressive bloggers like John Amato (Crooks and Liars), Jane Hamsher (Firedoglake), Howie Klein (Down With Tyranny) and Digby, decided to launch the Campaign for Health Care Choice, raising money for ads targeting Lincoln in her own state over health care reform and the public option.

I was pleased to help in this effort. Digby wrote the spots. Amato provided the location. I directed them and edited them. Brave New Films supplied logistics and equipment. And as a result, we created 3 HD spots that force Sen. Lincoln to make a choice between insurers or the people.

Now, Blue America wants you to choose the best spot that we will run in Arkansas starting next week.

We aren't standing still while the fat cats get fatter. So here's the thing. We've produced three different commercials with the help of BNF's to run in Lincoln's state of Arkansas and we need your help.

We've already raised over $18,000 so far and that's awesome, but what we want you to do next is it to vote for the ad that you think we should run first and you'll be letting us know by adding one, two, or three cents at the end of your donation on our Blue America's Campaign For Health Care page. Here's how it will go.

#1 Blue America Health Care Campaign - Blanche Lincoln: "I Thought We Had Insurance" Add one cent to your contribution if you want to vote for this spot.



#2 Blue America Health Care Campaign - Blanche Lincoln: "Bonuses" Add two cents to your contribution if you want to vote for this spot.



#3 Blue America Health Care Campaign - Blanche Lincoln: "Bailout" Add three cents to your contribution if you want to vote for this spot.

The deadline is Friday at noon. The spot that earns the most money by then will get run in Arkansas. Go to this Act Blue page to cast your vote.

More broadly, progressive action on this debate is crucial to letting lawmakers know about the consequences of a bad reform. Even the HELP Committee option on the public plan and health insurance exchanges is not necessarily sufficient to alter the perverse incentives in the system. Designing a large insurance exchange that is national in scope can break the local monopolies that insurers have in their states, and adding a public plan to that exchange will force them to compete on price and quality instead of on how many people they can deny coverage. The House bill improves upon the HELP bill, which improves upon the Senate Finance Committee bill. We need to get the dynamic for lawmakers moving in the right direction. And so grassroots action and pressure can go a long way to having Senators like Blanche Lincoln afraid to vote against a popular policy that is also more fiscally responsible. If the reform gets whittled down to nothing, Democrats will own a bad reform, face a massive backlash, and will lose their advantage on domestic issues generally. We must implement legislation that works.

So contribute to this campaign if you can, and vote for your favorite spot to run in Arkansas.

Thanks.

Swiftboat Inc.

Here's something that will slip through the cracks right up until a few years from now when all these attack ads are coming out of the woodwork and we don't understand why?

A political consulting firm run by two battle-hardened Republican operatives has developed a plan to set up private companies to run attack ads against candidates.

Private companies would be free of many of the contribution limits and reporting requirements that campaign committees must abide by.

The Black Rock Group, run by Carl Forti and Michael Dubke in Alexandria, is seeking the approval of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for key aspects of its plan.

“BRG intends to approach multiple individuals and suggest that each individual establish a limited liability company … for the sole purpose of sponsoring independent expenditures that expressly advocate the election or defeat of one or more federal candidates,” wrote Black Rock's attorney, William J. McGinley of Patton Boggs, in a May 27 letter to the FEC.

Carl Forti blows a lot of smoke, but I think they've figured out a key loophole here. If private companies can be set up for the sole purpose of running attack ads, really all bets are off from the standpoint of transparency and disclosure. Right now a 527 group needs to disclose their membership and donors. A private company, not so much.

They never stop...




The main point of the letter is to confirm that Black Rock and the companies can work together and share information without following the rules for political committees.

In an advisory opinion issued in April, the FEC determined that such limited liability companies are treated the same as individuals under campaign finance law. Limited liability companies shield the people involved from some lawsuits.

They also wouldn't be seeking tax-exempt status under section 501(c)4 of the tax code, further reducing the documentation they must make available to the public.

Forti is a former communications director at the National Republican Congressional Committee and an executive at the conservative issue advocacy group Freedom's Watch. He also worked on Mitt Romney's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

Dubke is the former president of Americans for Job Security, a conservative, business-oriented advocacy group founded to counter the AFL-CIO.

Freedom's Watch and Americans for Job Security were both criticized by Democrats as front groups for rich donors created to avoid campaign finance restrictions.

Casting Call For The Next Harry And Louise

First, a short history lesson: in 1992 and 1993, the insurance industry made exactly the same kind of concessions on health care reform that they have thus far, lulling the Clinton Administration into believing they had a partner, only to double-cross them with attack ads that helped cement public opinion against reform and sink the plan.

This year, the industry offered concessions, attended the meetings, talked nice about reducing costs and ending discrimination in coverage, and then backing off their commitments. Now, one company has taken the next step:

One week after the nation's health insurance lobby pledged to President Obama to do what it can to constrain rising health costs, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina is putting the finishing touches on a public message campaign aimed at killing a key plank in Obama's reform platform.

As part of what it calls an "informational website," the company has hired an outside PR company to make a series of videos sounding the alarm about a government-sponsored health insurance option, known as the public plan. Obama has consistently maintained that a government-run plan, absent high-paid executives and the need for profits, could be a more affordable option for Americans who have trouble purchasing private insurance. The industry argues that creating a public insurance program will undermine the marketplace and eventually lead to a single-payer style system.

Well, that would be just awful.

WaPo has storyboards of the proposed videos, and basically, we're back in Harry and Louise land, with the scare level amped up. Confusing plans, forced rationing, an uncertain future - it's all on display. If you read the Luntz memos, you could write one of these ads yourself. And since Luntz is being paid by health insurance companies, maybe he wrote them.

Insurance groups have mostly stayed off TV at this stage of the process, at the request of the Finance Committee Chair. But clearly, they're ready to gut the plan whenever they see an opportunity.

The smart move at this time would be to lock the industry out of the negotiation room. Foxes don't get to deliberate over their inclusion in the hen house.

Schwarzenegger's Slip Shows

As the special election swirls the bowl, I think one of the enduring memories I will have is the late-campaign decision on the part of the Governor to ignore the current budget deficit. That's right, ignore.

In the final sprint to Tuesday's election, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has warned day after day of teacher layoffs, fire-station shutdowns and other dire consequences if voters fail to pass budget measures that would produce almost $6 billion to ease California's fiscal crisis.

Yet Schwarzenegger and his allies have abandoned TV advertising -- the main vehicle for reaching voters statewide -- on the three measures that would generate that money: Propositions 1C, 1D and 1E.

Instead, they are running TV ads solely for Propositions 1A and 1B, measures that would do nothing to slow California's slide toward insolvency this summer, but in future years could help the budget's bottom line and Schwarzenegger's political image.

It's really all you need to know about this special election - at a time when the Governor is flailing madly, casting about for things to sell like someone rummaging through his things for a garage sale, and threatening all sorts of cuts and mass prisoner release and 100 other options for closing the current budget gap, his campaign committee pushes the only measure on the ballot that would do NOTHING to close the current budget gap. He just wants his long-sought spending cap and unilateral executive authority to make budget cuts. It's all, as said above, about image.

Prop 1A: Boxer Endorses, No Side Releases TV Ad

Barbara Boxer made it pretty clear in a news conference at the California Democratic Party convention that she and Dianne Feinstein would be studying the ballot measures and offering a joint statement on them in the near future. As it turns out, with a week to go, she broke with DiFi, who has made no public pronouncement, and quietly endorsed Props. 1A and 1B yesterday.

"California’s budget process is broken," Boxer announced. "It’s time for California to join the vast majority of states and reform the two-thirds requirement for adopting the budget.

"However, until we make this crucial reform, I will be supporting Propositions 1A and 1B on the May 19 ballot. These two measures will help get California back on track, while protecting our investment in education.”

I heard that Arnold Schwarzenegger misspelled "track" in the initial release for Boxer, and she had to re-release it.

The relative lack of fanfare around this announcement, and Boxer's unwillingness to make her opinion clear on any of the other measures, suggests that Boxer just wanted to fulfill her obligation to say something in the most silent way possible. She doesn't want to back the whole loser of the ballot and doesn't want to impinge upon her Democratic colleagues in the legislature who put together the deal. That's about it.



Meanwhile, No on 1A released a TV ad for the final week, and I'm a bit baffled by its middle-ground focus on "porkbarrel spending" that may result from the way the spending cap and reserve fund are structured. It's true that money in the reserve fund could only be used for one-time spending like infrastructure and debt service, and that does significantly change the model for how the state gets funded, with ongoing services getting sucked dry. I don't know if I would characterize that as "pork-barrel" spending, necessarily. The ad does hit the fact that 1A won't kick in on the revenue side for two years, so framing it as a response to the current crisis strains credulity. The larger frame here is of Prop. 1A as a complex proposal full of loopholes that will not meet its intended goals.

Taking The Exact Wrong Advice

Last week, Robert Cruickshank offered the special election advocates some pretty good advice - focus on Prop. 1C, which covers 83% of the short-term budget hole that can be gained from the passage of the ballot measures, because the state party approved it, because it's the only measure that matters in the near term, and because they need to focus their energies, since very little good is likely to come of the election at this point. Of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger controls the Budget Reform Now Campaign. And he has shown himself to be completely indifferent to the short-term needs of the state in favor of writing a long-term, right-wing spending cap into the state Constitution. Because instead of abandoning all the other measures in favor of 1C, Budget Reform Now has jettisoned everything in favor of 1A & 1B. I saw this ad a couple days ago, out of nowhere, and Budget Reform Now dropped it without a press release. The ad tries to use the 2005 special election imagery which killed Arnold's Prop. 76 (substantially the same proposal) in favor of this spending cap, with the firefighter warning of "$16 billion in cuts" without bothering to mention that those "cuts," really lost revenues, would be two years off. And the new "Yes on 1A and 1B" logo makes an appearance.

I think we can finally figure out what Arnold Schwarzenegger wants from this election. He could care less about the $6 billion in short-term budget solutions - but his corporate partners want that spending cap, and his new pals in the CTA want their out-of-court settlement locked in (it would've cost them less just to take the Governor to court for falsely calculating Prop. 98 revenues, with more of a chance of winning). So all this talk about how we have to vote Yes or the budget hole will grow deeper was a ruse. The Governor clearly supports the deeper budget deficit, or at least he could give a crap with coming up with a solution. He and his Chamber of Commerce puppet masters want that cap. They have wanted it for four years. Anyone lining up with these interests should understand what they really support. Good job, Democratic leadership.

Stop Picking On Us, We Don't Stand For Anything

Interesting move here by Evan Bayh, to deflect criticism from his role as chief obstructionist to the Obama agenda: claim that you don't have a single core principle:

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) is also unhappy with the friendly fire. Bayh…found himself targeted by an ad accusing him of “standing in the way of President Obama’s reforms.” “We literally have no agenda,” Bayh shot back. “How can they be threatened by a group that has taken no policy positions?”

Bayh’s claim that his group has no agenda is hard to believe. Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal explained yesterday, the group’s “stated goal is to…protect business interests.” Even before the group was officially formed, their efforts dampened a number of progressive policy proposals and they clearly have aspirations to expand their portfolio:

• Shrinking Economic Recovery: The group’s first significant “success” was “paring down the more than $900 billion economic stimulus bill to $787 billion,” reducing the government’s ability to spur economic recovery quickly. [Roll Call, 3/12/2009]

• Preserving The Bush Tax Cuts: Regarding Obama’s plan to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, Bayh said, “I do think that before we raise revenue, we first should look to see if there are ways we can cut back on spending.” [Politico, 3/3/2009]

• Delaying Cap-and-Trade: Bayh coaltion member, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), explained that the group might “push for a more lenient phase-in period for a cap-and-trade system and revenue-raising offsets to pay for expensive mandates.” [CQ Politics, 3/9/2009]

• Weakening Bankruptcy Protection: Centrist Democrats “forced changes to a House bill that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages, ensuring that the legislation better reflected the concerns of the financial-services industry.” [WSJ, 3/25/09]

If Bayh wants to disclaim all those "successes," maybe he can stop going on talk shows and receiving High Broderist love from his media fans. After all, he has literally no agenda.

Maybe Bayh can tell his own constituents that he has no agenda. Organizing for America is rounding up people to make calls to residents inside Indiana and other states to dog these Blue Dogs. Campaign for America's Future is doing the same thing. Bayh and his pals can play their inside game but they'll get some outside pressure, too.

Conservatives in both parties are assailing the president’s budget. Republicans seem virtually united in staking their lot with hoping that Obama fails. Having doubled the national debt under Bush when the economy was growing, they are now railing at Obama for threatening to “bankrupt the country.”

This is like a gambling addict squandering the family fortune in a Las Vegas blowout, and scolding his wife for borrowing money to keep the kids in college.

Now conservaDems are pushing to cut back needed investments, often to protect the same entrenched corporate interests.
It is vital that legislators in both parties hear from their constituents, and not just their contributors, so they get the message loud and clear: We have given the president a mandate for change and we want him to succeed. We expect you to support him or get out of the way.

The President told the nation exactly why Congress must pass his budget: "this budget is inseparable from this recovery, because it is what lays the foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity."

Our economy simply cannot recover without President Obama's bold investments in affordable health care, clean energy and quality education.

Click here to call Congress, especially if you're in Indiana. And watch this latest TV ad from Organizing for America. ConservaDems need to hear from the people who elected them.



...MoveOn is also mobilizing.

NY-20: The Last Days Of Tedisco

I don't know much about Scott Murphy, the Democratic candidate in NY-20, other than that he said he'd join the Blue Dogs and that's enough for me to know that I won't endorse him or give him a dime. We have enough Democrats in the House, and the major problem over there is the power and influence of that corporate whore caucus, so I have little interest in seeing it grow.

At the same time, I understand that Republicans failing to pick up a seat in a heavily Republican district would be kind of an embarrassment and may signal the end of Michael Steele's tenuous hold on the RNC. So it's with a sense of bemusement that I see Jim Tedisco, the Republican candidate, freaking out because he's sinking in the polls (by the way, James L. wins the award for title of the year for "Panic! At Tedisco")

Reacting to his Democratic opponent's surge in the polls, Tedisco said Thursday he's taking control of the content of his advertising from the National Republican Congressional Committee.
"I'm taking over and we're going to run a campaign that relates to the people of the 20th Congressional District," he said.

The first depiction of "the real Jim" will air in a new television commercial set to debut this evening, he said. [...]

Tedisco blamed his drop in the poll on an advertising strategy that has focussed heavily on attacking his Democratic opponent.

Tedisco said going forward the content of his ads will be more positive with him making the decisions instead of the national party.

Even more amusingly, the NRCC, the Republican campaign arm in the House, will run their ads anyway despite Tedisco's demands for them to stop. Hilarious.

The rub here is that the NRCC ads may be hurting Tedisco. A recent Siena College poll found that Tedisco commercials made 12% more likely to back him, and 28% less likely.

While it’s unclear whether the ads that are backfiring are the Tedesco campaign’s or the NRCC’s, it’s very possible that the national GOP’s spots are doing the damage, Siena pollster Steven Greenberg tells me. “It is certainly plausible that the NRCC commercials are the ones that are turning off voters,” Greenberg says.

This was Kirsten Gillibrand's seat that she vacated to go to the Senate, and now she has an ad up for Murphy. By contrast, there's this free-for-all on the right.

I really don't care who wins, but it has a certain train-wreck quality to it.

Better Than A Press Release!

I will be discussing the budget crisis tomorrow morning at 7:00am on "The Morning Review," with Roy Ulrich on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles. You can listen live online here, and if you miss it in the morning an archive is kept here.

While I appreciate all these mailed-in press releases reacting to Arnold's State of the State Address (shorter Arnold: not my fault!), I find them to be astonishingly ineffective. Maybe they provide a good pull-quote or two for state media, but they do little to educate citizens about the state of affairs, because they are dryly forwarded to the same places to be seen by the same news junkies and nobody else.

In this respect I have to commend Assmeblywoman Nancy Skinner for an innovative way to connect with constituents and deliver a quick but important message on the budget crisis.

As your State Assemblymember from the East Bay, I am concerned about how the economic downturn is affecting our California communities. Job loss and foreclosures are at an all time high and our neighborhoods are hurting.

In Sacramento, I am working with state leaders on budget solutions that will preserve vital services, protect our children's schools, and restore funding to shovel ready infrastructure projects that can put people back to work up and down our state.

With the enormity of Californias budget deficit such a solution requires a balanced package of spending cuts and new revenues.

But Governor Schwarzenegger has not been able to lead his own party to a reasonable compromise.

We can do better.

Join me, tell the Governor we can fix Californias budget problems without rollbacks to worker and environmental protections or devastating our schools.

Together lets move California forward.

Yes, it has the look and feel of a campaign ad. And that's the point. This is a PERFECT way to use off-cycle messaging to make the case for a responsible budget solution. And with a local cable buy (CNN, MSNBC, CNN Headline News, CNBC, Fox News, and Comedy Central), it is relatively cheap for Skinner to do so. It's not surprising that Skinner's Chief of Staff is former California Progress Report editor Frank Russo. He understands well that this kind of direct communication has been sorely lacking over the past few years.

In the coming months, as the crisis grows bigger, there's going to be an effort by the Governor to use the bully pulpit to cast the whole thing as a problem of "the legislature" instead of laying the blame where it belongs. It is crucial for progressives to push back against that, and Skinner has shown the way. Of course, her Bay Area audience doesn't really need to be convinced. The Speaker or the Senate President Pro Tem or even the CDP should take this model and push it out in areas with close Assembly races last cycle or even just Republican communities. That would be some forward thinking that would make the case for a responsible budget instead of ceding the territory to talk radio or worse. It's time for Democratic leaders to fill the news gap and begin to educate Californians.

GA-Sen: Barack Hits The Radio

Sen. Obama appears in a 60-second radio spot for Jim Martin's Senate race in Georgia:

UPDATE, 6:30 pm: Barack Obama has cut a new 60-second radio ad in support of former state Rep. Jim Martin's Senate campaign in Georgia. In the ad, which was obtained by The Fix moments ago, Obama thanks everyone who voted for him on November 4 and then adds: "The elections aren't over....I want to urge you to turn out one more time and help elect Jim Martin to the United States Senate."

A radio ad is not a personal visit by the president-elect but Martin's campaign will gladly take it.

I think he needs to go down there.

You can listen to the radio ad here, as well as donate to keep it on the air. We'll be making calls for Martin this weekend in Venice, CA, if you are interested email msblucow-at-mac-dot-com. They've also set up a tool to make phone calls from home through the My.BarackObama.com website.