I hate prevent defense. That is when a football that is in front concedes yardage in the hope that the other team does not score. I don't know how many times teams that are down and ready to be put out of their misery revive in the last two minutes because of this ill-conceived idea.
Me? I'm more medieval in my thinking. If I have my foot on my opponent's neck I tend to step harder down.
That is why the current narrative drives me crazy. Why are we conceding all these gains to Republicans? I know that historically the party in power loses seats. Still, I don't concede anything. It occurs to me that instead of playing defense we should play offense. Help those Democratic representatives who voted for the Health Care Reform bill and are in districts that McCain won. Sure. But why not go after the Republican congressional representatives that voted AGAINST the Health Care Reform bill but are in districts that voted for President Obama?
Why? Well now that the President won the battle and Armageddon is not going to happen you will see a lot of independents start looking at all the lies they were told a little differently. Perhaps they will look at the liars who repeated these lies a little differently too. And guess what? Many of the best features of the bill, including the following ones, do not kick in until September.
HCR:
- Would bar insurers from denying people coverage when they get sick.
- Would bar insurers from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.
- Would bar insurers from imposing lifetime caps on coverage
- Would require insurers to allow people to stay on their parents' policies until they turn 26.
Also 90 days from signature the high-risk pools for people with no insurance because of pre-existing conditions will also be developed and probably be in full operation by September.
Just when people start paying attention to political campaigns. Isn't that special?
So I would say that people will look at Health Care Reform a little differently when they figure out that the sky will not fall, everyone still has their health care and insurance companies cannot play God with people.
What do you think? I think that it is time to go after the Republicans in their home turf like Obama did when he campaigned in Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina. Remember that? That crazy Obama. He thought he could win those Republicans states... Oh wait.
This is the list I was able to gather from other sources. Not sure if it is correct in terms of re-election. Some of them may have decided not to run again. I don't think I can do the whole research anytime before the weekend (Are they running? Who are they running against? Etc.). So if you want to take a hack at it, be my guest. I want to start making a list at Act Blue so we can start contributing to their opponents.
House
Dan Lungren
Elton Gallegly
Howard "Buck" McKeon
David Dreier
Ken Calvert
Mary Bono Mack
John Campbell
Brian Bilbray
Mike Castle
C.W. Bill Young
Ileanna Ros-Lehtinen
Tom Latham
Pete Roskam
Mark Kirk
Judy Biggert
Don Manzullo
Aaron Schock
Joseph Cao
Dave Camp
Fred Upton
Mike Rogers
Thaddeus McCotter
Erik Paulsen
Lee Terry
Frank Lobiondo
Leonard Lance
Pete King
John McHugh
Patrick Tiberi
Steven LaTourette
Jim Gerlach
Charlie Dent
Randy Forbes
Frank Wolf
Dave Reichert
Paul Ryan
Tom Petri