I Want My Country Back! The Country That Elected Barack Obama

Listening to the people at the Town Halls shouting about getting their country back, made me realize that I want my country back too. The country that put aside racial bias and fear and elected our first African-American President, Barack Obama. But what I want more than anything is the calm and organized Barack Obama and the campaign that kept its eye on the prize -- winning the Presidency. Now I need Obama to keep us focused on the new prize -- health reform for all.

In the past few weeks, everyone has been freaking out about health reform. The right has suddenly realized that they lost the election, and the Town Halls have given them the opportunity to vent their frustration. Is the hostility we are seeing new? No, I think it was always there, but it went underground and simmered until a "respectable" way surfaced for them to go out and scream and shout and hold up offensive and inaccurate signs about health reform.

But the left is freaking out too. Every word uttered by Obama or his surrogates is analyzed and dissected to prove that he is backing off the public option or health reform. How the public option became the key deal breaker is an issue for another blog, but several folks have attempted to explain this phenomenon. The public option "could" be an important brake on costs, but since we have never tried to do this on the scale being proposed, we don't know that for sure. We "hope" and "think" that the public option will do what is being proposed, but no one knows what might happen in a reformed marketplace. The CBO has "scored" the public option as having the potential to bring down costs, but it it still somewhat of a theoretical issue.

What is NOT theoretical is the need for insurance reform. And for that purpose, there is actually some bipartisan support, not to mention huge support from the American public. If we could only pass insurance reform, I know dozens of people who would benefit from that, and I am sure you do too.

There are some strange ways of characterizing health reform, but one of the most amusing is the "What would Jesus do about health reform"? I would ask Obama supporters to ask a similar question -- "What would Obama do?" WWOD -- It's kind of what he's doing now. Staying calm, focusing on the goal, rolling out his strategy (and this is being written even before his nation wide strategy call Thursday), and having some faith that the process will result in a good outcome for all of us.

I want my country back. I want the focused, goal-oriented, real grass-roots supported, campaign mode for health reform. Remember when you checked out www.538.com twice a day to be sure that the delegate count was really holding up? And whle we all freaked out about this and that issue or state election, as long as we kept our eye on the prize -- number of delegates to nominate -- or number of states to elect -- we could feel a sense of confidence about what would happen.

I think health reform is very similar to the campaign. We are at about Mile 15 of a marathon -- there are a lot more miles to go. There are bills to pass in the House and the Senate. There is the Conference Committee. There are final votes in both Houses. There is reconciliation or filibuster. I truly believe we will pass health reform that is meaningful this year. But I want the Democratic party to have a little patience and a focus on the final product. How about you?

Comments

[webmonkeydc]

Everything you need to know about the health care hubbub http://ow.ly/kM6B

[erinm]

Thank you Linda... I absolutely agree. Runing around yelling that the sky is falling isn't helping the cause at all... it's only helping the insurance companies and the right wing keep their memes alive. We do need more patience, and to keep our eye on the ball, not the sideline freakshow.­...

[Cookie Monsta]

"The public option "could" be an important brake on costs, but since we have never tried to do this on the scale being proposed, we don't know that for sure."

Actually, we have. Both Medicare and Medicaid set the standards for cost that the private insurers follow.

[AgnesBankhead]

i want our country back too, I'm just not sure whether our President wants us to have it back in any kind of meaningful way -- the Rethugs are playing no-holds-barred, political "kill or be killed" while Obama smiles, says nice things about everybody and nothing to repudiate their divide-and-conquer tactics ..........

[GreatNews27]

My country ceased to exist in 1980. It will never be back.

[AynSpandex]

I keep wanting to pack my bags & move back to the country where the airwaves are not constantly polluted with commercials for drug pushers and skeevy lawfirms. Yeah, 1980 sounds about right. WABAC machine, anyone?

[Maxiesid]

I agree with your assessment of the situation and your desire to have a return to the country that elected Obama president, but I would like to submit that the country in question never left, it didn't disappear, it is still right here functioning normally, noticing with watchful eyes what is going on... but that country is not what the news wants to report about. They want to promote division, diversion and they only want the public to hear from the people that are paying their bills. The media never stops trying to influence the public by creating news (crackpot 'birthers', and ludicrous 'death panel' repeaters), instead of reporting it. We have learned to only believe that which the President himself says when he deliberately goes around the media filter ... and that is the most important thing. The media DOES parse his words, but you have to ignore the noise - what he is saying is exactly what he means and unlike the rightwing, we don't need interpretation - we understand exactly what he is saying . We are here, we are still the majority, and we are still 100% committed to helping the president with his reforms. Any democratic politician that has lost sight of that is going to lose their seat in the upcoming elections if they chose which side to support unwisely. As for the GOP, they have reduced themselves to little more than a bad carnival side show, only with less substance.

[bkca]

Linda, let me help you out here. The white house has no plan, just a series of ideas they keep waving around. Second, they have no way of paying for a single one of their ideas other than raping the taxpayers.

Maybe they should work on that a bit.

[GreatNews27]

We only want to rape the rich taxpayers. You know, the ones who have been raping us for the last 30 years?

[devans00]

I want a better country than the America that has existed in the past. We can do better than what exists so why not go for it?

[tompoe]

The game was over for me, when Pelosi followed Obama's lead and took Single Payer off the table. The only solution that would lower costs, and honor our right to health care. These Democrats are no better than the previous eight years of the Party of Corporate Welfare. So, Bergthold, where are the jobs? Where is the education for our children? Where is our right to health care? Where is the energy bill that saves our planet? Where is the end of imperialism? Where? Name one Obama move that has benefited a worker, the middle class, the poor in our country? Where is the moratorium on foreclosures? Where's the union card check option? Are we, or are we not, exactly where we'd be, if Bush named his successor?

[Linda Bergthold - Huffpost Blogger]

I thought it was too late to post tonight, but I see that some folks are still up thinking about all of this. It's only been 8 months, Tompoe. There has been a lot of progress but it won't all happen at once. That's partly what I am posting about -- the need for some long term vision, a calm sense of where we are going, and that we will eventually get there if we keep engaged and keep focused. Glad you are engaged. But don't expect miracles over night. And don't expect that everything will be exactly the way you want it. It never is!

[tran23]

Lowering our expectations is something we have been doing for years and look where it got us. We now have the best government money can buy. We can only achieve what we expect. I say, expect what you deserve and go after it. We deserve Medicare for all. I say we deserve all of the things Tompoe is asking for --- and more. And we deserve it now.