The Liberal Knight Saves the Day and Millions of Americans Attempt to Stop Whining About Losing Their Homes! 116 Days to Go!

Yesterday featured a glorious day of Senate history, one that will hopefully resonate as one of the great tales of political courage and success in American history. Much like U.S. history students are taught the names of Clay and Webster, I maintain that students decades from now will learn to revere the greatest Senator in modern history:




--> The Senate has recently been facing an important vote on a Medicare bill facing strong opposition from the White House. Without going into too much detail, the bill would prevent an 11% pay cut to doctors who treat Medicare patients - a potentially enormous loss of Medicare funding. 44 million seniors and disabled Americans have their health care covered by Medicare, and it's a very important piece of current government health coverage. Last month, the Senate attempted to pass the bill, but came up with only 59 votes - more than enough to pass, but not enough to break the Republican's filibustering, which prevented the bill from coming to a vote at all (See how that filibuster article I wrote was, in fact, quite relevant????). Yesterday, Senate Democrats tried again to pass the vote, but came up with a count of only 59 votes. Thus, with hope fading for Medicare, the Senate doors opened, and onto the floor walked Senator Ted Kennedy, only one month removed from brain surgery that removed a tumor.

Receiving a thunderous ovation from his fellow Democrats, Kennedy declared, "Aye," the decisive 60th vote to break the Republican opposition and allow the safe passage of the Medicare bill. With Republicans stunned by the surprise appearance of this great liberal warrior, 9 of them quickly decided that it would be better to be on the winning side, and cast their votes in favor of the Medicare bill, making the final total 69-30 (and the missing Senator was in fact John McCain, who was too busy campaigning...more on that later). This was a brilliant move by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who was one of the few Dems who even knew Kennedy was coming, and it goes to show that there are still some politicians who do truly care about protecting the welfare of the American public. May Ted Kennedy continue to fight the good fight for many years to come.

--> In less confidence-inspiring news, John McCain's top economic advisor (and possible Treasury Secretary) Phil Gramm appears to have a different take on America's recent economic woes than the millions of Americans whose houses have been foreclosed. Gramm told the Washington Times, "This is a mental recession...We have sort of become a nation of whiners."



Seriously? Besides the fact that this obviously won't play well with the American public, this just plain isn't true. However, here at EDC we're much more concerned with electoral problems than, well, "reality."



Senator Obama, immediately springing on this miscalculation, told a crowd in Fairfax, "America already has one Dr. Phil. When it comes to the economy, we don't need another." Americans don't like being called "bitter" or "clingy," and they certainly won't like being accused of whining. This is the ultimate antidote to Obama's bitterness comment, and McCain knows it. Thus, McCain quickly distanced himself completely from Gramm, who has been his top economic advisor for quite a while.



EDC's Election "Dos" Cents: Here's what Obama's campaign needs to do for the rest of this campaign. He CANNOT win this race on the Iraq/Iran/diplomacy/foreign policy issue. If Americans want to decide their next President based on Commander-in-Chief, McCain will win. This election must be decided by the economy (as it tends to be), and if it is then Democrats are inherently favored, because they favor a "lets try to fix the economy" approach as opposed the Republicans' "let the economy fix itself" approach, which, right or wrong, is not pro-active enough for most Americans. Obama needs to make this election framed around Gramm's comments. It doesn't matter if McCain distances himself from the comments. Gramm was a member of McCain's campaign, and moreover of his party, so Obama can keep reminding voters that "The other side (the Republicans) have spent the last 8 years (not so subtle overture towards linking McCain to Bush) being out of touch with the problems of the average American. From the botched, delayed response to the suffering people of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina left the city underwater, to President Bush's and Senator McCain's belief that cutting taxes for the rich will help alleviate the inability of middle class Americans to afford gas, to McCain economic advisor Phil Gramm's recent remarks that we are merely a nation of whiners - that this recession is just in our heads. I know better than that, and this Democratic Party knows better than that. We've seen how Americans are losing their homes, losing their jobs, losing their way of life. The American people deserve better than that; they deserve hope for the future and hope for their children's future; they deserve a chance to hold down a steady job and earn a comfortable retirement; and they deserve political leadership that won't wait for our free-market system to fix its own problems. John McCain is promising four more years of the policies that have contributed to this recession, and I believe that the American people know better than to trust that the answers Senator McCain proposes are actually real solutions instead of cheap political pandering (see gas tax holiday). I want to be President of the United States because I want to bring you real solutions, real economic relief, and real change in this government."



If Americans hear more of that message than the "scary scary Iran nuke terrorist 9/11 I'm experienced" GOP message, Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. The key is to frame this election in terms of him being in touch with the problems of real Americans, in part because he's actually worked with average citizens as a community organizer in his home town, rather than being surrounded by Congressmen and lobbyists for the last 30 years.







These are two big stories, and they deserve their own entry. Thus, I'll leave you with this, and hopefully come back to report more on Sunday night. Until then, keep watching the skies...