New York Times – Push Grows for Fast Choice on a Successor to Kennedy
Many Democrats tried to suggest that Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death should cool passions on health care and make the passage of a bill more possible, but Kennedy hadn’t been part of the legislative process and embattled Sen. Chris Dodd is the custodian of the bill that bears Kennedy’s name, and Dodd is ill-equipped to revive the stalled legislation. President Obama may wrap himself in Kennedy’s legacy, but by Monday morning when Obama goes back to work, the over-the-top coverage of his death and funeral will already be fading from view. Plus, in the parts of the nation where the legislation is in trouble, Kennedy was a notable person, but not a hero.
The real impact of Kennedy’s death on the health bill will be numerical. As Examiner colleague Susan Ferrechio tells us, dropping under 60 votes in the Senate – especially because of a death – gives Sen. Chuck Schumer and others militating for the nuclear option, a procedural end-run to pass a health plan with 51 votes, a stronger argument.
But in Massachusetts, the factions are lining up behind switching the state law to allow Gov. Deval Patrick to appoint someone to the seat until a special election in January. Kennedy, who seemed to have a successor in mind, asked that the appointee not run for the seat in his letter asking for the law to be changed. But such a prime piece of political real estate will be hard to resist.
Writer Abby Goodnough gives us the roster of possible contenders beyond Kennedy’s wife, Vicky.
“Other relatives seen as possible heirs include former Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II, Mr. Kennedy’s nephew, who has expressed reluctance to return to politics but who has $2 million in leftover campaign money and has not ruled out a run.
Since leaving Congress in 1999, Joseph Kennedy has run the Citizens Energy Corporation, a nonprofit organization he founded years earlier to provide affordable heating oil to low-income families. While considered charismatic and a powerful speaker, he has faced criticism for accepting donated oil from the Venezuelan government. His reputation also suffered when his former wife published a book in 1997 saying he had verbally bullied her in his effort to get an annulment. But many Democrats say he would be a formidable contender.
Outside the family, a number of Massachusetts Democrats are considered possible successors, including United States Representatives Stephen F. Lynch and Michael E. Capuano; state Attorney General Martha Coakley; and former Representative Martin Meehan, who retired in 2007 to become chancellor of the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, but who has about $4.8 million in campaign cash.”
Wall Street Journal – Abortion Is New Front in Health Battle
One of the health care provisions that President Obama has tried to sweep into the “myth” pile along with death panels is taxpayer-funded abortions.
But while the House plan might not provide abortion vouchers, it provides government insurance that would cover abortions. In the minds of many, it’s a distinction without a difference.
Anti-abortion activists want language forbidding any abortion coverage. Pro-abortion activists are threatening to treat support for any such measure as a black mark against any lawmaker who supports it.
Some suggest a plan in which the government portion of the insurance premium doesn’t fund abortion, but that the citizen’s lesser premium portion pays for the part of the policy that covers the procedure.
Writers Fawn Johnson and Laura Meckler show that by having abortion part of the discussion at all, chances of passage go down.
“Abortion opponents are funding advertisements targeting key lawmakers. The Family Research Council is running television and radio ads in several states that are home to swing-vote Democratic senators, while the National Right to Life Committee is targeting pro-life Democrats in the House who likely will take the first vote on the measure in September.
Before they vote, ‘lawmakers will know this is a bill to set up a big federal abortion program,’ said the right-to-life committee’s legislative director, Douglas Johnson.”
Washington Post – Cooperatives’ Record Is Up for Debate
Blue Dog Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee has been a foe of rural electricity co-ops which he says have gotten “too big for their britches” – soaking up government resources, neglecting consumers and behaving like for-profit enterprises.
But Cooper and his fellow moderate Democrats are looking to cooperatives to perhaps bail them out on health care by finding a third way that’s a little bit government, a little bit private sector.
Writer Steven Mufson tries to throw cold water on that notion by using the Blue Dog’s own opposition to co-ops on electricity to damn the concept on health care.
Conservatives are already opposed to any national co-op that to morph into a public option. Mufson’s piece gives a clear notion of where liberals will be headed on the co-op issue.
“But rural electric cooperatives have a mixed track record, experts say. They brought electricity to millions of rural Americans who lacked it in the 1930s and today serve about 14 percent of Americans. But after 75 years, the rural electric cooperatives still rely heavily on federal credit subsidies, have weak balance sheets and, some studies suggest, operate less efficiently than privately-owned utilities.
Over the past three years, some rural electric cooperatives have also come under criticism for excessive payments to executives and for pushing forward with new coal-fired power plants at a time when many people concerned with climate change want to slow down or halt such plants. Yet they remain politically powerful through the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.”
Wall Street Journal – ‘Clunkers’ Lifts Foreign Cars
The government plowed $3 billion into the auto industry, but the main beneficiaries seem to have been foreign companies.
While Ford stayed in the mix on Cash for Clunkers, both it and GM held a smaller percentage of Clunkers sales than they do in the regular market. Sales of the fuel-efficient vehicles, often made in the U.S. by foreign manufacturers, favored Japanese and Korean makers.
Writer Judith Burns, though, said that the surge in sales has Ford and taxpayer-owned GM pumping up production even as economists predict that the clunker sales were aberrant and likely stole sales from later in the year.
“In all, the DOT said more than 575,000 SUVs, vans and trucks were turned in, along with 109,380 cars, while more than 400,000 passenger cars and 279,000 trucks were purchased. It cited a preliminary analysis by the White House Council of Economic Advisers that estimated that the increase in auto sales from the clunkers program will boost third-quarter growth by 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points and create or save more than 42,000 jobs in the second half of the year.
[Transportation Secretary Ray] LaHood said the winners of the program include American consumers, the economy and the environment.
The DOT noted that Ford and GM have recently announced plans to ramp up production because of demand driven by the clunkers program, and that Honda has said it will increase production at plants in Ohio and Alabama.”
Washington Post – Democrats Vow To Return Money From Financier
Writer Dan Eggen’s story and the headline above are about Democrats looking to distance themselves from Hassan Nemazee, an investment figure who was also a top Democratic fundraiser, after Nemazee was charged with a $75 million fraud.
But Nemazee didn’t just become shady, as Eggen acknowledges. Democrats have known for decades that he was an unsavory associate. President Bill Clinton had to yank an ambassadorial appointment over investment issues in 1999. Even so many Democrats, including President Obama, relied on Nemazee’s largesse and his ability to bundle other donor’s money.
Eggen, in true Postie style, blames the system for Democratic foibles.
“Advocates of campaign finance restrictions argue that the case illustrates the perils of relying on major fundraisers, such as Nemazee, who play an increasingly central role in modern political campaigns.
‘To become president of the United States, you have to rely very heavily on a very special, narrow group of Americans who have access to a lot of money,’ said Taylor Lincoln, a research director at the advocacy group Public Citizen, which supports public financing of campaigns.”
