If Mad Dog Brown does "win" in Massachusetts, can and will the Dems stall his swearing in

[T Wolf]

to keep him from sinking the health insurance profit bill?

I would certainly hope so. The pukes kept Sen. Franken out of his seat for almost a year.

But I would be willing to bet that "our" side would not return the favor.

Of course, I hope the Dems keep Ted's seat, I just do not trust them to whatever is necessary.

[OHdem10]

1. Paul Kirk will cast Democratic Vote. Brown is GOP--They

vote no anyway.

[Craftsman]

2. I hope not

if he wins then he wins, that seat belongs to the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts if he is elected then he is their choosen senator.

[T Wolf]

5. Both you and ClassWarrior ssem to want to surrender without using every weapon at our

disposal. That "logic" I do not understand.

Must Democrats always take the high road? That route rarely leads to the destination, and on the few occasions when it does, you arrive long after the party is over.

The pukes always take the low road, the most direct path to their objectives. That is why they are more successful.

Tactics do matter. "Effort" without results means nothing.

[ClassWarrior]

3. Yes. Too bad we're not more like the assholes.

:eyes:

NGU.

[Broke In Jersey]

4. Yes we can!!!!

You can legally contest the election results and have a recount. If its greater than a certain percent, the person contending it has to pay the cost, otherwise the state pays. It would take a few weeks including mail-ins.

[fascisthunter]

6. he is not going to win

[jerryster]

9. Obviously, I hope you're right.

The idiots on Fox were already crowing about how Coakley losing will be a statement on Obama's domestic agenda. Of course they never said (OK, I watched for about 30 seconds) that if she won it would be a positive statement on his agenda.

But to the election. I've seen one article on fivethirtyeight.com that said Coakley wins by 8 points. Now I keep hearing that the gap has closed, too close to call, etc, etc. Any perspective?

[alc]

7. they can but it won't matter

If Brown wins then a number of others in less blue areas will be very scared for their own re-election. After they change their underwear they will vote against health reform. Even if Brown looses, but it's close and exit polls say his supporters really care about hcr, I think there could be some changed votes. First priority for almost every congressman is re-election. Second priority is the party. Actually doing good for citizens is way down the list.

[Cicada]

8. House can just vote yes on Senate bill

Then there won't be another Senate vote. Senate voted Yes on Senate bill - if House affirms same bill it goes to Obama for signature.

HCR is in the bag - relax.

[Denver Dave]

10. Democratically Elicted or circumvent the process

That's a good question. Perhaps in a democracy, we have to realize that we don't have the votes rather than defer to underhanded tricks.

I'm not sure what type of reform would be acceptable to the Republicans. The current bill is a gift to the health insurance and drug industry. I wonder if an idea that should be revisited is the notion of co-ops. Initially, I was not very excited about co-ops because I thought that they had too low of caps and not enough members to adequately spread the risk. However, after reading about co-ops, I'm not so sure, especially when the co-op is essentially a policyholder owned mutual insurance company with lots of members. Would we have had a different reception if the public option had been packaged as "patient owned" rather than "government run"? For more information about co-ops and a video interview with the head of the 600,000 Seattle Health Care Co-op, see: http://hctalk.com/viewforum.php?f=48

This whole thing is very odd. We had many debates among single-payer supporters whether the bill should "be killed" or "better than nothing" with people generally split. Neither side was very enthusiastic about the prospects. I was on the "better than nothing" side, at least for part of each day, but the prospect of selling ourselves and descendants into financial slavery to the for-profit health insurance industry does not set well. I'm a "better than nothing", but if the bill dies, I be more than a little bit relieved.