Obama Needs To Ask Us For Help

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July 29, 2009, 12:27PM

I see that president Obama is doing another Town Hall meeting on health care reform, today in North Carolina. While I admire the president's dedication to bringing the case for reform to the public, I worry that he is making the mistake of assuming a level playing field, on which a good faith effort on behalf of legislation that makes rational sense is all that is required to win.

That would be a nice world to live in. Unfortunately it's not the one we do live in. The world we live in is infested with highly-paid lobbyists and interest groups who are doing all they can, in cooperation with the mainstream media, to obfuscate the issues and make it impossible for reform to happen. Instead of pretending that these snakes don't exist, the president should be actively shining a light on them and asking for our help in cutting their heads off.
What is lacking in the healthcare reform - an issue that 76% of all Americans support - is passion. Most of us are sitting back, waiting for the inevitable victory of politics as usual. But what if the president got out if front of the issue of reform, showed us who and what is standing in the way of change - and asking us to flood the offending Congressmen and women with emails and letters? What if we felt that our leaders were willing to fight, willing to put their bodies and careers on the line, to get the changes they were elected to implement? As things stand right now, our politicians are not even willing to forego their air-conditioned vacations to get healthcare reform passed. So why should we get in the streets? Why should we put pressure on elected officials if the president himself is not willing to put pressure on them?
What if president Obama went on TV and said something like this:
"My fellow Americans, we have all been watching in frustration as healthcare reform has been whittled down by powerful entrenched interests in Washington. Now Congress says we cannot have a vote before they go on vacation. I need your help in letting members of Congress know that business as usual is not acceptable anymore. Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, needs to hear from you on this subject. Henry Waxman, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee in the House of Representatives, needs to know that you support a strong public option, and won't accept a bill that lacks one. There are certain key players in the Senate who are holding up reform, such as Senator Diane Feinstein of California. They all need to know there are consequences for opposing the will of the people. Consequences that could lead to them losing their offices. I am certainly expressing this view - but I can't do it alone. I need your help. When the people mobilize and make their views known, they become the most potent political force in the world. But when the people allow themselves to be cowed by the confusion that forces of the status quo can bring to bear, the status quo wins by default. I want you to know that I am fighting every day to overcome these forces of corruption. You can join the fight by going to our website..."
People need to feel that this is a real fight, and that we are not going to fight with one hand tied behind our backs, while our opponents use every dirty trick in the book, impugning not only the president's patriotism, but even his citizenship itself. When people use tactics like that, it makes no sense to pretend that this is a civilized debate among gentlemen. We need hardball tactics, and a leader who knows how to mobilize all the weapons at his command, not a Mr. Nice Guy who spends all his time trying to reassure everyone that he is not a threat.