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The Grassroots Flexes Muscle in the Health Care Debate: Targeting Senator Blanche Lincoln |
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Americans want health care reform with a strong public option, as poll after poll after poll has shown. So we might expect that if roughly 70% of Americans want the public option, 70 US senators would line up to vote for the kind of solid, cost-effective legislation that will soon come out of the Senate HELP Committee. Unfortunately, even with the Democratic caucus soon to hit 60 votes in the Senate, we still don’t know where many Democrats stand on the critical question of support for a strong public option.
Democrats who waver on this issue need to hear our voices telling them to stand with President Obama and their party’s leadership to back a strong public option. Pressure from constituents can help make the difference in this battle.
One of those wavering Democrats is Arksansas Senator Blanche Lincoln, and a group of activists have come together to air ads telling her to support the public option. Please consider making a donation to help them place these ads, and be sure to vote for your favorite ad of the three they’re considering.
Why target Lincoln? Two reasons: “Blanche Lincoln is on the health sub-committee of the Senate Finance Committee and she’s running for re-election in 2010.”
John Amato and Jane Hamsher have more background on the campaign.
Please consider donating. The fight over a public option is critical for building a progressive mandate to govern, for Democrats’ electoral chances, for public debate over the role of government in our country, and for defining the role of grassroots progressives in the current political climate.
To expand on that last point, all the good guys are playing an important role right now - the President, Senators Kennedy, Dodd, and others, think tanks and organizations in DC like the Center for American Progress and Campaign for America’s Future, unions like SEIU and the groups in the AFL-CIO coalition, and brave progressives in the House. Grassroots activists have their own unique but crucial role to play: criticizing and pressuring the wavering Democrats that others cannot openly target. Supporting grassroots campaigns like this is the best way that citizen activists can affect the debate and support progressive champions and causes at this pivotal moment.
