According to Huffington Post:
House Democrats on Sunday were greeted with a particularly partisan, somewhat juvenile sight when they took their seats inside the chamber.
On several of their chairs were fliers warning them that if they happened to pass health care reform that night — which they did — it would result in a repeat of the 1994 midterm election, which became known as the Republican Revolution.
“IN 1993 THEY VOTED YES. A YOUNG PRESIDENT TOLD THEM ‘DON’T WORRY, IT’LL BE OKAY,'” the flier read, substituting in bold red font for individual words. “34 INCUMBENTS DEFEATED, 54 SEATS LOST.”
Pictured on the flier are the head shots of 25 of those members in a “wanted” style framing — the margin of electoral defeat they suffered in ’94 under their name.
A Democratic aide passed on the literature to the Huffington Post, relaying that Republicans had put them on some seats but “not all.”
This tactic seems to just be more bullying and threats. Time will tell what happens in the mid-term elections. If history repeats itself, there will be some majority party losses. It’s expected. Remember, those same Democrats would be facing the people who sent them there if they didn’t vote the way their base elected them to do.
There is also a good chance that the Republicans will suffer backlash for for perceived hard ball tactics. Time will tell.
Where were the Republicans during the past 8 years? The need for health care reform was obvious to everyone who didn’t in a cave. Our premiums kept going up and up as did our deductible and our services diminished. Need for change was not a news flash.
Speaking of flash, the full screen function on flier works. Use escape key to return to normal screen.
While surfing the web I found a number of references to instances in which “Blue Dog Democrats” intending to vote “No” on the health reform bill switched for reasons unexplained. The reports I saw said that they had been approached by union reps and Dem Party types and told that, if they didn’t switch their votes, they would be cut off from campaign contributions and manpower and would have other Democrats assigned to run against them in the primaries. This is in addition to all the sweetheart financial inducements be floated out there for various states and localities with needed “yes” votes. Quite frankly a lot of this gave an historian like myself a wiff of the old Tammany Hall days. One locality out there, for instance, got a nice, new hospital out of this deal. One of things which really burned me is that, while I will probably have to pay taxes on my health insurance policy, the good old union boys were give a freebie in that department.
I do not have confirmation on the first two sentences; but where there is smoke there is usually some fire, as they say. Hardball politics are hardball politics. Always have been. Let me opine that the Democratic Party is not exactly a heavenly band of angels either.
And if that happened they should expose the threateners. Nothing would surprise me.
I had forgotten that Leslie Byrne was a congresswoman also.
Indeed they are not. Money in the freezer, Illinois governors selling senate seats and John Edwards are living proof of that. I don’t like their behavior much better. They are just not getting caught with an open mic.
That’s very interesting what Wolverine wrote. Well, I’m not surprised there’s some dirty politics going on – forcing people to vote a certain way by threatening to make things difficult for them if they don’t tow the party line. Of course, even without that – we know there was a lot of deal making – vote yes and we’ll throw in this nice thing for your district.
As you say, all of this is hardball politics. In this case, some of that hardball politics probably made all the difference in getting the last few votes needed to secure passage of healthcare reform.
Speaking of the former Illinois governor – did anyone catch him on Donald Trump’s show Celebrity Apprentice? I caught the first 20 minutes or so of the first epsiode (a week ago Sunday night) and he’s still mantaining his innocence, despite what seems a load of evidence to the contrary! I guess that’s his perrogative, but I have a feeling eventually justice will prevail in that case.
If they exposed the unions, etc, then they still would be out. Their overarching goal is to be re-elected. These people put re-election over principle. Both parties have that problem, and so, become corrupt.
All politics are dirty. Everyone has a price. Some people are just bigger whores than others.
Wolverine, I guess the Blue Dog Democrats just got whipped into shape. That isn’t unusual. And who gets to decide who is blue dog and who isn’t? Does it strike anyone funny that a Democrat might call him or herself a blue dog but that no Republic would call himself (or herself) a RINO?
Just goes to show you that more people are proud to call themselves conservative……..then again, you probably don’t look at it that way…..