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Friday, September 18, 2009
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2009
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September
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- Obama's Consistant Smile (Video)
- Will Ferrel and Don Draper on Health Reform and In...
- The Max Baucus Bill Mess
- Obama vs. Kanye West
- My Cousin Zach interviewed for his new show The Va...
- The End of Last Nights Obama Health Care Speech
- Beautifully animated "Energy Giant" short
- Sen. Al Franken Talks Down Angry Mob Over Healthcare
- Teabaggers and Obama Editorial Cartoon Genius
- More Health Care Enlightenment from Bill Moyers
- We need a public pet option By Garrison Keillor
- Listen to it Rain - Pretty Amazing Little Clip
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September
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2 comments:
Count on this: There will be a nice-paying, cushy job for Max Baucus at some insurance lobbying firm - or the Republican National Committee - next time 'round when he is defeated for reelection as surely he will be - as surely he must be..
It's people like poor old Max that are the walking, talking personifications of why I left the Democratic party over a decade ago. They have forgotten that they are (or were) the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Pity.
www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan, Goshen, NY
I doubt it's quite that cut and dried, Tom.
There's a deep-seated, underlying reason why people vote to return the incumbent to office so often, and it's not the obvious "he brings money to the state" (although that surely contributes a few votes.)
The underlying reason is once we've made a decision - in this case to vote for Baucus the first time - we tend to look for and notice things that confirm our decision was right, because that validates our self-image. We are also deft at disregarding that which might make us re-think it, because to even consider that we might have been wrong is uncomfortable.
There's research on how our brain works which demonstrates exactly how this process works, and more importantly that it does. In other words, there's a biological basis for, "sticking to our decisions."
That doesn't mean Baucus won't have challengers, or that pro-reform folks will let him off the hook. It does mean that a lot of the folks who have voted for him in the past will need to be either 1) convinced the alternative is better, or 2) outvoted. The latter is possible, new voters show up at the polls every time we have an election.
But our system of government was set up to be resilient, and subsequent adjustments have tended to increase its "resist change" nature.
I don't want to discourage working for what you believe in, and I tend to think Baucus has shown greater concern for his corporate donors and their lobbyists than he has for the citizens of this country on the health care reform matter - but I just don't think all that evidence is necessarily enough to overcome his supporters.
You see, while many of them favor the reform we're discussing here, all too many of them aren't actually open to hearing the discussion and reconsidering their proud support for their Senator.
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