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Morning Must Reads -- Reid tries to get out from under the bus
By: Chris Stirewalt
Political Editor
10/27/09 8:35 AM EDT
Dana Milbank – Harry Reid, shopping for reelection insurance
Milbank looks at the Senate majority leader’s solo performance in announcing that the final Senate health bill will include a government-run insurance plan and sees Nevada politics.
With liberal groups pummeling Reid in his home state for his accommodating ways with moderates and his pursuit of Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, Reid broke out of his closed-door meetings with the White House policy team and Sens. Max Baucus and Chris Dodd to announce he favored a government-run plan… kind of.
Reid is a bad bet for reelection next year. He has lots of problems, including a son, Rory, running for governor on the same ballot, high state unemployment, and a general belief that he his too partisan. But if liberals won’t support him, his chances go from slim to none, thus a public option.
But neither can Reid afford to be seen as radical, so the public option he will offer up in search of 60 votes has an “opt out” provision for states and enough red tape and conditional coverage to make any bureaucrat blush.
Reid’s experiment looks likely to blow up on him and the president. Reid’s proposal has prompted a mountain of unanswered (and likely unanswerable) questions on the Left, Right, and middle: If my state opts out, do I still pay? If I move to an “opt out” state, do I get to keep my government coverage? If the plan becomes a de facto high-risk pool, who will subsidize the higher costs?
His plan is unlikely to have the votes in the Senate, and has left the White House, which was hoping Reid would be the fall guy for a bill with no publc option, little choice but to smile through gritted teeth. But Reid saw his chance to get away from the speeding bus.
“What Harry Reid did Monday afternoon gave new meaning to the phrase "public option."
The Senate majority leader, after haggling behind closed doors with members of his Democratic caucus, realized that he couldn't cobble together the 60 votes he needed to pass health-care legislation with a government-run health plan. So Reid chose another option: He shut down the private talks, booked the Senate TV studio and went public with his own proposal.
‘I've concluded,’ he told the roomful of cameras and reporters, ‘that the best way to move forward is to include a public option.’
Wall Street Journal – Kerry Urges Caution in Adding Troops
In a process as timeless and natural as the migration of Canada geese, John Kerry will be a pain in the posterior to those who he is trying to help.
President Obama tapped Kerry for a high-profile mission to Afghanistan last week. Kerry’s job was to tell Afghan President Hamid Karzai the bad news: get on board with a runoff with runner up Abdullah Abdullah or the U.S. will leave you out in the cold Afhan winter.
Now, Kerry’s musings on foreign policy carry some of the weight of the administration, especially after a round of planted stories on Kerry’s clout.
Kerry wasted no time in making things awkward for Obama with a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in which he dismissed Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s troop request and strategy, saying it "reaches too far, too fast," McChrystal might point out that it’s the strategy Obama wanted and to have Senator Winter Soldier calling him out for it is a bit unfair.
That means the White House will have to do moderate damage control, which will offend Kerry, who will then express greater concern and perhaps even umbrage. It’s the circle of life with the senior senator from Massachusetts.
Writer Peter Spiegel explains why Kerry thinks the right thing to do is leave the 68,000 troops we’ve got there and wait until the Afghans get their act together. But how a guy who made a career out of being a war protester could fail to understand that waiting to decide a strategy as troops die is a good idea, though, is beyond explanation.
“Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander, has warned that Washington and its allies have less than a year to turn the tide in Afghanistan. But Sen. Kerry said his discussions with military officials in Afghanistan persuaded him the U.S. could wait until the end of next year to determine whether the Afghan government was making sufficient progress to commit additional troops.
‘It is important to remember we will have ample opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy as we go forward,’ Sen. Kerry said. ‘Progress on governance will be key, and we will have an opportunity to measure that.’”
Washington Post -- AARP: Reform advocate and insurance salesman
The lobbying group formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons ha taken a few hits for supporting the Democratic health plan, especially once seniors realized that the group was behind a plan that was funded mostly through Medicare cuts.
But as Congress reaches the end of its work on legislation that will likely leave a bad taste in the mouths of most Americans, Republicans are looking to really put a hurting on the reliably pro-Democrat group.
Writer Dan Eggen looks at how the GOP is honing in on the money AARP’s insurance business would make under the Obama plan.
“The group and its subsidiaries collected more than $650 million in royalties and other fees last year from the sale of insurance policies, credit cards and other products that carry the AARP name, accounting for the majority of its $1.14 billion in revenue, according to federal tax records. It does not directly sell insurance policies but lends its name to plans in exchange for a tax-exempt cut of the premiums.”
New York Times -- Right Battles G.O.P. Choice in a Pivotal Race in New York
Writer Jeremy Peters takes an ground-level view of the special congressional race in New York that has turned into a civil war between conservative activists and the GOP establishment.
The conservative message is that they would rather have a Democrat than back a liberal Republican like Assemblywoman Dede Scozzofava.
“‘The No. 1 victory will be to defeat Dede,’ said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which works to elect candidates who oppose abortion.
Ms. Dannenfelser, along with members of the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes efforts to legalize same-sex marriage, are helping to coordinate efforts on the ground in support of Mr. Hoffman.
At the Days Inn on Sunday, Ms. Dannenfelser, 43, of Arlington, Va., and three other organizers from the Washington area who have temporarily relocated to Watertown joined a conference call with conservatives from across the country. A small picture of Jesus and the Virgin Mary rested on top of the television, while the Pittsburgh Steelers game played with the volume muted.”
Wall Street Journal -- Political Uncertainty Puts Freeze on Small Businesses
It is probably the president’s most significant contribution to the sour economy: regulatory uncertainty.
For companies too small to lobby Congress, the current political storms raging in Washington must simply be waited out.
Writer Gary Fields looks at the trouble with trying to reorganize the nation’s economy on green, government-insured priorities. Businesses don’t hire until politicians are done experimenting.
“There is little reliable data explaining why companies are retrenching despite signs of life in the economy, including recent increases in production in some industries and rises in housing prices and new home sales. However, a variety of organizations that monitor business behavior, including the NFIB, the Associated General Contractors of America and the National Small Business Association, say political uncertainty is a substantial factor, alongside other more typical problems, such as availability of credit.
‘No question, this is a tough issue for a lot of these companies,’ said David Wyss, chief economist at ratings firm Standard & Poor's. ‘It's all anecdotal, and it affects everybody differently, but the one common factor is people postpone decisions, and I'm afraid that's going to slow us down coming out of the recession.’
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