Ben Nelson Responds (Lamely) to Progressives With New TV Ad (VIDEO)
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America recently began airing ads in Nebraska holding Ben Nelson accountable for undermining the public option.
Immediately after these ads were announced, The Huffington Post's Sam Stein reported that Nelson called the small-business owner featured in the ad and defensively tried to get him to stop speaking out. Then Nelson called Howard Dean, founder of Democracy for America.
Today, Nelson continued scrambling -- airing an ad of his own in Nebraska on health care.
Nelson is obviously feeling the heat. Airing statewide ads is a highly unusual move for someone not up for re-election until 2012. Hopefully for him, he didn't spend too much money producing the ad because it's, well, quite boring.
As Greg Sargent points out, it didn't address the public option at all. And for good reason -- Nelson's efforts to undermine the public option are out of step with 76% of Americans, 71% of rural Americans, and even 50% of Republicans.
Today, the PCCC and DFA are putting the ad featuring the small-business owner holding Nelson accountable up for another week -- and will keep airing it as long as small dollar donors keep chipping in to air it.
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Either thankfully (my take) or regrettably (your take), Senator Nelson represents a state with very few "progressives" - even though it has a public education system that works, very little gun violence, minor poverty, etc. My guess is that Ben Nelson is way more interested in what the benighted poor folks in dumb old Nebraska think than he is in what folks in NYC, Chicago and San Francisco want.
Would you care to compare poverty figures or violent crime figures (by the way, Nelson is a huge hunter with lots of guns in his home) in each location?
I suspect the public option argument is essentially "much to do about nothing." It's merely how the one Corporate Party uses its factions, Dems and Repubs, to protect the Oligarchy, in this case, the insurance companies who run the Health Care Extortion Racket. That is, both factions, Dems and Repubs, like professional wrestlers, stage a terrible sounding, but false fight, each seemingly going for the others jugular vein. In this case, since the Dems already outnumber the Repub faction, the Blue Cross Dems linked hands with the Repubs in order to "sell it" to the fear driven sheeple. . But in the end some form of the Public Option will be passed. Its context will have most probably been long predetermined by the Health Extortion providers and their bought and paid for Corporate politicans. That is, regardless of the final product, weak or strong, because the Public Option will be forced to take all of the Insurance Health Extortion's rejects, the Public Plan will inevitably cost more and give less service. Millions of previously uninsured sheeple will quickly be driven to the holding pens of the Insurance Health Racket where they will once again daily face a real death panel. The Health Insurance Extortion Racket and the Corporate Party will earn billions more while successfully killing the notion of any further notions regarding Universal single payer health care. .
I'm Ben Nelson, and I just spent money to say jack shiat.
Nelson, of course, has a perfect right to defend himself. And I have a perfect right to say that he's defending an indefensible position. So there. The problem is, he's probably about the only Democrat in Nebraska who can be elected to any national office. Although the fact that the 3rd district's electoral vote went to Obama (after which the Nebraska GOP started screaming 'This Must Never Happen Again!'), I wouldn't hold out much hope that this presages any short-term changes in the kind of senators and congressthingies who come out of Nebraska.
Who needs Ben Nelson anyway?
People who want to get 60 votes and cloture in the Senate need him? People in Nebraska need him to protect them from folks like you.
I like how Ben Nelson is consulting with a doctor over X-Rays in his ad. GUV'MENT BETWEEN ME AND MY HEALTHCARE!!!
Exactly!
Nelson's ad is nothing more than a load of crap. He is nothing but a whore for the insurance industry and he couldn't care less about the people of Nebraska or anyone else in this country.
Ben Nelson is not a democrat he is a handmaiden for the insurance companies that line his pockets. He doesn't care about health care for Americans because it doesn't impact him.He is not an elected public servant but a political opportunist. He stood lockstep with George Bush and the lies he used to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq ( a Country and peoples who did nothing to the USA) what if we had used all those billions lost and spent on this atrocity for the betterment of US lives( INCLUDING HEALTH CARE) and humanitarian efforts abroad, we would have won a lot more hearts and minds. Ben Nelson caters to the republican base that dominates Nebraska.
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