Clarification: Jonathan Tasini is not running for the NY Senate; he is running for the US Senate seat from New York now held by interim Senator Kristin Gillibrand.

Thanks for this effort, Jane. I assume we’ll see the fabulous Marcy Winograd added to the roster in short order.

I need to provide a factual correction regarding CBO scoring, however. Obtaining a CBO score on HR 676 was never really possible this year because the legislation was never voted out of any committee. CBO is not obligated to score legislation not in contention. Activists, and I believe CPC leaders, tried to push for scoring on HR 676 in the spring, but House leadership refused, and we really didn’t have a strong counterargument.

Once Anthony Weiner secured a promise for a floor vote on a modified version of HR 676, CBO did set about to score it. Activists in the Leadership Conference on Guaranteed Healthcare were never under any illusions that the scoring would be favorable. Because a CBO score focuses on effects of legislation on the federal budget, not the economy as a whole, we knew that the score would bomb. You can hear coalition members discuss this in the September 15 PDA conference call, where a representative of PNHP noted that the organization was helping develop talk points for Anthony Weiner to defend the legislation in the face of a bad CBO score.

As Michael Lighty noted in the talk I linked to the other day, the CBO did score the Weiner SP bill, and poorly, although the score was never made public. This poor score was one of the bludgeons used by Pelosi to keep the floor vote from happening.

Dr. SteveB has diaried on the crucial difference between a CBO score and a full CBO (and/or GAO) analysis. On a CBO score, single payer bombs; on a full economic analysis it wins, as seen in this compilation.

Of course it was possible to get a CBO score. Or a GAO score, or whatever it is that is needed. And anyone who tells you differently is wrong. Again, you withhold your vote on key votes until leadership makes the conditions such that it gets one. That’s the point of “working collectively to use your power.”

It means you stop accepting procedural excuses like that, which they use to drive you into activism for futile things. If there’s one thing leadership has the ability to control and trade, it’s procedure.

Remember all the arguments about the CBO scoring during the Senate Finance Committee markup? All that CBO scoring happened before the bill was voted out of committee.

Welcome to the single payer cause. It is very encouraging to see Firedoglake throw its support to single payer. I hope that you will reach out to the many local single payer groups and support their activities. I hope that you will ask leaders of the single payer movement to live blog at Firedoglake.

Remember all the arguments about the CBO scoring during the Senate Finance Committee markup? All that CBO scoring happened before the bill was voted out of committee.

That was scoring on the bill under consideration. No committee of jurisdiction was considering HR 676 (or S 703).

A call for candidates. Big smile. I love it! Tempted to see about getting on the ballot in TN-02, too.

Again, you withhold your vote on key votes until leadership makes the conditions such that it gets one.

Good plan given that the GOP plans on running on not cooperating with Obama at all no matter how much Rahm bends over the Dems need our votes even more.

I have sworn off electoral politics except for supporting Jonathan Tasini. I tell every solicitor who calls me to come back when I have Medicare for All, otherwise, not a dime and no bumper sticker either. However I gave Tasini $250 and urge others to do what they can. He’s the real deal. He is a vanishing breed, a real Democrat i.e one who believes in fighting for working people and a “collective progress”, as Joe Bageant puts it. None of this individual Ayn Rand Miltie Friedman Robert Rubin Flim Flam, but a belief in “he’s not heavy, he’s my brother” kind of world view. His blog is workinglife and he has been on picket line after picket line.

We’ve always been single payer supporters. But unlike many others, we put our money and actions behind what we believe in.

I certainly hope that all of the rhetoric about single payer that I see on this and other blogs gets translated into donations for candidates like Jonathan, otherwise nobody is ever going to pay attention.

http://www.actblue.com/page/fdlblueamerica

Yes, this is exactly what needs to be done. We need to get people into office who are not adjuncts of K Street. Who are not creatures of K Street’s money culture.

In America today candidates are vetted by those deeply entrenched in the ruling class. Then we get to elect the men and women they select for us.

Somehow the disconnect many Jay Walking Americans feel towards all things political [especially young people obsessed with pop culture, mindless consumption and the psuedo reality show mentality of celebrity worship] needs to be reconfigured into the commitments that many [like me] were awash in back in the 60s and 70s.

There is really no way to adequately convey or encompass just how different it was to be politically committed back then. If that is not somehow rekindled I don’t see how to realistically move forward.

Excellent. Thanks, Montanamaven. Jonathan is great and we look forward to having him here tomorrow, and to recruiting many others like him.

People can follow your example by donating to him here:

http://www.actblue.com/page/fdlblueamerica

I assume our candidates will get shorted money from Rahm if they do win and that Rahm’s candidates will spend tons of money defending the undefendable as far as the Polling goes Harry Reid and the Blue Dog seats.
Normally this would mean a GOP landslide but the GOP polls worse than the Dems do nationally. Outside of the South and maybe the West the GOP should be losing seats.
This election should be very interesting.

Another thing to get behind on, even more important than this single issue is Campaign Finance Reform – money out of politics!

Can we create some linkage here between This specific issue and the Umbrella, – Jane?

Jane, I have to give you props for putting this up.

I think that a weakness “we progressives” have is wishful thinking — we want to live in the world that SHOULD be, not the world that IS. And as a result, we all get pissed off that our government is moribund with archaic processes (that don’t much advance democracy), and that the lobbyists have so much power.

But the thing is that if we dissolve into infighting any time there’s a debate within our ranks, or worse — if we just take our toys and go home any time we don’t get everything we want, we lose. We guarantee failure.

We have to address current political reality — which is that yes, the public wants the government to “guarantee health care,” but also “the public” (that hard-to-define group!) is very, very leery of “big government” and excessive deficits. Yes, it’s illogical — you don’t get government services without government spending — but it’s also political truth.

As you point out, I think, our first efforts have to be education and infrastructure, if we want SP to have any real hope of moving forward. First, we have to change the perception that it’s just a crazy socialist idea. We have to remove the stigma of “big government” by pointing to “big government” systems that ARE universally popular — Social Security, Medicare, the police, the federal highway system. Sure, we shouldn’t paint them as perfect, but simply point out that they benefit millions of people and they are huge government programs funded by tax dollars. If we can pound this idea home, we’ll start to lessen that reflexive “big government! tax and spend!” instinct that the Republicans have so successfully instilled ever since Mr. “Government IS the problem” Reagan.

In parallel, we have to start electing people who will walk the walk. Obama was — while still being the best we could get at the time — mostly an empty suit. He said fine things in speeches; his speeches can STILL move me, even though I know he’s lying through his teeth. We need to find a way to elect people who, while perhaps not being such fine orators, will actually KEEP their PROMISES.

This brings me to my third point, one which you didn’t mention. If we want to break this perpetual cycle of “kick the hippie,” we HAVE to start working to diminish the power of money in our political system. I’m VERY open to ideas on how to accomplish this; even tiny steps in the right direction seem to get shot down in Congress, or have unintended consequences. But regardless of how we achieve it, if we want to have a chance to make things better, we HAVE to change the equation that says “he who has the most money (usually in the form of lobbyist backing) makes the rules.”

Overall, thanks for this, Jane. I know (from reading the comments) that you’ve been VERY frustrated with SP advocates who are perfectly willing to flamethrow in blogs and comments, but not willing to do the dirty work of making sausage. To turn from that frustration and devote your (seemingly endless) energy towards “okay, now how can we work towards SP in the REAL world?” takes more patience and courage than I know I would have. So, thank you.

Jane, If you’re not familiar with the recent doings of the Genzyme Corporation, producer of biologics that may have been contaminated by bits of junk and who are getting approval from both the FDA and the EMEA to market their similar-but-different biologics, please take a look at When Pharmaceutical Companies Dominate Ultra-Niche Markets.

go for it, knox ‘em out!

Jane:

I’m curious to know what the lessons learned (“became apparent”) from the public option campaign are, and how you plan to integrate them into this new effort.

NOTE What’s wanted isn’t and wasn’t a CBO score, because that only counts government spending. Even if single payer caused government spending to go up, society and the country as a whole are better off, financially and in every other way. My understanding is that what’s wanted is an analytic study, which CBO can also produce.

That’s all true, but in 2009 we didn’t have that kind of leverage. And one must be careful regarding what kind of analysis one pressures leadership to request, as I note.

Meanwhile, would it kill you to embrace the amazing collective fact-checking nature of the intertubes and acknowledge my correction on the point that the CBO did in fact score a single-payer bill, in advance of the House vote?

Thank you so much. Yes, it does take a lot of hard work to make big structural change. And tacking the influence of money is critical to that affort. But it’s chicken and the egg — until you’re organized at the local level, we’ll wind up with what we have now, namely just enough progressives ducking their head every time to make sure nothing happens.

If you’ve got the ability to put GOTV efforts behind elected officials and turn out the people to support them, they become a lot more responsive when it comes time to vote.

Look out Big Insurance and Big Pharma…Jane Hamsher is coming to put you out of bizzness once and for all. (I almost pity the fools.)

I was focusing on the first part of these lines:

As it is in the nascent stage of any organizing effort, we don’t expect everyone to win — in many cases, we’ll be asking people who are simply passionate and eloquent members of the community to get on the ballot and present the single payer position in debates and campaign events leading up to the 2010 election.

I seriously doubt anyone could take John Duncan, Jr. out in TN-02, though that should not stop the progressive message from getting into this district.

Exactly.

his speeches can STILL move me, even though I know he’s lying through his teeth.

Gah! Me too. I hate that.

I learned that public option supporters give money and take action, and “single payer or nothing” advocates like to argue and drive people away.

And that you’ve got to structure any activism around single payer that encourages the former and not the latter, or it won’t work.

The government would assume all the money currently spent on employer provided insurance premiums would be transferred to increased wages that would in turn increase tax revenue.

I promise you the CBO score of Medicare for all would be a massive government saver.

Jane, all I know is I want single payer. It’s time to make this shit sexy and expose the thieving rot our political system has become once and for all. Godspeed to both.

Jonathan is the real deal, and I did toss him some shekels in 2006 when he attempted to primary Hillary. If he had had the kind of resources at Ned’s disposal, he could have given her a serious run.

He was on hand, and on fire, at the single-payer rallies I attended in Washington this spring and summer.

I agree with the position, single payer, fdl’s support of it, and also the importance of electing progressive candidates. Democrats who are progressive tend to disappear on us precisely when their support is most needed. We need to elect progressives who can use the Democratic label to get on the ballot but whose allegiance is to us not the Democrats. The Democratic pols have opted for the status quo when the status quo is directing us over a cliff. We need change not just in speeches but in government, how things are done and what is done.

Rule #1: Be aware of what you can do with the skills and tools you have.

Rule #2: Be prepared to commit for the long haul.

Rule #3: Start your preparations early.

Rule #4: Be willing to admit when what you’re currently doing isn’t working.

These rules are embodied in the following grafs:

The problems in the current health care debate became apparent early on, when single payer advocates were excluded from participation. Part of that was certainly due to the fact that single payer challenges the logic underlying the entire health care reform effort: if we really cared about cutting costs and providing the best health care services, single payer would come out on top by every measure. Nobody in power wanted to have a CBO score on single payer, precisely because it would win.

But if you’re going to advocate for something that undermines the entire infrastructure of the medical industrial complex, you better lay the groundwork well. And at the time Congress took up health care, that had not happened.

[...]

The weakness of single payer clout was evidenced this year when none of the 88 cosponsors of H.R. 676 worked collectively to get a CBO score. Withholding even a handful of votes from the war supplemental, or the stimulus bill, or cap and trade could have made that happen.

Instead, Democrats like Charles Rangel and Henry Waxman withdrew as cosponsors. After collecting donations from single payer supporters for years, once their votes counted they were nowhere to be found. Joe Baca, Eddie Bernice Johnson, David Scott stepped forward and said they will not even vote for it if it came up for a vote. And Andre Carson, Linda and Loretta Sanchez, Betty Sutton and Jim Moran wouldn’t commit.

When Jane and the gang worked out the HCR strategy with various clued-in Capitol Hill persons, they first determined what was and what wasn’t possible with the Congresscritters and Senators currently installed. They soon determined that pledges of support were meaningless — only a line in the sand would have any meaning, as they knew that “support” without line in the sand would evaporate once the insurance and other industry lobbies flexed their muscles.

Enough. If you decide to do something other than flap your gums let us know, but that donation level for Jonathan is still at “zero” and all you want to do is troll.

We’ve worked hard for months to put this together while you sewed disention and pissed everyone off. Until you prove that you’re capable of contributing something productive to this effort, you’re done here.

I learned that public option supporters give money and take action, and “single payer or nothing” advocates like to argue and drive people away.

Jane, could you please drop that sweeping characterization and instead critique specific individuals for specific behaviors? Stereotyping is unbecoming.

I’ve searched those posts for a verifying link and I can’t find one anywhere. If you’ve got a transcript even, let me know.

This is really very exciting news. I’m in it for the long haul because Single Payer is the only logical way forward. All I need now is my marching orders.

You may be right that major media outlets were closed to SP advocates (although I’ve seen more and more front- or near-front-page articles in praise of Single Payer).

But I contend that blog comments don’t, with all due respect and keeping in mind that I’m posting this in a blog comment, do squat. You’re either preaching to the choir, preaching to people who will NEVER listen to you (like posting on PowerLine or something), or pissing off your potential allies. None of those things is likely to advance your cause. Jane blogs, but she’s also doing TV spots, organizing fund-raisers for various local candidates, and so on. We don’t have her celebrity status, but if we care we can, and should, be doing more than just kvetching about how much more perfect our ideas are, on some obscure blog somewhere.

If we agree that misinformation is a big problem, let’s begin brainstorming an ad buy by ActBlue or MoveOn or something to run a TV spot showing all of the successful and popular “big government” programs in existence. I guarantee you that one 30-second TV ad buy would achieve more than all the blog posts by everyone, ever.

Jonathan’s donation page is at “zero” and you’ve left a series of comments complaining in one form or another. If you’d like that appraisal to change feel free to do something to change it.

I learned that public option supporters give money and take action, and “single payer or nothing” advocates like to argue and drive people away.

And that you’ve got to structure any activism around single payer that encourages the former and not the latter, or it won’t work.

Because otherwise, you get this:

The weakness of single payer clout was evidenced this year when none of the 88 cosponsors of H.R. 676 worked collectively to get a CBO score. Withholding even a handful of votes from the war supplemental, or the stimulus bill, or cap and trade could have made that happen.

Instead, Democrats like Charles Rangel and Henry Waxman withdrew as cosponsors. After collecting donations from single payer supporters for years, once their votes counted they were nowhere to be found. Joe Baca, Eddie Bernice Johnson, David Scott stepped forward and said they will not even vote for it if it came up for a vote. And Andre Carson, Linda and Loretta Sanchez, Betty Sutton and Jim Moran wouldn’t commit.

Why did they feel they could do that? Because they felt safe in the knowledge that there would be no political consequences. And there were none.

The fact that single-payer backer Jonathan Tasini’s donation page is at zero should tell us all something. If people are really behind single-payer, instead of just trying to shoot down the public option, there should be at least a few hundred bucks up there right now.

Jane is ripping up the carpet. Most of the folks that I know who are single payer advocates have been working their asses off for years. Lobbying. petitioning, working for Kucinich, Sherrod Brown yada yada. That characterization of single payer advocates as about as far away of a descripstion of the single payer devotees that I know as I have ever heard.

Anyway Jane you have studied the process well and our one of the premiere health care reform leaders…thank you thank you thank you.

60% of Americans polled support a public option….the wrong wing keeps describing that 60% as left wing, whack shit, Mao Loving, commie, pinko, Jesue hating, socialist. 60% of Americans…hilarious if it were not so serious.

Jane we are right behind you…

thanks jane.

I certainly hope that all of the rhetoric about single payer that I see on this and other blogs gets translated into donations for candidates like Jonathan, otherwise nobody is ever going to pay attention.

i don’t have a ton of money to donate, but i’d be happy to contribute in other ways if there is anything for volunteers to do.

I kicked $50 towards Mr. Tasini.

I’d try to get on my local ballot, but frankly I’m a little too surly and un-photogenic to have any real chance in politics, so instead I’ll just look for someone else locally (Seattle) who’s the Real Deal, not just a fair-weather friend.

Thank you, Leen.

The hardest and most painful part of this process is indeed going to be ripping up the carpet. Single payer supporters have worked hard and given a lot of time and money, and have little to show for it in terms of political clout. It was far too easy to exclude single payer from the debate when it finally came time for health care reform.

Going forward, it’s going to be necessary to ask “why didn’t it work” and be willing to challenge underlying assumptions that drove those efforts. Many will want to continue them, and that’s fine, but this effort is for people who want to change things.

Seconded.

Selise and libbyliberal did a TON of hard work putting this together, which is buried in the post but will soon get a post of its own:

http://blueamerica.firedoglake.com/ballot-access-state-by-state/

We’ve been doing research for months on this effort on how to get on the ballot in each state. Thanks to everyone who took part in it — the information isn’t available any place else that I know of.

And tomorrow, we’ll have a volunteer button up as well. We’re still sorting out the best way to get people organized within their districts, but we’ll be putting the all the resources of the blog behind the effort to do so.

I donated to him in the past and have spent untold dollars, hours, and shoeleather on behalf of health care reform this year. But now I have to focus on meeting my COBRA payments.

Again, thanks for this effort.

Just put in $25 as a show of early support, and will be doing, and donating, a lot more to work toward supporting a viable single-payer candidate for Oregon’s 1st District.

Thanks for putting this together.

I learned that public option supporters give money and take action, and “single payer or nothing” advocates like to argue and drive people away.

define single payer advocates, these single payer advocates? For months you have heaped scorn upon the whole single payer movement, claiming that advocating for the public option was the practical course. How did that work?

As for driving people away, all the time that politicians, the media and public option bloggers were saying that single payer was dead, support for single payer continued to grow a pace.

It appears to me that you have finally come to terms with the fact that the Democratic leadersheep plan to pass a bail out for insurance parasites. Now that the calls for single payer in the comments and diaries on this blog have reached deafening levels, you have wisely reconsidered your position. But rather than supporting the existing network of local single payer groups or joining the existing coalition for single payer you want to go off and create your own group. That does not seem a wise way to build a coalition.

This is not about some puny blog that everyone hates and nobody reads, this is about the single payer movement. The people who were willing to get arrested to call attention to single payer may not regard Firedoglake as credible.

And tomorrow, we’ll have a volunteer button up as well. We’re still sorting out the best way to get people organized within their districts, but we’ll be putting the all the resources of the blog behind the effort to do so.

that’s great news, thank you.

i know pnhp has state level organizations in most states, they could be a great resource for candidate identification and vetting.

ralphbon, you have indeed done a ton of word. thank you so much for that. and i really hope the COBRA issue gets taken up by congress. will make some calls next week.

We’ve actually been talking to the people who are leaders of PNHP about just that. They can’t take part as an organization because of their tax status, but the people who are active in PNHP are advising us on people they know who would be willing to do this.

There are already a couple doctors who are going to run, and we’re working to bring them on Blue America for a chat.

Check this clip from about 3:10 to 4:10. Lighty references a PNHP critique of the CBO scoring of the Weiner bill; if I can find, I’ll link.

The fact that single-payer backer Jonathan Tasini’s donation page is at zero should tell us all something. If people are really behind single-payer, instead of just trying to shoot down the public option, there should be at least a few hundred bucks up there right now.

oh for crying out loud. i’m sorry i don’t have a couple thousand dollars if that’s what it would take to prove that i’m “really behind single-payer, instead of just trying to shoot down the public option.”

if the put downs are meant to dampen enthusiasm, it’s not working. but then i’m stubborn as hell.

Thank you.

And you should totally run yourself — Pete DeFazio is going to lead the charge to pass the “compromise” bill they’re working on now, and has said he’d be willing to vote for it pretty much from the start.

I will personally donate $500 to your campaign to get it going. What do you say?

Awesome work!

FABULOUS!!!!

gotta run. but i’m going with a big smile. thanks again!

Selise, everyone donates in different ways, and you have been very generous with your time and energy. That is very much appreciated.

But I too have to scratch my head that among a hundred people who organized themselves as the “single payer block” on FDL, there aren’t some who are willing to contribute financially too. Jonathan’s campaign is not intrinsically tied to what we’re trying to do. If people want more single payer activism, fundraising for candidates is a key element in encouraging them. If they don’t think it’s going to be there, people just aren’t going to get into the race.

Jane,

I hope this means that you’ve come to the conclusion that no reform is preferable to that which appears to be coming out of the current compromises in the Senate.

I anticipate that–as John Walker has recently been arguing–the legislation will be the usual corporate welfare, forcing us to buy the private insurance industry’s defective product without providing adequate cost control, subsidies, or insurance company regulation. I hope that you will press your progressive allies in the Congress to oppose meaningless reform, and hand Mr Obama a defeat that might just force him to consider change that incorporates a moral dimension.

It’s analogous to the prospects for meaningful climate change agreements coming out of Copenhagen. In both cases, the elites have failed to deal seriously with crucial issues, and need to start from scratch with a reality check.

Electoral politics is one way to provide that check. But considering the hold our pal Rahm has on the Democratic Party apparatus, and the incredible amounts of money that will be contributed to our opponents, I am not optimistic. And ask Ralph Nader about the obstacles to getting independent progressive candidates on ballots in the states. I was involved in that effort during the 2008 campaign. It’s enough to send one to the barricades.

Which brings me back to the climate change analogy. James Hansen has just announced his hopes for failure in Copenhagen, in the wake of his participation in civil disobedience to press the issue of coal mining and coal-burning power plants.

Civil disobedience is an option in the health care arena, beyond sit-ins and disruptions at Congressional hearings. It might take the form of hunger strikes and refusal to participate in the health care system in any way–and without regard to the consequences. If reform does pass with an individual coverage mandate, then all single-payer advocates should refuse to submit to the mandate or to cooperate with the IRS in the collection of fines.

The failure of American political leadership is starkly apparent on all of the issues that matter to the American people. There’s an opportunity here to say “fuck you” to the whole system, and finally get the attention of the political and economic establishment.

How do you know that they haven’t contributed financially? Maybe they donated to single payer organizations. Maybe they donated to single payer candidates at the state level. There is a real chance of passing single payer in Pennsylvania, California, and Vermont.

Just because donations don’t show up on Blue America or Act Blue, it does not follow that they are not being made.

Got linkies? I see lots of hot air, but no linkies. And no money for Tasini, still, at 4:37 pm EST.

Um, and this gets single payer passed how? Again, where’s the concrete action?

No great change has ever occurred in the US without massive civil disobedience. It is already happening. It started with doctors being arrested in the Senate hearing room and has continued with single payer advocates getting arrested at assorted insurance companies. I hope that Firedoglake will support these continuing protests, or at least link to the organizations organizing these protests.

I think it would be hugely divisive to pull up the single payer carpet. I think it would be hugely divisive to denigrate all the work that has been done as ineffective, especially as it has been successful in building a movement under a media and blogger black out.

It would be nice if once, just once, the public option bloggers could be open to learning from the single payer movement.

bravo!!!

interesting times, as the old saying goes.

Madam,

My respects as you’ve now seem to have moved from a RED to a GREEN state (or were you there already :)? BTW, I’m still puzzled right now; this is going too fast for me. But I’m sorry, I came down too hard on you with your recent comments (but your way of communicating was really,….and I mean really bad, …and you know that!). I apologize for my remarks, and I do forgive you for your comments, as I’ve just found out your true commitment to the SP effort. And it wasn’t even secretly, behind closed curtains!; at least I think that’s what it is, but my Dictionary is lost at the moment. Must be my granddaughter ;).

Madam, you were intelligent in testing this SP “we” movement. You really do seem to be an organizer for the well-being of the American people after all. Jane Hamsher, … who the hell is Jane Hamsher ? I’ve never heard of you before, but now I know now. You do seem to agree with my friend, Letsgetitdone after all. That’s great, be well, Jane Hamsher! Fight together.

BTW, I will have still have to look up what the color “blue” actually means in Beck and Cowan’s work , but anyhow colorful greetings from me.

Henk

PS: If I understand this message well, this is an even bigger internal explosive, then they will be able to blast together in (external) Afghanistan. Wouldn’t that be great.

But …….what is your plan once a very weak public option (or no public option at all ) is in the final bill ? Do you have a plan how do we realize our SP ideal, in such a situation?

I WANT SINGLE THE FUCK PAYER.

I can’t believe all this timid fucking shit here. Blah blah blah, oh senator blah blah the fuck blah. Jesus! What a bunch of fucking stockholm syndrome trained hamsters we be!

There will be a hearing next week at the Pennsylvania senate banking committee.

Minnesota has an active single payer coalition.

as for the donations, no I cannot link to any proof, but I would not that single payer legislation is picking up steam at the state level, so someone must be taking concrete action.

I would even go so far to suggest that blogging that constantly throws links to single payer organizations, local and national, is concrete action. Even if it comes from a puny blog that everyone hates and nobody reads.

You are the problem. This attitude is the reason that we haven’t GOT single payer. Mindless anger and insults do more to SAP momentum than BUILD it, no matter how good it makes you feel for a few moments to vent.

Jane is doing the clear-eyed thing: okay, we want this (SP) — how do we get it? Like it or not, “oh senator blah blah the fuck blah” is how you CHANGE things in politics.

There may be a problem with the various donation pages for Mr. Tasini. From my email:

[ActBlue] Thank you for your contribution
|
info@actblue.com
to me

show details 12:28 PM (1 hour ago)

Thank you! The details of your transaction are below.

****************************
Your contribution:
ActBlue Federal Tips — $2.50
Jonathan Tasini — $50.00
Total: $52.50

Hi Jane,

Honestly, there’s probably a real discussion to be had about this. I have a lot more connections in Portland than I thought I did. Partners at major area law firms, C-level execs in some of the area’s largest corporations (Nike, Adidas, etc.), connections at both major state universities (though I attended neither: G-O-N-Z-A-G-A, Go Gonzaga!), roots in Oregon history (6x great grandfather was a drafter and signatory to the Oregon Constitution, half my family came as pioneers on the Oregon Trail, the other came from Switzerland and settled in rural Eastern Oregon as dairy farmers, and the former Oregon AG.

Every time I think about it I never think there’s much there, but last night when I was at the Civil War game, and up in the coaches/boosters lounge afterward talking with folks; well it kind of put some things together for me. I have a lot of heritage and roots in Oregon, I absolutely love it here; literally everything about it. The environmentalism, the progressive transportation initiatives, the entrepreneurship, the rural regions still kicking and scratching to find ways to thrive.

I had a lot of urging in Washington’s 5th district from people in labor, state employees, local non-profits, but a confluence of conditions never had me really seriously considering it. The district goes Republican these days (though it’s pretty libertarian), and the most obvious is that I was moving.

Oregon’s 1st is kind of the same way from the other side. You’d think that Portland of all places would be a super progressive area, and in a lot of ways it is, but it’s also become a kind of Democratic machine district in a lot of ways. David Wu is all but useless, and frequently favors monied interests, but he wins consistently by comfortable margins. I have a hard time seeing him be dislodged, but at the same time I am for the first time seriously seeing the value of alternative candidates in shifting the frame of the debate; even if they don’t win. Sarah Palin, for all her bombast and ironic idiocy, has in fact tapped into something. It would be nice to be able to tap into that legitimately, seriously advocating and engaging with the previously unenergized segment of the population; rather than in the cynically opportunistic way that she does.

Anyway, I would have a hell of a lot of questions for you, and a hell of a lot of questions for Hardy Myers (the only person I know well enough to call a family-friend who as actually campaigned and won election to public office).

I should say there is one other massive de-motivator; I hate Washington D.C. :-) The food and culture absolutely sucks, and the only thing worse than both of those is the weather. I say that completely unironically; despite being from Portland, OR.

Just curious, which puny blogs are you referring to?

This one. Just a lot of bloggy inside baseball, and not worth worrying about.

Thanks ouroborous – it can take awhile for ActBlue totals to update. We appreciate your contribution.

DeFazio is 4th District, and I have always appreciated his principles by and large, and his avoidance of mincing too many words. The Congress did a serious disservice to the nation when it marginalized DeFazio during the TARP fiasco.

That said, on this issue I (as you well know) think he’s in the wrong, and have contacted him with the same questions I’ve put to others. He’s not under much requirement to oblige, as he doesn’t represent me, but I was able to get one of his policy aides to talk to me eventually.

” . . . . needs to be reconfigured into the commitments that many [like me] were awash in back in the 60s and 70s.

Quickest way to do that? Re-instate the Draft.

There are a lot of non-monetary ways to support single payer:

Contact your Congressional representative

Write letters to the editor of your local press

Get together with friends, neighbors, and like-minded folks from your community to organize the next steps. Here’s our FDL Resource for Planning Community Events [pdf]

Thanks for that. I’ve often felt that we were being taken to task for not trying to do what was impossible at the time.

I’ve gotten to know one of the people at PetsMart really well over the past few years and today he used an internally generated promo discount on my weekly tiger food bill. I’m gonna go throw that amount and a little more dust to Tasini.

You know I’ve been in for the long haul since day 1. Nothing’s changed that.

We have a viable candidate in FL-10 to unseat Bill Young this time around. He’s gonna end up bein’ an SP advocate or else.

Jane, No matter what happens with this.. what you are demonstrating with this move as a person and an activist is simply amazing.

When in doubt move/pivot left! /s

I’ll be chipping in financially next week… if this takes off at all we should consider asking for all our PO pledge money back… instantly placed in this fund, imo.

I’m late to this post, but all I gots to say is way to go Mz. Hamsher, Selise, Nathan *RUNNATHANRUN* and everyone who’s been involved in researching for this most recent FDL outreach.

Way to go!

I’ll be looking for that volunteer button to see if anything fits with my skill sets and my ability to give time, staff and money so to speak . . .

Now I’m gonna sit back and wait to see what Mz. Hamsher and FDL are gonna spring WRT the present sitches regarding HCR in the Senate and the ensuing steps to come as that process runs its course.

I needed a reason to smile today, and I got one by clicking on this post.

Great comments, too, all you Regular Pups . . . . thanks for all you folks do to continue developing my education and understanding of ‘How Shit Woiks’ in these matters.

*G*

BRAVO! TAKE A BOW, ALL Y’ALL!

Man, what a nice day this has turned out to be!

*G*

Thank you, Jane. “Music to my eyes!”

I am at work and will be back to read the thread, but I would like to donate to Jonathan Tasini BUT with a mailed in check. I would appreciate such an option for donating. I know there are others like me who are not comfortable donating online. I have an FDL address at home I can use or can you post one here … and could there be one included on your software too?

Jonathan has a fabulous background and I am seriously considering donating time to his campaign since I live in NYC. (Would like to write him in as a Pres candidate the next election I am so disappointed with Obama’s status quo enmeshment!) Will try to make the Saturday noon interview. I remember Jonathan Tasini from the last salon he was at and he wowwed me.

Joe Baca also voted for Stupak. All around great guy.

I look forward to a mutually respectful working relationship between single payer people and public option people.

I echo Elliott: Awesome, Awesome, Awesome.

Thank you mightily, selise and libbyliberal, and Jane & FDL.

From such acorns, mighty Oaks do grow.

For those who may have missed the significance of this quiet announcement of Blue America/FDL’s new, clearly-formatted, link-laden central site – which, tellingly, has apparently not yet been created elsewhere – that’s designed to inform all Americans, regardless of their Party membership or lack thereof, about what it takes to get on (or get someone else on) the ballot as a candidate for the office of United States Representative in their local House District(s):

This is Step One of the vital battle to remove the Two-Party System’s stranglehold on our representative democracy.

Partly because, implicit in this new campaign to find, and coordinate funding for, single-payer-supporting House (and Senate) federal candidates, is the candidate’s pledge to work, if elected, to promote and support the enactment of single-payer health care reform even in the face of (Congressional or Presidential) Party leadership pressure to cease and desist. That distinction, I think, is what separates the incumbent Party-controlled Democrats who claim to support single-payer, from the hoped-for Single-Payer-Candidate Democrats (or Republicans or Independents) now being identified.

“I should say there is one other massive de-motivator; I hate Washington D.C. :-) The food and culture absolutely sucks, and the only thing worse than both of those is the weather.”

So, you’ll only have to stick around until SP is passed. What a great motivator!

Plus Congressmen take a LOT of time off. You can spend the whole month of August traveling around that gorgeous state. And, don’t forget, since you are concerned about food and culture, France and Italy are much closer to DC than Oregon is. Since SP is your major focus you would be remiss in not conducting a fact finding tour of these countries and examining up close how they run their health systems. (Do I hear junket anyone?)

Go for it Nathan, Your country needs you.

Will someone try to get Paul Krugman to weigh in? He favors and supports SP, but he also calls it a goal, not something that’s feasible in our present (18-months-ago) political climate. He may not have as much clout as Jane (he could fired, unlike Jane), but he’s got that Nobel and Princeton office (which Jane could also have if SP happens sooner than later). Anyway, it would be worth more than money if he begins again to make a case for SP. (If he does so, let me know; I don’t watch that stuff.)

Here’s the link to Tasini’s web page for donations by check.

http://www.jonathantasini.com/sites/default/files/tasini-check-contribution-form.pdf

Thanks for the vote of support (likewise Larue; as we seem to have some kind of adversarial thing, so I did not expect it).

I’d be a liar if I said I haven’t considered it, and always out of a sense of exasperation at the institutional failings of our political bodies. It’s a really, really big decision, and puts a person in an awful, awful fishbowl. It’s not accidental that very few of our nation’s most thoughtful and courageous leaders throughout history were not politicians; not necessarily that I’m either particularly thoughtful or courageous, but more that there’s a reason our electoral politics trends toward the kind of typically hyper-competitive narcissists that we all know an love.

I’m of two-minds. On the one hand I have a lot of positions which don’t fit all that well in the narratives supported by major political camps, and one can imagine it can be hard to win a lot of easy friends that way, when you really need to be able to explain yourself to keep from being wholly alienated by everybody. I’d quite honestly want to pull in a bunch of people and run down all the hot button issues, because if I can’t convince you guys, then I’m really just opening myself up to becoming FDL (et al.) fodder.

Thanks!!! That is great. I wanted to do it through us (FDL), but “it’s all going to the same place” (…. my Grandma used to tell one of my brothers that when one food overlapped onto another on his plate causing him undue distress). :)

And because I can’t finish a thought when I get interrupted by the phone, the other half of “two minds” is that, with the election of people like Cathy McMorris-Rodgers and Michelle Bachmann, I sometimes think that even pigmy goat plagued by senility could become a Congressman, so why not me? :-)

:) thank you!!!!

There are a lot of non-monetary ways to support single payer:

Contact your Congressional representative

Write letters to the editor of your local press

Get together with friends, neighbors, and like-minded folks from your community to organize the next steps. Here’s our FDL Resource for Planning Community Events [pdf]

I’m late to this party but if anyone in NoCal wants to get busy – tomorrow’s the day

Single Payer in the North State

Health Care for All – CA Regional Workshop

Saturday, December 5
9:00 am – 1:00 pm

Hart Senior Center
915 27th Street, Sacramento, CA

Please Register Online as soon as possible

(There will be a $10 donation requested at the door to cover snacks, hot & cold drinks, sandwiches, and desserts.)

Agenda:

9:10 am Welcome & Logistics – Carolyn Negrete, HCA Sacramento Valley

9:20 am Sara Rogers, aide to Senator Mark Leno

9:40 am California State Assemblymember Mariko Yamada

10:15 am PowerPoint presentation: California OneCare Campaign – goals, strategies & timeline (followed by a Q&A period) – Dan Braunstein, HCA Yolo County Chapter & HCA-CA Board Member

11:00 am Building a Movement: Grassroots Involvement (followed by Q&A) – Jeanne Ertle, Butte County Health Care Coalition Board Member & HCA-CA Vice-Chair

11:20 am Breakout Groups – Networking: Share Ideas for events & organizing, and brainstorming ideas for future North State regional workshops (share chapter reports on local events, activities)

12:20 pm Breakout Group reports

12:40 pm January 11 Rally

12:45 pm Next Regional Workshop

1:00 pm Close

Thanks for initiating this, Jane. It’s really wonderful to see you engage on Medicare for All.

My wife, Bonnie, and I will make a contribution to Jonathan Tasini at actblue this evening. I’ll also volunteer to help a single payer candidate to run against Jim Moran in VA, once we find that candidate.

Nathan, I don’t know why you don’t like DC food. My view is that it’s one of the best restaurant cities around, and I was born and brought up in New York City and lived in many other places since, so I have a wide-ranging sample to draw upon. Anyway, if you do run and win, you have a standing invitation for Dinner at our place in Alexandria, at least once a week, where we can guarantee that the food will be good.

Haha, thanks lets. If I run and lose, I hope you’ll still extend that invite.

We can do an exchange program. You show me what I must have missed in D.C. when I was there, and I’ll show you around to some of the quintessentially Portland spots around here.

Why not you, indeed! If you take the plunge, don’t forget to review your blog posts and emails for any potential reverse bites. Cheers!

Just a mild correction.

But I too have to scratch my head that among a hundred people who organized themselves as the “single payer block” on FDL

Some 65 people identified themselves as SP supporters in reply to my earlier diary. Since then I’ve identified 38 more by observing comments on diaries, for a total of 103. Other than that no organization of this group has been done. Hopefully you’re changing that with your latest very welcome move.

On your behalf Selise, I donated another $25. So, don’t be confused by the confirmation e-mail that just made it’s way to you (which by the way, if you could forward that to my Gmail I’d really appreciate it).

Hi dcblogger, You said:

Now that the calls for single payer in the comments and diaries on this blog have reached deafening levels, you have wisely reconsidered your position. But rather than supporting the existing network of local single payer groups or joining the existing coalition for single payer you want to go off and create your own group. That does not seem a wise way to build a coalition.

I don’t see it that way. First, I don’t know why you think that Jane’s beginning a fund raising effort on behalf of SP candidates isn’t supporting the SP movement. I don’t see any other organization targeted on actually supporting SP-committed candidates, so it seems to me that there is a niche to be filled here that FDL with its expertise in legislative electoral politics can fill very nicely. Second, I also think that the simple fact of such activity going on, when it is reported as an FDL activity will be good for the SP movement, because it will add to its legitimacy. And third, I think this kind of effort will serve as a way to organize SP supporters at FDL and give them some focus. That’s also very important.

This is not about some puny blog that everyone hates and nobody reads, this is about the single payer movement. The people who were willing to get arrested to call attention to single payer may not regard Firedoglake as credible.

I think you have a point here. But, consider, a couple of things. First, nyceve, I understand, is very well-known in SP circles for her long-standing activism, so if she’s involved in this it pave the way for FDL. Second, any organization joining in a movement always has to earn its bonafides, so FDL can’t do anything about that. What it can do is to perform a useful service for the movement that others are not performing. If FDL is successful in giving some SP candidates a chance to make waves in primaries and elections, and perhaps even win some that will be a real contribution to the SP movement, won’t it

SEVEN hours since Jane’s post went up and this is the ONLY donation to Tasini.

Fifty dollars.

One donor.

Isn’t that enough to understand the integrity and honesty of single-payer purists?

To be fair, there is a lag time between when ActBlue donations are made and when they show up on the page here. In addition, there are people who are using the U.S. mail link we provided to make donations by check. There have been several donors, we don’t have all the data in yet.

I would like to encourage folks who want to make non-monetary contributions, here are some ways:

Contact your Congressional representative

Write letters to the editor of your local press

Get together with friends, neighbors, and like-minded folks from your community to organize the next steps. Here’s our FDL Resource for Planning Community Events [pdf]

Candidates won’t run on a single-payer platform until single-payer advocates demonstrate that they can mobilize support behind a single-payer candidate, and Tasini is about as pure as there is: no votes in his background to sully his bona fides.

If people can’t rally with donations to Jonathan Tasini, you won’t see other candidates seeking the support of single-payer advocates by taking up their cause. Candidate support is critical. And it doesn’t seem to be happening.

Hey, a disagreement here or there, is nothing in the scheme of things as grand as getting our effin country back, hoss. *G*

Uh, you ARE a progressive, aren’t ya? *G*

It is logically possible to be a single payer supporter, of great integrity and honesty, who either does not have the resources to make a donation or chooses to be involved some other way.

That said, of course it is disappointing not to witness an outpouring of support for this wonderful candidate. Folks will have another chance as he is coming to talk with us tomorrow morning on Blue Am.

*bows*
*acknowledgespraises*
*bowsagain*

Patience, Grasshopper . . . the ant builds slowly for that which lasts . . . . ;-)

Pretty funny ME sayin that . . . to YOU of all folks . . . I’m laffin, hope u r 2 . . *G*

You’ve got that invite Nathan and the trade sounds good too.

We’ve been working on this for months, ask Selise and libbyliberal who worked on it. Get over yourself.

Dear Jane, People say they want single payer, but have waisted thier time fighting for the public option, and arguing over it letting Congress put that off the table.

We democrats are to meek to write call and hammer the Repubicans and so-called centrists, that we really want the public option. Instead we keep baggering the people on our side to fight harder.

You fight Your Enemies not Your friends, and will have a better chance of winning the war.

no objections from me on the head scratching, it was the put down that irked me. too thin skinned i guess, sometimes it gets to me.

really really appreciate what you are doing here jane, and it was my bad to contribute any negative energy. i hope tomorrow’s fund raiser for jonathan with david is a success and will try to be here for it.

dude! you so rock!

thank you, nathan, but jane is being generous, i only helped out a little bit. hopefully though there will be other opportunities for doing more.

will look for email to forward….

thanks for the kind words teddy. i’ve never forgotten your post “We’ll Pick You Up Later”, it’s one of my all time favorites and that post is why i was sure you would understand.

Thank you Jane, I now feel we are pushing off the shelf into activism again. I will pledge my time and monetary support full heartedly to this effort.

Isn’t that enough to understand the integrity and honesty of single-payer purists?

I seriously resent this. Wow, it caught my eye and I haven’t checked out the comments around it but it sure seems flamingly hostile.

I am donating by check. It is not a large check. But that is not any business of yours, where or how much I or the other members here donate. Or is it? Is this some kind of supercilious set up to prove how shallow and hypocritical we all are? Kind of pouncing, aren’t you, TP?

So your public option did not come out the way it was hoped it would. And some of us wanted the single payer route and thought it was wiser. Arguing about policy is one thing, attacking character is another, though I do believe there is a difference between political imagination and moral imagination. And I think your PO group was probably more adept at the former and my SP group fulfills more of the latter. But that is POV, which I have a right to. Take issue with that as you will. But it is not as snarky and creepy as you are being.

I have respected the professionalism of your work. I happened to catch your comment. I haven’t read most of the thread but I hope this tone isn’t gonna come after us from others, and I hope you clean yours up.

What I wanted to say when I came on the thread was that one of the problems I have been having advocating for single payer is that the non-choir out there, the non-choir outside of PO and SP people are apathetic and often repelled by being asked to listen about the health care debate. It has been so “mystified” which is how corporations themselves get away with such extortion. And often the media I noticed news people kind of gingerly referring to the health care debate, and they, too, were messaging that this stuff is just so confusing, let’s leave it up to the good ship Obama. Which isn’t such a good ship, or the Dems. To rally support for single payer candidates is a WONDERFUL thing, but I also think and I am going to try from my personal end of it, to keep talking it up to the non-choir though it is a challenge. They have no idea of the double standard Congress and Prez have to military spending and spending on the common good.

Thanks, Jane!

If you were being facetious, I apologize. I hope that is the case.

The fact that single-payer backer Jonathan Tasini’s donation page is at zero should tell us all something. If people are really behind single-payer, instead of just trying to shoot down the public option, there should be at least a few hundred bucks up there right now.

judgmental snark

I certainly hope that all of the rhetoric about single payer that I see on this and other blogs gets translated into donations for candidates like Jonathan, otherwise nobody is ever going to pay attention.

I’m reading through the thread now. You have to lighten up on this Jane. Really. Please.

I am beginning to get how Kucinich might have felt when you suddenly offered help. Now that your emotional clock is ready, which is great, you gotta give people some time and let the word spread and see if they are resilient and ready to trust uniting efforts.

Yes. Point of course well taken re non-FDL channels. To imply otherwise is myopic and “pushing the river”.

Jonathan Tasini’s campaign is completely independent of our efforts, so there’s nothing to “trust.” Either people who have been complaining in our comments section nonstop for days on end are committed to what they claim they are, or they’re not.

You’re “beginning to get to know how Dennis Kucinich felt when I offered to help?” That would make more sense if I ever offered to help Dennis Kucinich. I never did.

Sorry, I thought you wrote once you had offered to “whip” some votes for his amendment.

I don’t understand your “trust” comment?

I don’t understand your “either” “or” stance?

I so appreciate your using your incredible talents and political capital for single payer candidates. I thank you for that.

But I also hope you as leader at FDL will exemplify the spirit of partnership and cooperation. We need to rally if possible. It is an organic process.

With political mischief in my heart, I would love the populace to wake up enough and start to demand that whatever the public option is that Congress and the Prez agree to embrace it for themselves and their own families. I know it doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell they would give up their gucci loafered comfort, but what a great drumbeat if that caught the imaginations of the citizenry. And wouldn’t it freak out the Rolls Royce insured Congress, socialized luxury for the rest of their lives on OUR DIMES. I would love to see them freak out on that and be framed as a legitimate request somehow… demand!!!! I mean in my mind, it should be. They are working for us. Why should our employees and our friggen vendors doom us to the “bronze” plan or whatever. And a couple senators have refused the luxury insurance out of honor. Is it Brown who is one? I can check this out. I think we should celebrate those guys LOUDLY!

I work Saturdays but if I can manipulate my break, I will hear out Tasini.

I have been meaning to sign up with him for a while. This is a good kick in the ass for me to do it. I want to contribute but I don’t contribute over the net. So I was going to send a check to Tasini but I can send one to FDL address with ActBlue written on it, okay? Would rather do it through you.

So thanks for being a catalyst. But for me less is more on pressure. FWIW :)

Maybe I’ll begin asking that thing about giving up their designer insurance and going for single payer on my phone calls to House and Senate members.

Jane, sorry … Freudian slip …my last sentence should read:

Maybe I’ll begin asking that thing about giving up their designer insurance and going for whatever the public option will be on my phone calls to House and Senate members.

What if there was a petition — could FDL do it? — asking Congress and Prez to embrace the public option for themselves to be in good faith. We make that a BIG drumbeat? I mean, Obama is telling citizenry it is a time for austerity. Time for us as citizens to suck it up. He has just determined to send 30,000 more troops to sacrifice their lives possibly. Why not ask them to give up the Rolls Royce plan? WHY NOT????

Now I wish I had names at my finger tips tonight, but didn’t Sherrod Brown speak of a Repub senator who is bluffing and stalling and who even suggested such a thing, that Congress consider public option for itself as a stall and does not mean it? Can’t we also call him out, along with Sherrod? If I am right (I was hearing Rachel in the background) … what timing.

FWIW :)

heh. i would argue that anthony weiner very neatly used a procedural trick to get a single payer bill scored. my hat is off to him and i’m thrilled he did this.

bernie sanders is planning to do the same thing in the senate, which should provide us with another opportunity to get another single payer bill scored. my hat is off to bernie as well.

the actblue page for single payer candidates is a great idea, and my thanks to libby and selise for the painstaking compilation of the ballot information.

I’m late to this post, have donated to the FDL PAC and Tasini, and I’m very appreciative of this new focus on SP. That said, I’m also aggrieved at the recent characterizations of SP advocates made by some on this site. I have been active for YEARS with unions, CNA/NNOC, donated $, marched, called reps, and written letters. It is disappointing that I feel the need to defend myself and my work here. It distresses me that the level of discourse here can be so hostile and dismissive, especially towards present and potential allies in this very important fight, even as the window for change is cracking open wider than I’ve seen in my lifetime. (On that note, might not hurt to hook up with CNA also, apparently nurses have good “street cred” in this fight) However, it is wonderful to see this new emphasis on SP vs the sad garbage being debated in Congress. Thank you Jane, Selise, and Libby.

I also thank Jane, Selise, and Libby. And I agree with Sister Kenney.

You folks are amazing. Have been singing your praises all over the place for years now.

As Jane described earlier many single payer advocates have not been so effective. Most of the spa’s that I know are often university brainiacs, Quuakers, activist all rolled into one. Often soft spoken intellectual type Peace niks… quiet in their ways.

Did get one of these folks going the other day in Athens Ohio. Retired Professor Overby…84 engineerin dept. g at Ohio University) was gassing up at Super America as I was gassing up. He started bitching at the pump because he had to go in and pay first. Started bitching about our (his, mine) oil addiction. I praised him for speaking out loud and fed him as the people at the other pumps looked on. He started ranting about the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the drones. I announced to all the other onlookers that Overby was a WWII pilot who has for years been publicly apologizing for the people that he killed in Japan and Korea and that he was a retired professor. He is deeply ashamed of the part he played.

I shouted out’Professor Overby tell us’ this fueled him even more. Soon everyone in the Super America started smiling and nodding yes. It almost turned into a revival. I so appreciate when our seniors especially those who have participated in wars that were brutal and unnecessary start giving us a piece of their minds.

Overby has worked with the people of Japan for many years, doing service, apologizing etc.

True, the SP activism of yore hasn’t been as effective as we would like, but I would hardly (once again with the negative generalizations) paint them with your brush of “brainiacs, Quakers…soft-spoken intellectual type peaceniks..quiet in their ways”. You have not met my fellow travelers, and I can only say more than one of us cannot run for public office due to an arrest record. I would venture to guess that the lack of result from our/their efforts had more to do with the past political/economic landscape than any PERSONAL shortcomings. It is a tsunami of events, the confluence of the the results of over 50 years of chipping away at the foundations of economic security for the majority of Americans that has opened this window. (It sucks that when it was a small group of “just the poor” that the healthcare situation was fine with most people.) And , it appears that SP advocates have been effective enough to turn around the train chugging towards POs here. Please can we stop denigrating past efforts on behalf of SP? They are the foundation upon which we build.

We’ve been working on this for two months — the complaining and whining in the comments section has only delayed it time and time again as I thought long and hard about the stupid it would draw out.

If you think you’ve done such an amazing job “turning the train chugging towards the PO,” go help the rest of the world, there is so much your amazingly effective methods can do some place else.

We’re going to continue on this journey without this particular element in our community. I now understand why Markos took the stand he did about the 9/11 truthers.

Essentially you’ve escorted me out the door of this site “go help the rest of the world ……someplace else”. Apparently I’ve been “complaining and whining”, and not worthy of the inside machinations due to “the stupid” I would contribute. And I’ve been lumped in with the “truthers”, some nebulous “particular element” in “your community”. I am saddened by this response, and will willingly contribute my stupid, ineffective, complaining, whining, “truther” self to other groups. I’m sorry you have such anger and venom towards me. Nice knowin y’all (especially, you libby)

And, sadly, you’ve managed to alienate one of the NINE contributors so far to your FDL Act Blue PAC

see you at:
http://www.guaranteedhealthcare.org/

thank you so much for all your past work, and i hope you will find a place to continue that work here. the put downs are sometimes hard to take, but there is plenty of support elsewhere. will you give it another week? please?

jeffroby at OpenLeft has recently gotten started with a similar, primary-shotgun approach, though he would require that the candidates embrace about 8 positions, not just 1.

His requirements seemed too stringent to be optimal for eventually generating wins across most districts. OTOH, this effort goes to the opposite extreme, requiring adherence to a single position. Why not add an issue or two, that are non-wedge issues, but that can get people fired up who may not relate to the healthcare issue?

E.g., Big Mouth Bernanke recently showed us (again) who he really is (and indirectly, who Obama really is). Protecting Social Security seems like a natural, no-brainer issue that all Democratic candidates could embrace, does it not?

Here’s a link for jeffroby’s posts: link.

I commented on a few of his posts, some of which would be relevant, here. The only thing I’ll add now is a copy of a recent email to a former boss, who owns an IT company. IMO, there definitely should be a way for citizens to contribute to a pool of candidates, where, due to shortages of funds sufficient to credibly support all of the candidates, there needs to be a narrowing down process, which is voted on by the contributors. If you have any influence with ActBlue, I suggest you put the idea to them.

I think the best way to rescue politics from the pros is for ordinary, non-professionals to take over both the Democratic Party and Republican Party. (As opposed to starting a third party, which historically at best ends up with a mainstream party absorbing it, anyway.) If you want to lean more about how ‘pros’ corrupt politics behind the scenes in both the Democratic and Republican parties, you can search for the 2009 diaries of John Emerson at OpenLeft.com.

So, that gets me to the idea I want to share with you. I’ve called for disgruntled citizens to fund candidates after their own hearts, by putting away money into escrowed accounts that must be used for political purposes. That would be done via a funding portal (which is what I want you to consider building). A key point is, they need to be putting money away regularly, even before the next FDR or Ronald Reagan declares that they are, indeed, going to run for office. That’s because the funding requirements for Congress (never mind the Presidency) are so daunting, that many decent candidates don’t even want to get into the whole beg-a-thon process that’s unfortunately required. So, the crowd-sourced campaign funds need to be there, at the ready, and the winners of online, instant runoff elections who satisfy the political proclivities of whatever voting bloc created those accounts, can have a fair shot at accessing them, before they sell their soul to corporations.

If you’re not familiar with how corrupting the process is, right from the get-go, you can read the (very few) articles on my web site, democracyabc.org.

You would make money by management fees. The fee needs to be small enough so that nobody complains, but big enough so that you make a decent ROI. The technical aspects are not what you have to worry much about. Rather, it’s the legal aspects. I refer you to ActBlue.com, especially this from their FAQ:

Is ActBlue a 527, or a PAC, or what?

All of the above. For federal elections, ActBlue is a registered with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) as a Political Action Committee (PAC) and is not connected with any candidate, party, or other entity. We can directly contribute to and coordinate with candidates, and can transmit earmarked contributions from individuals to candidates. We are also registered with the IRS as a 527 political organization for many of our non-federal political activities. For our state-level political activities, in more than 20 states we are registered as a political committee.

It gets awfully complex at times, but that’s part of what we do. We worry about the legal issues so that you can focus on fundraising for the candidates you support.

I think ActBlue runs on contributions. Perhaps you could run things using a mixed mode; contributions for accounts with a definite recipient, but management fees for the undeclared-candidate pool accounts.

Some other services that are missing from ActBlue are
1) instant runoff voting, whereby your national organization narrows downs the races that it can reasonably make competitive. E.g., suppose that you have a progressive voting bloc that wants to fund 20 candidates, and it would require an average of $2 million dollars to do so, but the group has only raised $8 million, not $40 million. So, the group decides that they will support 4 candidates – but which 4? Since the funds represent contributions of the group, it should be a group decision. The way that makes most sense to me is via an instant runoff process. (IRP).

2) underfunded groups (underfunded compared to corporate lackey types, that is) should be looking to make up for funding disadvantages via their (theoretically :-) ) superior policy positions and ideology. This should express itself via pledges to contribute volunteer labor to a candidate (even an undeclared one, if he/she ends up being in the same district/state). Now, this will be tied to geography, so you want to office voting blocs some sort of configurable input into their IRP votes that not only factors in local volunteer hours, but allows the voting bloc to define some sort of equivalence between the time inputs and the dollar inputs.

E.g., there’s a voting bloc with 1,000 members in Mo. and 1500 members in NJ. Let’s pretend that NJ also has 1.5 x the population of Mo. The former subgroup pledges 10,000 hours, but the latter group only pledges 11,000 hours. Consequently, the net $$ required in NJ must be adjusted relatively higher than Mo, because it it’s 1.5x higher population suggest that it should have 1.5x higher volunteer hours. Since it does not, it’s cash ($$) requirements are adjusted upwards, as needed. Such computations require a defined ratio between cash and campaign hours. You would probably want to research this, but ultimately let voting blocs fiddle this ratio, within reasonable limits.

Each member of the voting bloc makes up to 4 choices ( = projected races that the voting bloc can adequately fund), and the IRP terminates when only 4 races are left ‘standing’. You probably have to throw in some fudge factor depending on the populations of individual states that survive the IRP iterations. If NJ is surviving, e.g., in a given IRP iteration, but it’s requirements are 6x the average state (let’s say it’s a Senate race), then there may only be enough funds for 3 finalists, including NJ. Consequently, another iteration (or more, actually) of the IRP will be required, to go from 4 races to 3, 2, or 1.

3) Rollover. Let’s say that your voting bloc has $1 million left over. It should be allowed to remain untouched, gathering interest, until the next election cycle.

Thank-you for your activism.

All of us say things that we regret, later. Perhaps that’s the case with Jane?

Not at all. I’ve put off launching this project for too long because of what I thought it would do to the blog. So, we launched. If people want to continue in the Naderite vain, they are welcome to join Markos’s 9/11 truthers.

Good lord. We’ve raised over $150,000 from 4722 donors in the 2 months FDL PAC has been around.

The time this will save me in corrections alone is worth it.

Thank you for your work on Medicare for All, sisterkenney.

sisterkenney, please stay around. I’ve been escorted to the door too, but I don’t see why I should go when I enjoy the discussions and blogging here and also when Jane is starting up some SP action. Seems like it’s getting better here, not worse. Sometimes one needs a bit of a thick skin, I think.

I’m refunding her donation.

Your very first sentence:

The problems in the current health care debate became apparent early on, when single payer advocates were excluded from participation.

Today things are different how?

The Nov 5 letter from Conyers and Kucinich calling on activists to call off the dogs on the Weiner floor vote confirmed that the CBO scored the Weiner amendment, and poorly, as noted in my links @2 and @50. I made those comments solely in the interests of accuracy while congratulating you on this new effort (and nominating Marcy Winograd for fund-raising). As such, I am baffled at the characterization of my comments as “complaining.”

It’s a new beginning at a time of likely defeat. This reminds me of the end of the primary days… with Clinton and Obama supporters in tatters. As we know now… all of us lost. Yet no one should look back and regret participating except perhaps for certain tactics involved (good or bad).

I don’t know about other folks, but the health care non debate over the last few weeks (since Baucus and the House vote) has worn me down a little.

With my new SP activist hat in need of a feather this morning… I have a lot of questions.

I will ask a couple now in relation to starting points.

Considering the precise moment in the legislative process shouldn’t SP folk be trying to kill these bills above all else? Shouldn’t we do so with succinct messaging… ending with very succinct solutions? If SPers are presenting a real simple solution as much as possible while the country is still paying attention… we will be in the best position in the future.

Medicare for all! (or some such) Let’s begin with the POP messaging /portion.

I do hope we continue to use the word Public… in a manner which suggest it’s the politicians who should have no option but to insist on care for all.

Also, shouldn’t we define as narrowly as possible amongst ourselves first and foremost… what we mean by SP, which version we want to promote, medicare or tri care or? We learned this year how difficult it was to define and maintain a definition of robust PO among ourselves in a short time, but Jane and others did a wonderful job at that considering just how new it was even among liberals.

Tomorrow I’m co-sponsoring a fundraiser for Matt Entenza for Governor of Minnesota. He is a strong contendor to replace Governor Tim Pawlenty and is for Medicare for All.

Even governors can be part of this movement and your support is certainly welcome!

if you run for office on single payer, i’ll donate to your campaign.

hey Evelyn! :)

sk, I am just reading this and I am stunned. Please don’t go! But if you do I understand and will see you on the wider campus. Thanks for all the great exchanges! I admire your long time commitment and activism. But, please reconsider!!!

I want SP, but more than that I want an environment that isn’t toxic and a society of beneficiaries who know better than to eat (and permit) food that makes and keeps them needing very expensive health care. We deserve the best kind of care; why can’t we outlaw the stuff that makes and keeps us unhealthy?

why? are you trying to drive supporters / contributors away?

When you contribute to FDL Actions against Blanche Lincoln (Senate Agro Committee Chair) you quite likely push the overton effect of all you mention.

‘quite likely’ isn’t convincing enough (and it’s too narrow a target, I think, for what’s needed). I contribute regularly to FDL solicitations, mostly when the requests ask me to support FDL itself, and Marcy Wheeler’s unique talents, or ActBlue’s efforts. My resources are limited, my ignorance is vast. I’d be happy if FDL were allowed to solicit funds for its own discretionary outlays since my trust is quite firm.

Thanks Eureka Springs. I prefer Medicare for All to a system like Tricare. My preference here isn’t ideological. But 1) I think the international track record so far indicates that systems like Medicare for All seem to have somewhat better outcomes according to international statistics and 2) Medicare for All is easier to defend against the charge of socialized medicine than a Tricare-like system would be.

I think there are people here who differ with that judgment. hipparchia for one and there may be others too.

Me too, Nathan.

Medicare for All is a good cause. It’s for the common good, I can understand a single issue movement, but what’s the use of a single issue party ? What’s the use of single issue politicians ? What’s the use of raising funds for them ? Once they get there, they will have an integral responsibility solving all the other problems of this nation, , preferably with a program on all these issues, like x, y, z. But what do single purpose politicians actually think about these issues ? I find this rather scary, as a single issue seems rather narrow minded to me in this complex world.

These are hardly single-issue candidates. This is just an effort to use single-issue fund-raising to exact as ironclad a pledge as possible from a candidate not to back down on this cause if elected. Tasini is a spectacularly well-rounded progressive, particularly strong in antiinterventionist and anticolonialist foreign policy, civil liberties, labor, and a host of other issues. And he walks the walk (and the march) on single payer.

It’s a fair question. But Jonathan Tasini’s progressive across the board and is also a Medicare for All advocate. It would be great to get him into the Senate so Bernie Sanders wouldn’t be so damned lonely.

12 donors gave $355 to Jonathan. Worst candidate fundraising effort ever. A grand total of 4 volunteers offered to work on his campaign.

Doesn’t really say much for all the much-vaunted support for single payer around here. Looks like a few energetic trolls who really like to bait people in the comments section don’t really translate into effective activism.

I’ve signed up to volunteer for Jonathan Tasini through his web site. My other volunteer work for SP continues through existing organizations.

i did the same.

Support/convince Nader to run for Senator of Connecticut. There is no better candidate – he lives his entire life around civic duty. His parents rejected a scholarship so it could be given to someone who couldn’t afford college (& they could afford to pay for his) for god’s sake. The Naders are hard-core. Nader has been for Single-Payer for forever. He is vocal and consistent & basically lives like a monk so the only scandals they can come up with are the tired old lines that he’s a “spoiler” or “megalomaniac.” He sure doesn’t live like one. There is no one better cut out to be disciplined, tenacious, consistent, knowledgeable, & utterly reliable when it comes to advocating for Single Payer, and Progressive values in general, than Nader.

Would he run for the Senate?

So let’s see. Another way to say it would be … we got 4 volunteers for Jonathan and we raised $355. Thank you all for attending, and those who volunteered, thanks, and those who gave money, thanks.

Why are you snarking at the people who volunteered and did give money or their friends on this site?

Just decided to play whack-a-mole for a while with the single payer people? So glad we were of use.

fwiw, in support of the fundraiser i posted a diary at dailykos with links back to the discussion thread (i guess i thought nyceve would be doing that, but when it didn’t happen i went ahead and did it), sent a notice out to a mostly sp healthcare listserv, asked for some links, etc. my impression is that after keeping sp, sp groups, sp policy analysis and critique of the obama plan “off the table” for over a year, giving hcan a platform and, to be blunt, engaging in put downs of sp and sp advocates, there’s a little bit of skepticism out there.

so i think it’s going to take some time and effort to overcome that justifiable skepticism. if jane is interested in doing that, i am happy to help. but banning sisterkenny did seem to me to indicate just the opposite (hope i’m wrong about that). i’m looking at this as social movement politics (vs politics as usual of insider dealmaking and electoral politics alone). so all we can do, i guess, is keep on keeping on in the most constructive way we are capable of to “put the public spotlight on the problem and on the powerholders’ actual policies and practices in order to alert, educate, win over, involve, and inspire the general public to become involved in the movement.”

money is necessary, but unlike in electoral politics, it is not the main measure of support in social movement politics.

(also, i don’t know how much of a difference it makes, but to my knowledge this was the first blue america fundraiser after the break up of the old group of howie, jane, and iirc digby and john amato. so there wasn’t the usual supportive posts with links to send traffic)

so, lets just keep on keeping on. letsgetitdone has a great diary building off of this start (and so do you!).

Jonathan Tasini, the real deal, thanks for the heads up Jane.