The slamming of Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections

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Vice President Joe Biden confidently remarked at the annual House Democrats retreat on the Eastern Shore of Maryland that his party will be victorious come fall:

I really do think we’re going to win back the House, he told attendees of the retreat.

It appears that the campaign to win back the House is heating up, after CNN got an exclusive first look at the 18 candidates. Campaign chief and lead strategist for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Steve Israel unveiled his “Drive To 25” battle plan – named for the 25 seats needed to put the House back under the Democrats control.

In a briefing in Washington, Israel talked tough with the Democrats handpicked to take on the Republican incumbents:

We’re not interested in electing you to the minority — been there, done that. It sucks, said Israel earlier this week. It’s going to be razor-close, Israel said to the group. The people in this room are going to determine whether we’re on the north side of 25 or the south side of 25.

The plan is tied to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) “Red To Blue” program, which was initially created by its former lead man and current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. The program has effectively looked at three-dozen Republican-held seats they believe Democrats can regain and will get an endorsement from the DCCC. The campaign is prepared to throw as many resources as it can behind their chosen few ahead of the fall election.

Naturally, Speaker of the House John Boehner has his doubts in the Democrats’ push, saying it will be “nearly impossible” for his party to lose the majority rule. President Barack Obama, often at odds with his own party, attempted to drum up support last Friday by speaking with House Democrats last Friday:

I believe in you guys. You guys have had my back through some very tough times, he said. I’m going to have your back as well, and together we’re going to move this country forward.

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In Ohio, an important swing state, voters rejected the law enacted by Gov. John Kasich and the Republican-controlled legislature that limited the ability of public-employee unions to collectively bargain.

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In Mississippi, abortion rights advocates defeated a proposed initiative that would define the word “person” to include every human being “from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.”

Before you start celebrating, Ohio voters also rebuffed Obama’s health care law. Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure saying that no federal, state or local law or rule could compel any person or employer to participate in a health care system.

Read more at the Root.

And as southern electoral districts are being redrawn, further polarizing voters along racial lines, some are questioning whether Democrats will ever be able to regain support in the deep South.

Democrats have had the hardest time in deep South states in recent years, particularly last November, when Republicans capitalized on voter dissatisfaction with the economy, the health care overhaul and President Barack Obama to score major gains. Republicans now control the governorships and legislatures in the five deep South states, allowing them to redraw political lines to conform with population changes as measured by the Census.

Read more at the Grio.

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On matters large and small, Obama has yielded to House Speaker John Boehner in a string of concessions that have unnerved Democrats and emboldened Republicans. A chorus of Democratic voices is now demanding that the president abandon his attempts at being a compromiser and instead lay out an ideological vision that distinguishes him from Republicans and becomes a template for his re-election.

Obama had asked Congress to convene a joint session next Wednesday so he could announce his jobs agenda. Boehner objected, telling the president it would be better if he came the next night. Republicans were irritated that Obama wanted to speak at the same time Republican presidential candidates would be debating in California — and sharing TV time with him.

In the end, Obama accepted Boehner’s invitation to speak at 7 p.m. EDT next Thursday, early enough to avoid yet another conflict — with the opening game of the National Football League season.

Obama must create a clear contrast between what he wants and what the Republicans want, Simon Rosenberg, president of the liberal-leaning think tank NDN, wrote this week. “If the president is to win the election next year, he will have to first win the economic debate with the Republicans, something, to date, he has not done.”

Democratic strategist James Carville was even sharper, decrying the spectacle of the president being forced to change the day of his address to a joint session of Congress after Boehner took issue with Obama’s initial request.

“The last thing that the White House needed was to appear to cave in to the speaker, and that’s what happened,” he said Thursday on ABC.

The pointed advice comes as Democrats are becoming increasingly anxious that joblessness and a weak economy are defining Obama’s presidency and imperiling his re-election. His attempts to compromise with Republicans, they argue, have resulted in policies that have hurt him and the economy.

The critique goes to the heart of what Obama advisers say is the president’s inclination to propose policies that have a chance of being accomplished. It also challenges the White House strategy of portraying the president as a sensible and pragmatic leader who is as frustrated with the ways of Washington as the public.

White House spokesman Jay Carney reiterated on Thursday that the president intends to offer proposals that “are reasonable and … should receive bipartisan support.”

That strategy, these Democrats say, has not helped the president set a course for the economy.

Last December, Obama won a temporary payroll tax cut for workers, but he had to give up, at least until the end of 2012, on his insistence that Bush-era tax cuts should no longer apply to the wealthy. Earlier this year he avoided a government shutdown by agreeing to Republican demands for budget cuts. And this summer he won an increase in the nation’s debt ceiling but had to accede to more than a $1 trillion in spending reductions, with more to come.

“As the economy slows, fostering growth and rejecting austerity becomes an even greater imperative now,” Rosenberg said in an interview. “His speech must reflect that. “

The contretemps over the date of Obama’s speech added to the Democrats’ dismay.

Some, like Carville, argued that the White House erred by seeking to schedule the address next Wednesday, at the same time as a Republican presidential debate. “I do think this is a really big debate, and I think the White House was out of bounds,” Carville said.

After Obama yielded to Boehner’s timing request, the blogger Markos Moulitsas, founder of the liberal Web site DailyKos, posted ruefully on his Twitter account: “I hope Boehner doesn’t ask Obama for his lunch money. The president would go hungry that day.”

Carney characterized the flap over the timing of the president’s address to Congress next week as a “side show” and not what people care about. He said the American people “don’t give a lick” about when Obama speaks but do care about what he says.

In a bleak assessment that added urgency to the president’s speech, the White House budget office on Thursday predicted that without new polices unemployment will remain at 9 percent next year. It also projected overall growth this year at just 1.7 percent, a full percentage point less than the administration predicted at the beginning of the year. On the other hand, the budget office review said that the projected deficit for the year ending Sept. 30 will be $1.3 trillion, $300 billion less than it projected in February.

White House officials say not all details of the president’s address have been decided, though he is expected to seek an extension of the payroll tax cut and lay out proposals to increase hiring with a blend of tax incentives for business and government spending for public works projects. At the same time, White House officials say, he will offer long-term deficit reductions to make up for any upfront spending. Republicans reject any short-term spending, however, and argue that economic growth can be achieved through less regulation and with permanent corporate tax cuts.

Yet even as Obama presses for a legislative package of job creating measures, he is also laying the groundwork to use Republican opposition as a campaign issue in 2012. Illustrating the fine line between governing and political campaigning, Obama issued a plea through his presidential campaign late Wednesday calling for public support in holding Congress accountable.

In an email entitled “Frustrated,” Obama said he would deliver details of his jobs plan to Congress next week. “Whether they will do the job they were elected to do is ultimately up to them,” he wrote. “But both you and I can pressure them to do the right thing.”

The email asked supporters to provide their name and email addresses, a mobilizing tactic useful both to push for legislative action and to build a foundation for his re-election.

“Everybody understands that this is both political and substantive at the same time,” said Matt Bennett, a former White House aide under Bill Clinton and vice president of Third Way, a Democratic-leaning group that advocates centrist policies. “It’s good for Obama if he can get some deals cut.”

Bennett and White House officials point out that Republicans have walked away from deficit cutting deals with the president. They argue that Republican opposition has contributed to lawmakers’ poor standing in public opinion polls.

Indeed, while a slight majority disapprove of the president, he has higher approval ratings than congressional Democrats and Republicans,

But Republicans argue that individual lawmakers will fare better than the overall view of Congress would suggest.

“Some of the congressional Republicans are not going to be forced to endure the same political environment that the president is,” said Kevin Madden, a GOP strategist and former House leadership aide. “The president is trying to run a national campaign; each of these congressional Republicans will be running local campaigns.”

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By having the secretaries of state under Republican presidents weigh in, GOP critics couldn’t just lay the blame at the feet of Obama without having to trample the integrity of Henry Kissinger, George P. Shultz and James A. Baker III.

Once they publicly came out for the treaty and were photographed in the White House, the momentum shifted, and the treaty was approved.

No matter how principled someone may be when he comes to Washington, he is going to have to learn how to play along with others. That’s the rule in the sandbox, and it should be the same rule in Congress.

But we have become a nation in which the strong ideologies that the left and right clutch to for dear life don’t allow for middle ground. In fact, if you even broach the idea of compromising, activists on both sides will tear you to shreds and make it hard for you to even win a primary.

As a result, we have elected mercenaries to Congress who aren’t interested in the well-being of all Americans, just the sliver of the voting public that sent them to the nation’s capital. They play to the activists who raise money and turn out en masse at rallies.

The ongoing debate over the debt ceiling is a prime example of this unwillingness to consider an alternative viewpoint that could avert a crisis.

On one side, Democrats didn’t want the GOP — or even President Obama — going near entitlement programs as a part of deficit reduction. When the president put those on the table in his negotiations with Republicans, Democrats revolted in anger.

Social Security and Medicare have long been strong political rallying points for the Democrats, and they want to keep that edge.

President Obama made clear that revenues had to be a part of any plan. The Congressional Budget Office has been clear that the Bush tax cuts contributed $3.3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. Talk to conservative activists, TV pundits and members of Congress and they swear that it isn’t true. But it is. Facts simply aren’t debatable.

So instead of confronting cuts that adversely impact the national debt, House Republicans saw that as a non-starter, refusing to allow any revenues to be a part of any debt ceiling deal. As a result, Obama’s grand plan of a $4 trillion debt reduction was shot down, but House Speaker John Boehner’s plan came to slightly less than $1 trillion. And fiscal conservatives are happy?

The reality is that President Obama is a Democrat; Republicans control the House; and Democrats control the United States Senate. Both sides can push their perspectives as hard as possible, but unless we stop treating the word “compromise” as a dirty word, we will have endless partisan fights that make ideologues feel good but the nation in a worse state than it was before, and we will not move this country forward.

The House has passed Boehner’s plan. Now the Senate will take up Majority Leader Harry Reid’s debt plan. They are very different. Let’s pray that both parties don’t dig in their heels and learn to give a little. Otherwise, the nation’s credit is jeopardized, and those already hit by the recession will be plunged even further into the economic abyss.

Roland S. Martin is an award-winning CNN analyst and the author of the book “The First: President Barack Obama’s Road to the White House as originally reported by Roland S. Martin.” Please visit his website atwww.RolandSMartin.com. To find out more about Roland S. Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM

On one hand, Republicans are trying desperately to hold on to their purely insane ideological position of there being no revenue or tax increases. It is as if these idiots refuse to believe any data that make clear that the massive tax cuts put in place by President George W. Bush have increased the federal deficit. But they are afraid of running afoul of Grover Norquist and his Kool-Aid drinkers at Americans for Tax Reform, who are more than willing to protect the millionaires and billionaires in this country — with their jets and yachts — from having to pay taxes at previous levels.

Then there are the Democrats, who have this equally insane belief that we can reduce the deficit and not touch Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Those three areas, along with the billions we continue to spend on national defense, constitute most of the dollars we spend on the federal budget. And those costs are spiraling out of control. So of course, we must make some hard choices, and yes, that will mean making adjustments that might upset seniors.

At the end of the day, this ludicrous standoff is doing severe damage to America’s credibility in the financial markets, and even toying with not increasing the debt ceiling could have severe repercussions on all of us. But when clueless representatives, such as Michele Bachmann, suggest that nothing would happen if we were not to raise the debt ceiling, they just prove they would destroy this nation in order to preserve an ideological purity.

Right now, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, the world’s two leading credit rating agencies, have put the U.S. and our AAA credit rating on their watch lists, with S&P stating Thursday that “owing to the dynamics of the political debate on the debt ceiling, there is at least a one-in-two likelihood that we could lower the long-term rating on the U.S. within the next 90 days.”

No party can try to claim that the other is at fault for this perilous situation. Both have contributed to this mess with their unwillingness to make the tough choices. And yes, American taxpayers must absorb the burden, as well, because when a politician makes the tough choice to cut or not fund our every whim and desire, we toss him out of office.

This debate is all about politics. No matter that not raising the debt ceiling would impact every American in a negative way. Social Security and military checks would be in jeopardy; expect to see massive losses in our 401(k) accounts; and access to credit, already difficult, would become nearly impossible. But Democrats don’t want to touch Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, because those are a potent bat to bash Republicans with in every election.

We just saw the Dems win a congressional seat in a hard-core Republican district in New York based on Rep.

Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal. They know seniors vote in larger numbers than anyone else, and losing a potent political weapon is unthinkable for them. So that’s why they are angry with President Barack Obama for putting the options on the table.

Republicans are like a suicide bomber when it comes to the mantra of low taxes and smaller government; no matter how much damage is done, as long as they hold their ground, they think they are doing the right thing. Get angry all you want about my making the suicide bomber analogy, but even threatening to blow up the American economy is akin to committing suicide, all for an ideological purity. But by holding firm to their position, they know it appeals to their core voters.

That is precisely why I’ve despised the labels of Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal. Damn an ideology. At some point, you’ve got to analyze a situation and say, “This is the right thing to do.”

But all of these politicians are afraid of one thing: losing their jobs. Frankly, they really don’t care about the millions of jobs that we have seen lost in this economy over the past four years. It is about those 435 powerful jobs in the House of Representatives, the 100 in the Senate and the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

This is when the American public, especially the silent majority, must get off their collective butt and say, “Get this deal done. Now.” Enough with the tea partyers driving Republicans over a cliff with their insistence on no revenue increases. And enough with Democrats bowing down to the liberal left, which says “no mas” to any entitlement cuts.

All of you who sit passively by and watch as the ideological purists make all the noise and dominate the cable news shows must take a stand and say, “Enough!”

All Americans should be blowing up the phone lines and email inboxes of their representatives every day until a debt ceiling deal is brokered. Sure, you may not like a revenue increase or an entitlement cut, but thinking the other side must share the full burden is just dumb. “Shared pain” is not a negative statement. It’s real and necessary.

If the GOP gets its way, we lose. If the Democrats get their way, we lose. We simply cannot continue down this insane path of ideological purity driving our nation’s agenda. If President Ronald Reagan understood that he would have to accept revenue increases and President Bill Clinton saw that welfare needed to be changed, then Obama must be followed in brokering a deal in which all sides have skin in this game.

So, folks, it’s time for you to get in this game. Pick that phone up. Send that email. We aren’t in the room negotiating this deal, but I can guarantee you that if Congress and the White House hear from the millions of us with enough common sense to compromise, a deal will get done.

None of us wants to see the carnage that would ensue if we let the self-inflicted bomb to our economy go off.

Roland S. Martin is an award-winning CNN analyst and the author of the book “The First: President Barack Obama’s Road to the White House as originally reported by Roland S. Martin.” Please visit his website at www.RolandSMartin.com. To find out more about Roland S. Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM

Republicans said that after a heated disagreement with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the president “abruptly” walked out of the meeting.

Democratic lawmakers, however, said that Obama gave a lecture to Cantor and Republicans and left the meeting because it had ended, not because of anger.

Mr. Obama did have ardent words for Republican lawmakers, however.

“Would Ronald Reagan be sitting here? I’ve reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this,” the president said just shortly before concluding the two-hour meeting.

The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, warned on Wednesday of a “huge financial calamity” if President Obama and the Republicans cannot agree on a budget deal that allows the federal debt ceiling to be increased.

The NYTimes Reports:

Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader, said he raised the idea of taking what savings could be achieved now — roughly $1.4 trillion — and then having additional votes to raise the debt limit again before the elections in November 2012, with Republicans ultimately seeking a total of at least $2.4 trillion in cuts with no tax increases.

At this, Mr. Cantor said, the president “got very agitated, seemingly.” Mr. Cantor quoted the president as saying: “Eric, don’t call my bluff. I’m going to the American people with this.”

Then, Mr. Cantor said, “He shoved back and said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’ and walked out.”

Read More At NYTimes.com

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Roland Martin appears in The Situation Room with Ed Rollins and host Wolf Blitzer to discuss the possibility of a bipartisan State of the Union address.

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Washington — About three hours ago, just as he took the Senate floor, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) staff, tweeted: “You can call what i am doing today whatever you want, you it [sic] call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech…”

And he’s been speaking, almost uninterrupted, ever since.

It’s a filibuster as filibusters were originally intended — and, as such, makes a mockery of what the filibuster’s become: a gimmick that allows a minority of senators to quietly impose supermajority requirements on any piece of legislation.

Read more at TPM

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Congressman James Clyburn appears on Washington Watch to discuss the new political landscape in Washington DC, how Democrats can return to the majority and if Nancy Pelosi should  be the House Minority Leader.

WATCH: James Clyburn: Road Back To The Majority Runs Through Minorities

Voters say they want officials in Washington to work together; yet, they elect officials from the extremes who will not work together.

Is this a perfect example of the American voters saying one thing and doing another, or are they absolutely delusional when it comes to politics?

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Roland Martin and the Washington Watch roundtable discuss what is next for  Democrats and Republicans.

WATCH: What’s Next For Democrats And Republicans?

I’m a registered Independent. I voted for Bush and I voted for Obama and I was right each time.

Still, when I read that the slant to my writing is “liberal” or I read something similar about the other journalists on this site, I start to wonder what angle people are reading from.

You’d have to be standing on your head and reading from right to left to mistake anything I’ve ever said in print as “liberal”.

First of all, I can’t be a liberal. The titles “liberal” and “conservative” are exclusive enclaves of the rich and ruling class. As a poor man, the best I could shoot for would be being sympathetic to either liberal or conservative causes.

And I’m neither.

Liberals and conservatives are the exact same things. The only ways that they differ is in their prescribed treatment of “others”—like me.

For example, liberals favor giving the poor just enough in government subsidies like welfare and Medicaid to keep them from murdering people.

Conservatives, on the hand, realize that should the poor start murder people, they would likely only murder the other poor at which point they would end up in jail while (pardon the pun) killing two birds with one stone.

Liberals favor gay marriage and abortion because the see themselves as champions of “rights”. “Rights for All” is the closest thing liberals have to a motto.

Conservatives oppose gay marriage and abortion because they see themselves as champions of “morality”. “A More Moral America” might be the conservative motto if they didn’t seem to already be going with “Taking Back America”.

The grim reality is, liberals and conservatives are both hypocrites.

Dig the note of moral condescension it requires to champion the rights of people to have or do things that you might or might not agree with.

Also dig the claiming of rights to legislate on topics of morality that have nothing to do with one’s self.

You can’t give anybody rights just like you can give anybody freedom. Both are fraudulent if given and only genuine when won.

Meanwhile, the purest morality, if I’m not mistaken, is the one that frees us from the burden of judging our fellow man.

But don’t listen to me. I don’t have enough money to tell anybody how he or she should live. And if I did, I still wouldn’t be a liberal or a conservative. I’d only be a higher ranking capitalist.

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President Obama earned his Martha’s Vineyard vacation as far as Democratic money moguls are concerned, hauling in $4 million for his party’s war chests this week alone.

The latest take during a three-day swing through California, Washington, Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida came on top of the whopping $53.1 million Obama has already raised this year for the Democratic National Committee, federal election finance records show.

So while some Democrats consider whether to run away from Obama, his sagging job approval ratings or his stand on the lower Manhattan mosque, they aren’t putting distance between themselves and the President’s ATM card.

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Since the news broke that Alvin Greene won the South Carolina Democratic Party Primary Election for US Senate, countless media and political elites, have filled several rounds of the news cycle looking down their noses at the unlikely winner. But more important than questioning where he got the $10,400 filing fee and feigning outrage in response to the obscenity charge, those who claim to love democracy should be asking this: “why are freedom-loving political insiders asking Greene to step aside?”

The same folks leading the charge against Greene, in part suggesting that he’s not smart enough to have really won, are the same public servants unable to protect us from banks smart enough to rip us off, but too dumb to fail, and oversized multinational corporations smart enough to drill, but clueless about how to stop the greatest oil spill in American history.

So until said elected officials have figured out a solution to these pressing issues, alongside the unemployment crisis, the budget crises, and recurring voting irregularities in national elections that nurture a climate for more of the same, I’m rooting for Alvin Greene.

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Here are five reasons why:

First, if Alvin Greene is the legitimate winner, and I think politicians should find that out with a fair investigation before asking him to step aside (as Congressman James Clyburn and Democratic Party State leader Carol Fowler have done), his win reinforces the notion that grassroots everyday people can still win elections in America—that the country, imagine this, still actually belongs to the people. Political elites reveal how far removed they are from this idea when central to their criticism of Greene is the notion that Senate primary wins are impossible without big bucks and establishment support.

I’m also rooting for Alvin Greene because he’s an underdog, the quintessential outsider, so much so, his own party claims they never heard of him. That plus the fact that any non-millionaire deserves our support when he proves he can ruffle the feathers of the mainstream political establishment—those same politicians who get sent to Washington to represent the interest of the people back at home, but fail to support the majority will on pressing issues of the day.

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Third, Green deserves our support because he is a candidate who went for broke and did the unthinkable: he put his money where his mouth is. If indeed his filing fee was his own money—which is as plausible to me as his win—then it’s a compelling story about the will of everyday people in search of democracy. This is the type of inspirational narrative all Americans should be embracing—not imaginary populous movements that run politically connected candidates (Rand Paul are u listening?) and pass them off as a revolution.

Greene wants to do something to save the country sans name-calling, racial slurs or spitting on politicians he disagrees with. Instead, the 32-year-old college grad truly believes in public service—if his military record is any indication.

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Which leads me to my final two points: Greene’s a military veteran and a post baby-boomer, two groups underrepresented in the Senate. Sure, Washington insiders spend a lot of time giving lip service to the troops when it’s politically expedient. However, when a 13-year military veteran runs for office, these “support the troops” cheerleaders are focused on discrediting him.

According to the Department of Defense, over 75 percent of the armed forces is comprised of Americans under 30 years old. Likewise, young voters 18-29 years old in the last three national elections have been steadily increasing their engagement. It’s time their numbers are more significantly represented in Washington.

It may be revealed in the days ahead that Alvin Greene’s win was no win at all. If so, the culprit will likely be something far more plausible than a “Republican plant.” Although an electronic voting machine glitch, diabolical voting machine tampering, or massive crossover voting lead my list, I’m hoping that won’t be the case.

But whether Alvin Greene is manufactured, an accident or for real, those crying foul should see his entry on the political scene as an opportunity to re-evaluate their commitment to the nation’s ideals—rather than to continue to dismantle them.

Bakari Kitwana is senior media fellow at the Harvard Law based think tank The Jamestown Project and the author of the forthcoming Hip-Hop Activism in the Obama Era (Third World Press, 2010).

A lot of the attention this week was focused on the female Senate and gubernatorial candidates winning primaries in California, Arkansas, Nevada and South Carolina. Their wins were huge as they fought back salacious rumors of affairs and charges of buying an election, fended off a huge battle against big labor, and rode the tea party express to victory.

Yet with all of the drama in those races, Florida always seems to be the gift that keeps on giving. It could end up being the most interesting race with long-term ramifications.

With Gov. Charlie Crist abandoning his bid for the Republican nomination, because of former Florida Speaker of the House Marco Rubio drubbing him in the polls, all of the attention has been focused on these two candidates.

Oh, yea, there is a Democrat running in this heavily Democrat-leaning state, and Rep. Kendrick Meek is feverishly trying to remind folks of that. He has been on the campaign trail for months and is running third in the polls behind Crist and Rubio.

On paper, Democrats should take this race easily, especially with two Republicans likely to split the vote.

President Barack Obama won the state in 2008, and Democrats outdistance Republicans by some 700,000 voters. Despite Rubio’s rise, he is largely a darling of the tea party, and they have been the archenemy of the left as they are driving GOP candidates farther to the right.

Conventional wisdom suggests that Democrats would be locked and loaded: sending White House surrogates to Florida, targeting the GOP opponents with money from labor and teacher unions, and trying to rebuild the coalition that put Obama in the White House — namely, young, minority and women voters.

Yet this has been slow to develop, and if I were a Republican, I would be salivating at the Dems lacking of a sense of urgency. The massive grassroots efforts that ushered Obama into office has seemingly gone back to sleep and is in desperate need of being reawakened.

And if I were a Dem, I would be saying that taking this seat from the GOP column may help keep the Senate in the control of Democrats.

If you look at President Obama’s falling poll numbers, as well as the influence of the tea party and a surging Republican Party, it’s abundantly clear the electoral map of 2012 will not look like 2008. I would bet money today that Obama doesn’t win Indiana, North Carolina and possibly Virginia, meaning he will have to run a 2000 or 2004 campaign. And that means winning re-election by scoring victories in Ohio, Pennsylvania and, yes, Florida.

By keeping the momentum going in Florida, Democrats are going to have to invest the time and resources, and the first act would be to drive the Meek campaign to victory.

He has some issues that Democrats have acknowledged.

As a member of the House, he doesn’t have major name recognition across the state. And Meek is going to have to spend lots of times knocking on doors if he is to become the junior senator from Florida and the only African-American in the U.S. Senate.

But Florida is also notoriously expensive, which means his coffers will have to grow exponentially. He’s raised $5.5 million thus far and has the enthusiastic support of former President Bill Clinton. Yet that’s likely what he’ll have to spend in the final two weeks of the campaign.

That’s if he is able to fend off the challenge of billionaire Jeff Greene, who recently jumped into the race, and is expected to spend millions of his own money to grab the nomination.

Meek expects to beat Greene, but that means having to spend time and money on him, and not on Rubio or Crist. And for a candidate who needs to introduce himself to a wide voter base, every minute and dollar is precious. Greene has already dropped $5 million and will likely inundate voters with TV and radio ads.

And if Greene wins, don’t think for a second that black voter turnout won’t be severely depressed in November. And a novice political watcher knows Democrats can’t win without their most important and loyal constituency.

Furthermore, the Democratic primary is in August, leaving the candidates two months to focus on the general election. Rubio can stay centered on Crist now that Crist is running as an independent; he can court voters from both sides. Meek has to target Crist and Rubio, while keeping a watchful eye on Greene so as not to lose the primary.

If Meek has to spend most of his cash against Greene, he will be at a severe disadvantage with two months to go, and that’s a very short window to raise upward of $15 million to compete effectively.

Already, this is turning into a strange race. The state’s teacher unions co-endorsed Crist and Meek, which was a major surprise to political watchers, especially considering it was Meek who changed the state constitution mandating smaller class sizes.

There are six months to go before Election Day and a lot can happen between now and November. But it is certain that Republicans would love nothing more to put another chink in the armor of Obama by beating Meek. And Democrats would hate losing a statewide seat in a state they theoretically dominate.

But a good ball coach will tell you that no game is won on paper; it is won on the field.

Roland S. Martin is an award-winning CNN analyst and the author of the forthcoming book “The First: President Barack Obama’s Road to the White House as originally reported by Roland S. Martin.” Please visit his website at www.RolandSMartin.com. To find out more about Roland S. Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM

Fresh from an undisputed victory over her Democratic competitors in the race for California Attorney General, current San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris took the podium at The Delancey Street Foundation and, flanked by Assistant Attorney General Tony West, his wife Maya Harris, and their daughter Meena, gave the best speech of her young life in accepting the nomination as the Democratic representative in the California Attorney General race.

The Kamala Harris Acceptance Speech started off stilted at first, then when Kamala Harris relaxed and got her sea legs, soared to greatness after the eight minute mark of the video. Harris talked about the “embarrassment of riches” the Democratic Party enjoyed with so many talented candidates working together.

And resisting the crowds obvious desire for her to do so, did not take a jab at former Facebook Lawyer Chris Kelly, instead thanking him for bringing a new face to the process.

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WATCH her victory speech here:

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina‘s Democratic Party has asked its own Senate nominee to withdraw after learning the man has been charged with a felony. But the candidate says he won’t budge.

Party chairwoman Carol Fowler says she asked Alvin Greene to withdraw from the campaign against U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint Wednesday after The Associated Press reported Greene had been charged with a felony.

Court records show Greene was arrested in November and charged with showing obscene Internet photos to a University of South Carolina student. The felony charge carries up to five years in prison.

Greene told AP he’s the people’s choice and will not step aside.

On Tuesday, Greene stunned state Democratic Party leaders by defeating a former state lawmaker, despite having no organized campaign.

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From TheRoot.com:

Barack Obama took the oath of office as a United States senator on January 4, 2005, and promptly began running for president. Very quickly, he began using the peculiar kind of celebrity that comes with being a senator to introduce himself to Washington, to a new generation of political power brokers, and, more broadly, to the American people.

”He was running for president even as he was still getting lost in the Capitol’s corridors,” the New York Times noted.

Obama pointedly bypassed the Democratic Party power structure, in defiance of the norms of behavior for a junior senator. Obama did not worry about getting better committee assignments, and he did not defer to more senior members when trying to diagnose his party’s problems or in offering prescriptions to fix them. By the fall of 2006, to the surprise of even the most dedicated admirers of his vast political gifts, he was admitting publicly that he was thinking about the White House.

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”With an eye on his next goal, Obama treated the Senate as a bridge to be crossed–a place to learn the conventions of Washington, win powerful friends and shape what advisers referred to as his ‘political brand,”’ the Washington Post reported. ”Despite meager legislative accomplishments, Obama built a reputation among many Democrats as a hard worker, a reformer, an eager learner, a smart politician.” He came to see the Senate not as a place to do things, but a place to be someone.

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LONGMONT, Colo. — Westward, uh-oh.

For Democrats, the newly minted crossover voters who helped elect Barack Obama president in 2008 are displaying a rugged individualist streak and echoing tea party-type distrust of all things Washington. This is haunting the party as it struggles to keep control of Congress.

Consider the perspective of Kevin Ladd.

Hundreds of Democrats crowded the stage recently in this northern Colorado town to see Vice President Joe Biden promote a factory expansion. But not Ladd, who sat on the back bumper of an electric vehicle outside the auditorium.

Ladd invested in the company that helped make the car and came to celebrate the expansion, financed in part by a federal stimulus grant. But the 47-year-old homebuilder says his business is down, and after abandoning his lifelong Republican affiliation to vote for Obama two years ago, Ladd isn’t sure about Democrats this year.

RELATED: An Open Letter To Swing Voters

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“I think a lot of swing voters are questioning their decision,” Ladd said. “President Obama promised change. I wish we saw more change.”

Democrats in the West are struggling to keep these new voters who helped the party turn Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico from Republican to Democratic in the presidential election just months after the party’s national convention in Denver. Westerners who also helped elect a raft of Democrats to the House and Senate now appear to be wavering.

They’re worried about federal spending. They’re anxious about a new health care law in a region where a doctor can be several hours’ drive away. They’re afraid that Democrats’ climate-change proposals will kill jobs in oil and gas fields. Illegal immigration dominates the debate, and opponents of Arizona’s new immigration law don’t see a salient alternative coming from Democrats.

Vulnerable Democrats can be found in every Western state:

_Senate leader Harry Reid of Nevada is trailing in polls in his bid for a fifth term. The state’s home foreclosure rate is the highest, and the unemployment rate of 13.7 percent in April is above the national average – scary numbers for any incumbent.

_Democrats hold both of Colorado’s Senate seats for the first time since the 1970s. Sen. Michael Bennet, who was appointed to office to replace Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, was outpolled by challenger Andrew Romanoff at a state Democratic assembly last weekend, a result that party officials said they anticipated. The two will meet in a primary Aug. 10. The winner will probably face former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton.

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_Colorado Rep. Betsy Markey, who joined Biden on the factory visit, ousted a three-term Republican in 2008, but the GOP still holds a registration advantage in her sprawling district. Markey’s votes in favor of the health care overhaul and a cap-and-trade climate plan could cost her in November.

_In southern New Mexico, Rep. Harry Teague voted against the health care overhaul but has been dogged by criticism over health insurance. As Congress was debating the plan, Teague dropped employer-based health coverage for 250 of his employees at Cavaloz Energy. Now Teague faces Republican former Rep. Steve Pearce, who gave up the seat that spans southern New Mexico to run for the Senate in 2008.

_Republicans think they can regain an Idaho district they narrowly lost in 2008. Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick has won an endorsement from the right-leaning Tea Party Express, the lone Democrat getting the group’s backing. But Minnick is the first Democrat Idahoans have sent to Congress since 1992. The GOP chooses a challenger Tuesday.

_Arizona Reps. Harry Mitchell, Ann Kirkpatrick and Gabrielle Giffords are all in their first or second terms and represent districts that chose Republicans John McCain and George W. Bush in the last two presidential contests.

The outlook has even left-leaning activists worried that the Democrats may be in for some tough losses this fall.

“We’re not really Democrat, we’re not really Republican. We’re independent, and we want results,” said Bobby Clark, head of the Denver-based ProgressNow Colorado group, a liberal group that played a role in turning out voters for Obama two years ago.

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Clark says it’s “absolutely possible” for Democrats to hold onto Western gains this campaign season. But he concedes that Democrats have their work cut out for them to keep Westerners engaged after two years of partisan wrangling in Congress.

“We’ve all had a front-row seat to the sausage-making in D.C., and that’s frustrating for people out here. They worked hard, they helped elect a Democratic majority and they want to see change,” Clark said.

Republicans insist that Westerners are so turned off by Democratic rule in Washington that they’ll swing hard to the right this fall. Joanna Burgos, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee whose district includes the interior West, said Republicans here are finding swing voters alarmed with the Democrats they’ve helped elect.

“The momentum in the West is different,” said Burgos. “People in the West are a little more independent, and they’re not as open to the government getting involved in their lives, from health care to energy. They’re seeing government intrusion, and they don’t like it.”

In her pitch to voters, Markey talks about her real-world experience.

At a Denver fundraiser with Biden after the factory visit, Markey highlighted her background as owner of a coffee-and-ice-cream shop and said voters here are more interested in thoughtful lawmakers, not partisan ones.

“I think that when people try to see the world through the tinged glasses of Democrat or Republican, that becomes an excuse to throw away critical thinking,” she said.

RELATED: Republicans Falter In Outreach To Blacks & Hispanics

WASHINGTON – Voters rejected one of President Barack Obama‘s hand-picked candidates and forced another into a runoff, the latest sign that his political capital is slipping beneath a wave of anti-establishment anger.

Sen. Arlen Specter became the fourth Democrat in seven months to lose a high-profile race despite the president’s active involvement, raising doubts about Obama’s ability to help fellow Democrats in this November’s elections.

The first three candidates fell to Republicans. But Specter’s loss Tuesday to Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania’s Democratic senatorial primary cast doubts on Obama’s influence and popularity even within his own party — and in a battleground state, no less.

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Still, Obama’s poor record thus far could hurt his legislative agenda if Democratic lawmakers decide they need some distance from him as they seek re-election in what is shaping up as a pro-Republican year. Conversely, it might embolden Republican lawmakers and candidates who oppose him.

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“We’re licking our chops at running against President Obama,” said Rand Paul, tea party candidate and victor in Kentucky’s Republican primary for retiring GOP Sen. Jim Bunning’s seat. Paul told CNN on Wednesday he’d relish Obama’s campaigning on behalf of Democrat Jack Conway. Obama’s agenda, Paul said, is “so far to the left, he’s not popular in Kentucky.”

Obama’s track record also raises the question of whether he may be hurting candidates he supports by motivating his foes — such as tea party supporters — to vote. Though this month’s AP-GfK Poll shows Americans split about evenly over how he’s handling his job, those strongly disapproving outnumber people who strongly back him by 33 percent to 22 percent — not an enviable position for the president’s party.

Sestak’s victory over Specter is especially embarrassing, because he won by portraying himself and his supporters as being more faithful to the Democratic Party than were Specter and his backers — who included the president, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and other high-ranking party officials.

Creating another bruise for Obama and the Democratic establishment Tuesday, Sen. Blanche Lincoln was forced into a runoff in Arkansas’ Democratic senatorial primary. Obama supports her bid for a third term, but he is not as closely associated with her campaign as he was with Specter’s.

In previous months, Obama’s endorsements and campaign appearances weren’t enough to save then-Gov. Jon Corzine‘s re-election bid in New Jersey, Creigh Deeds‘ run for governor in Virginia or Martha Coakley’s campaign in Massachusetts to keep the late Edward M. Kennedy’s Senate seat in Democratic hands.

In fairness, Deeds was an underdog from the start, and Corzine brought many problems on himself. But the Coakley loss to Republican Scott Brown was excruciating. She once was considered a shoo-in, and her defeat restored the Republicans’ ability to block Democratic bills with Senate filibusters.

Unlike the Corzine, Deeds and Coakley races, Obama made no late-campaign appearances for Specter. But it will be hard for the president to distance himself from Specter’s career-ending loss.

Obama campaigned for Specter last September in Philadelphia, where he said, “I love Arlen Specter.” Specter used the clip in recent TV ads. Obama also e-mailed his supporters on Specter’s behalf, and he was the first person Specter thanked in his concession speech.

Vice President Joe Biden, a Pennsylvania native, made several appearances for Specter. Last week he told a Pittsburgh radio station, “Arlen is the Democratic candidate.”

Moreover, Obama was central to an all-important deal with Specter that struck some Democratic voters as opportunistic at best.

Specter had been a Republican senator for 28 years, opposing countless Democratic bills and appointees even if he showed more independence than most lawmakers. Thirteen months ago, however, he concluded he could not win the GOP nomination for a sixth term against conservative Pat Toomey. He and top Democrats struck a deal.

Specter would become a Democrat, giving the party the crucial 60th Senate vote it needed to overcome Republican filibusters, which were frustrating the administration. In exchange, Obama, Biden, Rendell and the entire Democratic hierarchy agreed to support Specter’s 2010 re-election, including efforts to clear his way to the party’s nomination.

The losers in the deal were any longtime Democrats who aspired to the U.S. Senate. They essentially were told to step aside for an 80-year-old longtime Republican. Pennsylvania’s Democratic voters were asked to concur.

Sestak, a former Navy vice admiral first elected to the House in 2006, refused to go along. He plugged away without help from the state or national party. A few weeks ago he trailed Specter by about 20 percentage points in polls of likely Democratic voters

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But Sestak caught fire in the closing days, partly through a TV ad showing Specter campaigning enthusiastically with then-President George W. Bush, who remains deeply unpopular with many Democratic primary voters.

In the past few weeks, the White House has played down Obama’s role in the Tuesday primaries, and he spent Election Day in Ohio talking about the economy.

“At some point, you feel like we’ve done what we can do,” senior White House adviser David Axelrod told The Associated Press in an interview. “We do have other stuff going on,” he said.

Matt Bennett, a Democratic strategist and vice president of the group Third Way, said he doubts that Democratic lawmakers will panic over Obama’s inability to help Specter to a victory.

“Presidents have coattails when their names are on the ballot,” Bennett said, and that can’t happen for Obama until 2012.

From HuffingtonPost.com:

Desperate to curtail expected widespread losses this fall, President Barack Obama pleaded with supporters of his 2008 campaign Monday to help elect Democrats as his aides intensified their focus on re-energizing his broad coalition of backers.

“I need your help once more,” the president said in an online video sent to millions of his supporters. “If you help us make sure that first-time voters in 2008 make their voices heard again in November, then together we will deliver on the promise of change, and hope, and prosperity for generations to come.”

The video announcement of what Democrats are calling “Vote 2010″ is part of a multi-pronged effort by the Democratic National Committee to re-engage the legions of backers — including first-time voters, young people, blacks, Hispanics, and independents — who propelled Obama to victory in his groundbreaking campaign. That won’t be easy.

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WASHINGTON – America’s “Great Compromiser” Henry Clay called government “the great trust,” but most Americans today have little faith in Washington’s ability to deal with the nation’s problems.

Public confidence in government is at one of the lowest points in a half century, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they don’t trust the federal government and have little faith it can solve America’s ills, the survey found.

The survey illustrates the ominous situation President Barack Obamaand the Democratic Party face as they struggle to maintain their comfortable congressional majorities in this fall’s elections. Midterm prospects are typically tough for the party in power. Add a toxic environment like this and lots of incumbent Democrats could be out of work.

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The survey found that just 22 percent of those questioned say they can trust Washington almost always or most of the time and just 19 percent say they are basically content with it. Nearly half say the government negatively effects their daily lives, a sentiment that’s grown over the past dozen years.

This anti-government feeling has driven the tea party movement, reflected in fierce protests this past week.

“The government’s been lying to people for years. Politicians make promises to get elected, and when they get elected, they don’t follow through,” says Cindy Wanto, 57, a registered Democrat from Nemacolin, Pa., who joined several thousand for a rally in Washington on April 15 — the tax filing deadline. “There’s too much government in my business. It was a problem before Obama, but he’s certainly not helping fix it.”

Majorities in the survey call Washington too big and too powerful, and say it’s interfering too much in state and local matters. The public is split over whether the government should be responsible for dealing with critical problems or scaled back to reduce its power, presumably in favor of personal responsibility.

About half say they want a smaller government with fewer services, compared with roughly 40 percent who want a bigger government providing more. The public was evenly divided on those questions long before Obama was elected. Still, a majority supported the Obama administration exerting greater control over the economy during the recession.

“Trust in government rarely gets this low,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the nonpartisan center that conducted the survey. “Some of it’s backlash against Obama. But there are a lot of other things going on.”

And, he added: “Politics has poisoned the well.”

The survey found that Obama’s policies were partly to blame for a rise in distrustful, anti-government views. In his first year in office, the president orchestrated a government takeover of Detroit automakers, secured a $787 billion stimulus package and pushed to overhaul the health care system.

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But the poll also identified a combination of factors that contributed to the electorate’s hostility: the recession that Obama inherited from President George W. Bush; a dispirited public; and anger with Congress and politicians of all political leanings.

“I want an honest government. This isn’t an honest government. It hasn’t been for some time,” said self-described independent David Willms, 54, of Sarasota, Fla. He faulted the White House and Congress under both parties.

The poll was based on four surveys done from March 11 to April 11 on landline and cell phones. The largest survey, of 2,500 adults, has a margin of sampling error of 2.5 percentage points; the others, of about 1,000 adults each, has a margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points.

In the short term, the deepening distrust is politically troubling for Obama and Democrats. Analysts say out-of-power Republicans could well benefit from the bitterness toward Washington come November, even though voters blame them, too, for partisan gridlock that hinders progress.

In a democracy built on the notion that citizens have a voice and a right to exercise it, the long-term consequences could prove to be simply unhealthy — or truly debilitating. Distrust could lead people to refuse to vote or get involved in their own communities. Apathy could set in, or worse — violence.

Democrats and Republicans both accept responsibility and fault the other party for the electorate’s lack of confidence.

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“This should be a wake-up call. Both sides are guilty,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. She pointed to “nonsense” that goes on during campaigns that leads to “promises made but not promises kept.” Still, she added: “Distrust of government is an all-American activity. It’s something we do as Americans and there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican who won a long-held Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts in January by seizing on public antagonism toward Washington, said: “It’s clear Washington is broken. There’s too much partisan bickering to be able to solve the problems people want us to solve.”

And, he added: “It’s going to be reflected in the elections this fall.”

But Matthew Dowd, a top strategist on Bush’s re-election campaign who now shuns the GOP label, says both Republicans and Democrats are missing the mark.

“What the country wants is a community solution to the problems but not necessarily a federal government solution,” Dowd said. Democrats are emphasizing the federal government, while Republicans are saying it’s about the individual; neither is emphasizing the right combination to satisfy Americans, he said.

WASHINGTON – Days away from a make-or-break vote on his health care overhaul, President Barack Obama is turning up the pressure as only presidents can, as Democratic leaders make a desperate scramble for votes.

The president is wooing freshman Democrats in the Oval Office, holding at least two one-on-one sessions in the past few days that never appeared on his official schedule, according to aides to two lawmakers invited, Reps. Scott Murphy, D-N.Y., and Suzanne Kosmas, D-Fla.

Both voted “no” when the legislation passed the House on the first go-round last year, but now they’re not ruling out siding with the president and Democratic leaders on what’s expected to be a cliffhanger vote in the House later this week.

RELATED: Obama Reveals His Own Health Care Plan

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Another lawmaker who opposed the legislation last year, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, flew with Obama on Air Force One to an Obama appearance in Kucinich’s district Monday. Kucinich, was against the bill because he wants a larger government role in health care, also is not ruling out voting “yes” this time.

With a number of anti-abortion Democrats expected to defect over provisions they contend allow federal funding of abortion, every vote will count for Democratic leaders, who need to win over lawmakers who opposed the legislation the first time — and keep reluctant supporters on board in the face of escalating attacks. Sweetening the pot, those who vote with the president may get more help from him in the future: Party officials said that in determining how to allocate Obama’s time for campaign stops or other events, a vote on something like health care would be a consideration.

House Democrats triggered the countdown Monday for the climactic vote, with the House Budget Committee agreeing 21-16 to fast-track rules for the health bill, a necessary first step before floor action. Even so, the legislation remained incomplete. House Democrats caucused Monday evening, and a number of rank-and-file lawmakers straggled out discouraged that they still didn’t have final legislative language or a cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

Leaders hope to get both those things Tuesday. Until then there’s only so much they can do to pin down wavering lawmakers who will soon be asked to make one of the riskiest votes of their careers.

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“There’s no decision yet on what the process is going to be, there’s nothing back from the CBO, there’s no commitment yet from the Senate that they can get 51 votes, and there’s no bill to show me what it’s in it,” said Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., a freshman who voted “yes” last year and has been targeted by Republicans. “So until those things get resolved I’m staying uncommitted.”

Democratic leaders sounded notes of optimism anyway.

“When we bring the bill to the floor, then we will have the votes,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Obama said in an interview with ABC News: “I believe we’re going to get the votes. We’re going to make this happen.”

In order to avoid a Republican filibuster in the Senate, the House will be voting to approve the Senate’s health overhaul bill, along with a package of fixes to change things House Democrats didn’t like, such as a tax on high-value insurance plans. That fix-it package can pass the Senate with a simple majority, a necessary approach because Republicans are unanimously opposed and Democrats control only 59 Senate votes, one short of the 60 needed to block a filibuster.

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A complicated procedure is being contemplated for the House floor, too, one that would shield lawmakers from having to vote directly on the Senate bill, allowing them to instead approve a rule for debate that would deem the Senate bill passed once the fix-it bill has passed.

Outside interests on both sides turned up the heat.

Union groups and other supporters announced a $1.3 million advertising campaign urging 17 House Democrats to vote for the measure, and officials at the Service Employees International Union threatened to withdraw support from Democrats who vote against the bill.

The National Right to Life Committee, which opposes abortions, wrote to lawmakers that support for the Senate bill would be a “career-defining pro-abortion vote.” Although House leaders hope to get the votes they need without changing the abortion language, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Monday that he’d spoken during the day with Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., leader of a group of anti-abortion Democrats, and would continue their conversations.

It was more than a year ago that Obama asked Congress to approve legislation extending health coverage to tens of millions who lack it, curbing industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and beginning to slow the growth of health care costs nationally.

Sweeping legislation seemed to be on the brink of passage in January, after both houses approved bills and lawmakers began working out a final compromise. But those efforts were sidetracked when Republicans won a special election in Massachusetts — and with it, the ability to block a vote on a final bill in the Senate.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, eager to sign a health care overhaul bill into law, on Saturday highlighted some of the changes that would come in the first year and permanently ban “the worst practices of the insurance industry.”

Obama acknowledged it would take several years — until 2014 in some instances — for some of the changes to be fully implemented, and that has disappointed consumers and their advocates. He used his weekly radio and Internet address to play up the brighter side of the overhaul he hopes to sign in time for his first State of the Unionaddress to a joint session of Congress in a matter of weeks.

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“Now, it’ll take a few years to fully implement these reforms in a responsible way,” the president said. “But what every American should know is that once I sign health insurance reform into law, there are dozens of protections and benefits that will take effect this year.”

RELATED: Senate Passes Landmark Health Care Bill

Among them, Obama said:

_People with pre-existing illnesses or conditions will be able to buyaffordable health insurance.

_Children with such conditions will no longer be denied coverage.

_Small-business owners who can’t afford to cover their employees will get tax credits to help them do so.

_Insurance companies will be required to offer free preventive care to their customers and will be prohibited from dropping coverage when someone becomes ill.

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“In short, once I sign health insurance reform into law, doctors and patients will have more control over theirhealth care decisions and insurance company bureaucrats will have less,” Obama said. “All told, these changes represent the most sweeping reforms and toughest restrictions on insurance companies that this country has ever known.”

House and Senate versions of the overhaul would require nearly all Americans to get coverage and provide subsidies for many who can’t afford the cost, but they differ on the details. Among the remaining sticking points are whom to tax, how many people to cover, how to restrict taxpayer funding for abortion and whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to use their own money to buy coverage in new insurance markets.

Obama had several meetings with Democratic lawmakers at the White House this week to help resolve those differences. In one instance, he signaled to House Democratic leaders that they must drop their opposition to taxing high-end insurance plans to pay to extend coverage to millions of uninsured people. The tax, which is in the Senate bill, is largely opposed by House Democrats and organized labor.

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Obama and lawmakers also agreed to bypass formal negotiations as they reach for a deal.

Republican lawmakers, saying the bills cost too much and impose too much government control, are near unanimous in opposing the legislation.

WASHINGTON – House Democrats aren’t optimistic that a government insurance plan, a central element of health care legislation passed in their chamber, will survive negotiations with the Senate.

While insisting “it’s not dead,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said Sunday he recognizes realities in the Senate, where Democrats had to scrape up every vote from their side to pass a bill — even one without a government plan to compete in the private insurance marketplace.

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“Before the House was to give up the public option, we would want to be persuaded that there are other mechanisms in whatever bill comes out that will keep down premiums,” said Van Hollen. “We’ve got to make sure that the final product is affordable.”

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House and one who had appealed to President Barack Obama not to yield on the public plan, set out conditions for yielding himself.

RELATED: Senate Passes Landmark Health Care Bill

“We want a public option to do basically three things: Create more choice for insurers, create more competition for insurance companies, and to contain costs,” Clyburn said. “So if we can come up with a process by which these three things can be done, then I’m all for it. Whether or not we label it a public option or not is of no consequence.”

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., underscored the divisions Democrats will need to bridge when negotiators from the House and Senate meet next month to reconcile the two bills. He said there will need to be more give on the House side than the Senate, which took weeks to find the 60 votes needed for passage.

“If we are going to have a final law, it will look a lot more like the Senate version than the House version,” Menendez asserted.

The Senate’s Christmas Eve achievement brought the nation closer than it’s been for generations to a new order in health insurance. It would eventually require nearly all Americans to get coverage, help many pay for it and restrict onerous insurance company practicessuch as denying coverage to people with pre-existing sickness.

But nothing will change for anyone until the House and Senate can settle on common legislation, pass it and send it to Obama to sign.

RELATED: Reid Compares Health Care Reform To Slaves’ Freedom

The high stakes have both parties hoping they can find a few converts from the other side. Nearly every Republican in Congress has opposed the measures.

“If some of the Republicans would come forward with suggestions — offer a vote or two, or three or four — to take away the need to have every last one of the 60 Democrats, you’d have a much better bill in accordance with the tradition of the Congress, especially the Senate, on bipartisanship,” said Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, himself a party switcher.

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina voiced similar hope, to opposite ends: “a few Democrats to stand up in the House that maybe didn’t before and help us stop this thing.”

DeMint, Van Hollen, Menendez and Specter spoke on “Fox News Sunday.” Clyburn was on CBS’ “Face the Nation” and CNN’s “State of the Union.”

From Newser.com:

Though Michelle Obama has taken on junk food rather than Republicans during her first year in the White House, the first lady is popular—so much so that tongues are already wagging at the Hill about how useful a weapon she’ll be in the Democrats’ 2010 arsenal. Obama is “obviously comfortable doing the campaigning,” says Laura Bush’s former chief of staff, noting that her first lady spent only 10% of her time campaigning during the 2002 midterm elections—but a heftier 40% in 2006.

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Democratic officials say Sen. Ben Nelson intends to support health care legislation backed by President Barack Obama, giving the measure a 60th and decisive vote.

These officials say the Nebraska Democrat will make an announcement later Saturday. Marathon negotiations with the White House and Senate Democratic leaders produced fresh concessions that will mean additional abortion restrictions in the legislation.

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The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Nelson hadn’t announced his decision.

Word of Nelson’s decision came as Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada unveiled a final series of revisions to the health care bill, and Republicans dug in to prevent its passage for as long as possible.

RELATED: Reid Compares Health Care Reform To Slaves’ Freedom