SHE WON'T GO!
***Call Ben Chandler now — 202.225.4706 — before he votes a third time with Republicans against women’s rights***
On Wednesday evening as the House of Representatives wound down their debate on repealing the Health Care law, Kentucky Democrats of the 6th District gathered for a routine meeting.
At approximately the same time Congressman Ben Chandler was making his vote on the Republican bill, local Party activists were in deep discussion about their Washington representative.
Several of these dedicated members were expressing frustration with Chandler, talking about how hard it is to get people to vote and volunteer for a candidate who so routinely acts like a Republican.
Ben ultimately voted against repeal, but even before his voters and beleaugered supporters could rejoice in his apostasy and congratulate him… the Congressman released a statement:
“I voted against the healthcare reform legislation last year and want to repeal many parts of this new law.”
And the morning after the House aimlessly passed the Repeal bill, Ben Chandler set about the hard work of joining his colleauges in the Republican Party in their mission to peck the law to death, repealing it one little bit at a time until it’s rendered useless.
With a vote of 253 to 175, the House of Representatives passed the “REPEAL AND REPLACE” bill.
The bill orders four House committees to immediately begin work on producing a new health care bill which would “replace” the current law, going through the bill and tearing out its guts.
Fourteen Democrats voted with Republicans on the “instructing resolution.”
And of course, Ben Chandler was one of them.
The irony (or is it brilliance!) of Ben’s “replacement” vote is that it will fail to achieve the ends he intends.
In the lead up to last year’s Health Care vote, Ben routinely (when forced) explained that he couldn’t say how he’d vote because he was still “studying” the bill.
After the Law was passed, Ben explained (when forced) that he’d voted against it because a) it didn’t go far enough and b) it went too far.
His strategy was to send one message to Democrats (that he wanted more robust reform!) and another to Republicans (they’re cramming government control down our throats!).
In the lead up to Wednesday’s Repeal vote, Ben said nothing. Afterwards he again retreated to his mealy-mouthed “position” — he would not repeal the good parts but he would work his tail off to repeal the rest of it.
Problem is, Ben Chandler has never said which parts he considers “good” and which parts are “bad.”
He routinely avoids taking any stance on the subject and routinely (more often than not) ends up voting the Republican Party line.
So on Wednesday he voted against Repeal to silence his Democratic critics and on Thursday he woke up and voted with the unanimous Republican majority to “Replace.”
His only hope is that you did not notice.
It’s a dumb strategy because the voters he’s really trying to ameliorate already turned out in force to throw him out of office this past November… and they are already being rallied and fired up to destroy him again now, thanks to his anti-Repeal vote (“Blue Dogs on Notice for 2012“).
What Ben Chandler seems incapable of understanding is that this voting bloc — Republican stalwarts, Tea Party activists — don’t care about his “Replace” vote. They want him out of office. He can pander to them all he wants, but two-thirds of his fellow Democrats who last year tried this same strategy are no longer in office. The Right Wing thanked them for their Republican complicity and threw them out on their asses. Same thing here.
The Republican Party has already told us their intentions for this forced Health Care debate. They put forth Repeal knowing it will never happen and now they will drag out through Committee and again and again across the House floor bill after bill after bill to “Replace” the current law — that is, to repeal it by a thousand little cuts.
House Republicans are in no hurry to come up with alternatives to health care reform. Instead, they plan to hold hearing after hearing about problems with what they dub “ObamaCare.”
And Ben Chandler is playing along, voting with them and, again, abandoning the Democratic Party and his core constituents.
The Republicans want to drag this out into 2012 and Ben Chandler is helping them… apparently unaware or unwilling to see that it is this very strategy which will ultimately, they hope, defeat him.
Meanwhile, the good Democrats who surround Chandler and work for him and campaign for him and argue on his behalf are, again, left with little to defend and nothing to motivate their friends and neighbors to a cause that could be good but, obviously, is not.
***Call Ben Chandler now — 202.225.4706 — before he votes a third time with Republicans against women’s rights***
KentuckyElection.org
BONNIE PRINCE BILLY
