Michael-
Obama did reach out to Republicans for bipartisan support. They slapped him away and dug their heels in to obstruct, obstruct and then obstruct some more.

But, PA isn’t MASS. Mass is about 50% non-party by registration compared to 10% here. In PA the Dems are 50% of the registration. So, it’s a very different make up.

Also, as far as the Senate, we have an incumbent, rather than an open seat.

The GOP is already getting cocky, but they still have no plans, except returning to the failed policies that crashed the economy.

You just keep counting those chickens before they hatch.

David,

I’m sorry if I don’t recall that moment of great Obama bipartisanship and “reaching across the aisle” only to get slapped down. Was that when Obama said we’re not going to incorporate any of your conservative ideas in anything because we won the election, however, we want you to support what we are proposing so you can give us the cover of “bipartisanship?” Is that the moment you were talking about? Because I DO remember that one.

Democrats have had more than enough votes to get their agenda passed–they had the 60 seat super majority and the Republicans have been rendered utterly ineffective. And yet you claim the reason they cannot get their agenda passed is because of Republican obstructionism? Get real!

It’s not Republican obstructionism holding up your agenda; its the Democratic agenda that the American people don’t want. Much of the Democratic party already knows that, that’s why the leadership needed to bribe their members to vote for it. It’s political suicide once the voters have their say.

If the Dems can’t get it done they have absolutely no one to blame but themselves. Even Bush got things passed with less support in Congress.

And are you really counting Arlen Specter in the asset column this fall?

Obama invited the GOP leaders into the discussions from the beginning. The White House and Congress made concessions, without even getting any votes for their troubles. They declared health care reform Obama’s Waterloo 11 months ago. They are on record for voting against the bills, without even planning to read them.

There are reforms that some of the moderate Republicans have supported in the past, but now are opposing.

The “agenda” that being opposed is a misrepresentation of the bills and benefits. Idiocy like “death panels” has replaced rational thought and discourse. The CBO has scored the various plans, and the House version from the Dems got the highest scores.

Of course the biggest @sshole in this whole thing has been Joe Lieberman. He’s completely caved to the insurance lobby in his state. Following right behind him is Ben Nelson. However, the reason we need 60 votes is because the Republicans are in lockstep to use their 40 toward filibuster. With simple majorities, this stuff would not only pass, but their would be fewer concessions to a few greedy holdouts.

I agree that the Dems should have pushed through a better (more progressive) bill and forced the Republicans to filibuster it to show the people who was “getting it done” and who was “stopping it”.

Specter is going to draw a lot of attention and money from the GOP that they won’t have for other fights. Specter’s been an excellent advocate for health care and other issues. He explains the merits well.

Coakley ran a weak campaign. Specter is relentless.

David, the Republicans did not have enough votes to filibuster until Scott Brown’s election. They needed 41 to filibuster–that’s why what the Dems had heretofore was called a Supermajority and why Scott Brown’s election was so important. It was why Brown was marketing himself as “41″. So, you see, there really is no excuse whatsoever for the Dems not passing this other than their own squeamishness. Ask yourself why that is instead of making excuses for them.

Obama may have “invited” leaders into the discussions, but none of their input made it into the plan; at least not enough to make it worth voting for turning over one sixth of our economy to the feds.

Don’t kid yourself that the bill in the senate now is anything other than a big paeon to the insurance lobby. Faced with a congress determined to “do something” about health care, the insurance lobby decided they would rather be a regulated monopoly than have to face competition by letting people buy insurance over state lines. Hence the insurance lobby’s “endorsement” of the senate plan back in the fall.

I agree that Specter is relentless and is nothing if not a political survivor. And despite all of the buzz indicating that he is the next one to announce his “retirement,” I am not buying it. However, I don’t think he is electable. Specter represents the old guard, the entrenched, deal-making, old-boy’s crony network that the country is so angry with right now. I think Toomey will beat him handily in a statewide, and I think Specter knows it. That’s why he flipped over to his natural habitat last year–he knew Republicans would never support him again and he knew Toomey would clean his clock in the primary–heck Toomey almost did it last time and there was no radical Obama agenda at stake.

Oh, and this just in:

Rasmussen has Toomey up 9 over Specter and 8 over Sestak.