The specter of Alf Landon

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Geezus! Even after a humiliating defeat the goddamn media villagers still have Sen. John McCain on speed dial for an interview. Good Morning America couldn't wait to trot out old Grampy crankypants.

Take a guess who had this to say:

"This is the largest tax bill in history," the Republican leader fumed. The reform "is unjust, unworkable, stupidly drafted and wastefully financed."

And that wasn't all. This "cruel hoax," he said, this "folly" of "bungling and waste," compared poorly to the "much less expensive" and "practical measures" favored by the Republicans.

"We must repeal," the GOP leader argued. "The Republican Party is pledged to do this."

OK, it could have been John McCain. McCain said Democrats have not heard end of debate This guy is the worst sore loser I have ever seen.

The above was Republican presidential nominee Alf Landon in a September 1936 campaign speech. He based his bid for the White House on repealing Social Security. Health reform and the specter of Alf Landon – washingtonpost.com:

Bad call, Alf. Republicans lost that presidential election in a landslide. By the time they finally regained the White House — 16 years later — their nominee, Dwight Eisenhower, had abandoned the party's repeal platform.

Circumstances are different now, as Republicans, assuming the Democrats' health legislation clears the House this weekend, prepare to campaign this year and in 2012 on the repeal of health-care reform. But the ghost of Landon should spook them as they do so: The health-care legislation, if passed, won't be repealed, and the politics of repeal may not work out as well as Republicans expect. You wouldn't think that based on the headlong rush to demand a repeal even before the health bill becomes law.

More than 20 Republican Senate hopefuls have tied their candidacies to repeal.

* * *

Other opponents are hoping that Chief Justice John Roberts's Supreme Court would do the repeal for them. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), among others, foresees "a real constitutional challenge."

* * *

Even the conservative majority on the Supreme Court would have to be wary of suddenly rejecting a legislative process that has been tolerated for years — all for the purpose of taking health care away from 30 million Americans. That would make Bush v. Gore look relatively innocent.

Reality check time. I actually sat through the hours of debate yesterday.

One persistent theme of Republicans is that a majority of Americans are against this bill. First of all, that depends on which poll you are talking about, how the question was phrased, and when the poll was taken. The most recent polls find that much of the opposition comes from moderate to liberal voters who complain that the bill does not go far enough — there is strong majority support for a public option.

Republicans are of the view that the corporate Astroturf teabaggers who were in the Capitol this weekend behaving badly are the majority of Americans. No, they are not. They are a traveling media circus. This argument only makes sense to conservatives who believe they are "real" Americans, and anyone who dares to disagree with them is a socialist/ communist/ marxist/ leninist/ fascist — used interchangeably to question their fellow American citizen's loyalty and patriotism as demagogue Glenn Beck routinely does.

And since when do we govern by polls? Barack Obama and the Democrats were elected in a landslide election in 2008. They ran on the issue of health care reform as a signature issue. Democrats represent the majority of Americans who cast their vote for health care reform. They have a mandate. You lost big, Grampy crankypants, so shut your pie hole.

Second, this new Republican idea to sue in court to overturn health care reform is a non-starter. Once again this demonstrates that Republicans have a real problem with democracy and respecting the will of the voters. Where is all the talk about tort reform to prevent junk lawsuits when conservatives want to abuse the court system to challenge policies with which they disagree? This is the GOP double-standard at work again.

There is no viable procedural challenge to this bill – Republicans got the up or down vote they demanded, and lost. The parliamentarian was consulted every step of the way. The procedure was constitutional.

The substantive challenge to the insurance mandate is based upon reviving an antiquated interpretation of the commerce clause long ago rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. Even if the five conservative activist justices on the Supreme Court could be persuaded to reverse several layers of Supreme Court precedents to get to the underlying question of reviving a long-ago rejected interpretation of the commerce clause, that in and of itself would not invalidate other provisions of the health care reform bill. 

The appropriate response by Congress to such an egregious over-reaching by the Supreme Court would be to enact a robust public option or go all-in and enact a single payer "Medicare for all" program. The federal courts have consistently rejected legal challenges to social security, Medicare and Medicaid. The federal government has a lawful right to compete in the field of social insurance.

Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts created what the New Republic's Jonathan Chait calls "the closest thing to Obamacare in the United States." A poll by the Boston Globe and Harvard last fall found that only one in 10 Massachusetts residents favors a repeal of that program. Once people begin to receive the benefits of these reforms, they are going to be pleased with the results. And that is what Republicans fear most.

Republicans running for office this fall on repealing health insurance reforms, as well as privatizing social security and rationing Medicare The GOP Road to Ruin is a sure-fired loser for Republicans. The specter of Alf Landon in 1936 hangs like a pall over the Republican Party.

Grampy crankypants and Republicans want to take this country backwards to the turn of the 20th Century when McKinley was president. Americans have always looked with optimism to the future — the sun is always rising on a bright new day. It is Democrats who are leading the way into the brave new world of the dawn of the 21st Century.

UPDATE: Grampy crankypants is in full Senator McNasty mode today. I swear he's lost his mind. McCain: Don't expect GOP cooperation on legislation for the rest of this year – The Hill's Blog Briefing Room:

GOP senators emerged Monday to caution that the health debate had taken a toll on the institution, warning of little work between parties the rest of this year.

"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," McCain said during an interview Monday on an Arizona radio affiliate. "They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."

The Grand Obstructionist Party which has sought to defeat every proposal of the Obama administration for tactical partisan warfare to make this Obama's "Waterloo" says "there will be no cooperation for the rest of the year"? There has been no cooperation since Barack Obama was sworn in as president. Will anyone notice? Republicans have rejected any notion of the loyal opposition for partisan warfare 24/7.

Sen. Harry Reid's spokesman Jim Manley released the following statement:

For someone who campaigned on ‘Country First’ and claims to take great pride in bipartisanship, it’s absolutely bizarre for Senator McCain to tell the American people he is going to take his ball and go home until the next election.  He must be living in some parallel universe because the fact is, with very few exceptions, we’ve gotten very little cooperation from Senate Republicans in recent years.
 
At a time when our economy is suffering and we’re fighting two wars, the American people need Senator McCain and his fellow Republicans to start working with us to confront the challenges facing our country—not reiterating their constant opposition to helping working families when they need it most.

Grampy crankypants also sent out a fundraising e-mail today to repeal the health care bill. You can read his nutty e-mail here. McCain Fundraising E-mail: 'Repeal This Bill Immediately' | TPMDC

It is long past time for Arizonans to retire this embarrassment to this state. Please make him stop…