Ok. Help me out. Are Tiger Woods' indiscretions dalliances? Or, trysts?
Until the story broke about Tiger's tendency to stray, none of us knew much about his private life. Beautiful wife. Check. Son. Check. Pancake house waitress. Whaaaat?
As with Tiger, until recently, we knew very little about Max Baucus' private affairs.
Since, 1974, Max's handlers have carefully developed and airbrushed a squeaky clean image. Yes, he and Ann divorced early on in his career. Weathered that one. Survived a sexual harassment allegation by a former chief of staff. As time has gone along, Max, to some extent like Bill Clinton, evidently has come to believe he could do what he damned well pleases.
Sleeping around on Wanda and having a girlfriend who, until 2009, served as his staff director (in more ways than one) while married and serving in the US Senate is bad enough. But, to nominate his bed partner to be US Attorney in February 2009?
Wait a minute.
Not only bad judgment. It represents arrogance of power at its worst.
Look. Anyone who has been to Washington, DC in recent years and who was invited to the Baucus residence for social functions had to have to concluded that Melodee Haines acted in the capacity as the lady of the house. (Wanda must have been out performing community service for the mulch melee at Johnson's Nursery.)
No one said a word, at least publicly. Last year, there were whispers that something was going on. Do you really believe Max's staff was in the dark? And, that Jim Messina, of all people, didn't know?
So. There was a meeting hosted by a president in Montana yesterday. While I'm at the NN09 in Pittsburgh, I followed Facebook accounts of the ugly, ugly protests - and Charles Johnson's coverage in the Gazette left out the uglier aspects of the Tea Baggers, the white supremacists, the Obama = Hitler signs, etc & co, and the pushing and shoving that went on. (Rumor: a Tea Bagger was arrested?) Remember: these protests are not about health care....
I'd point you to the various summaries of Obama's speech in Bozeman, but better to read what he said. For me, the biggest news was that he reaffirmed his commitment to the public option, and his continued advocacy for a surtax on the wealthy (as opposed to taxing health care benefits) as a means for paying for health care reform. You'll notice that both stances differ substantially from where Baucus (apparently) stands.
By making a rare presidential visit to Montana, Barack Obama has put even more pressure on the rural state's senior senator, Max Baucus, and his panel to produce bipartisan health care legislation in just a month's time.
Given the context of this visit - the fact that Baucus' committee is essentially single-handedly holding up health care and gutting provisions that the Democratic caucus thinks crucial to reform - you can't help but think Obama's visit is intended to put pressure on Max by appealing directly to his constituents. And then there's this from the Gouras report:
For his part, Baucus doesn't appear worried that a bipartisan group of six senators has already blown through several targets for producing a Finance Committee bill. The veteran senator has told Obama that "it will be ready when it's ready" - even if that means waiting until September.
Heh. Tough words, eh?
Probably as a result of signals from the White House, which Jane Hamsher helps us interpret. The WH, through Emmanuel, is blaming Baucus for the logjam in Congress, and he and Jim Messina are being set up to take the fall if all fails, and for any untoward deals cut in Baucus committee with the health-care industry. (Wasn't it in the Indy's profile that Baucus said his whole life prepared him for this legislation? Little did he know how prescient that comment may be...)
So now Obama's in Montana playing "good cop."
Oh, and in case you want a good laugh, check out Montana GOP chair (and Missoulian!) Will Deschamps lame attempts to put forth positive policy on health care:
Deschamps said the current system does have problems, but he doesn't think the federal government ought to be the one trying to fix it. Asked what role central government should play in health care changes, Deschamps said he "didn't have a hard and fast answer."
He said the government should use other means to change health care.
"Maybe they should spend their time in the (public relations) end of it," he said. "They should promote healthy living."
Some people can afford health insurance, but choose not to buy it, he said, particularly young people who don't think they'll get sick.
"There ought to be some way to encourage them to buy health insurance without government interference," he said.
That would lower premiums for everyone else.
Uh...okay...so basically stick with the status quo. Cool.
Now that it looks like a public option is on the table - according to Jim Messina at a recent fundraiser in Missoula, he said that the president supports and is campaigning for a public option - it's time to pay attention to the details of what that public option might look like.
Jhwygirl linked to a Robert Reich blog post, in which he warned us that the insurance industry and Big Pharm, etc & co, are gearing up to kill the public option by giving Americans a watered-down and ineffectual version. To wit:
One of their proposals is to break up the public option into small pieces under multiple regional third-party administrators that would have little or no bargaining leverage. A second is to give the public option to the states where Big Pharma and Big Insurance can easily buy off legislators and officials, as they've been doing for years. A third is bind the public plan to the same rules private insurers have already wangled, thereby making it impossible for the public plan to put competitive pressure on the insurers.
Obviously, none of these types of public plans are acceptable.
Here's what we need:
We need a public plan that puts competitive pressure on private insurers to give better service to its customers. That means offering more competitive prices, and paying out claims.
We need a public plan that's good enough so that any of us can choose to purchase a public plan without sacrificing quality. That means, it shouldn't be burdened by paperwork or limited to cover only a fraction of health care providers.
We need a public plan that isn't simply a holding place for the rejects of private insurance. That is, a public plan should not be a de facto subsidy for private insurers. You know the game: they cover the healthy folks, and taxpayers pay for medical costs of those that are sick.
Bad news:
Max Baucus, Chair of Senate Finance (now exactly why does the Senate Finance Committee have so much say over health care?) hasn't shown his cards but staffers tell me he's more than happy to sign on to any one of these. But Baucus is waiting for more support from his colleagues, and none of the three proposals has emerged as the leading candidate for those who want to kill the public option without showing they're killing it.
The good news is that Ted Kennedy supports a full public option, details of his health plan were released recently. The bad news is that it looks like Olympia Snowe is gearing up to implement a "compromise" that would have a full public option kick in years from now, "but it would be triggered only if insurance companies fail to bring down healthcare costs and expand coverage in he meantime."
Not acceptable for a couple of reasons. First, we need good health care coverage yesterday, not years down the road. Second, you and I both know those kinds of triggers are gamed to favor existing institutions. Big Pharma and private insurers will win the battle of the Trigger.
Of course, we'll have to see what proposals are being batted around for a public option. Keep your eyes open, folks. We need a full public option.
(...and those of you from Montana? Apply! I think things would go much better if we ran the d*mn country, don't you think? - promoted by Jay Stevens)
Politico has a good story about Montana-boy done-good Jim Messina.
Want a staff job in Barack Obama's White House?
Pretend to be from Montana.
That's the advice from North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, whose former chief of staff Jim Messina is the director of personnel for the Obama transition team.
"Everyone should claim to be from Montana when talking to Jim. First and foremost, he's a Montanan," Dorgan said.
A couple of Montana-related bits of presidential news hit the wires in recent days.
First was the Rasmussen poll that came out a couple weeks ago that showed Obama and McCain in a dead heat in the Treasure State, 45-44%, down from a five-point Obama lead in the last Rasmussen poll. Not surprising: ol' Matt broke down the numbers from the last poll and opined that Obama's lead was largely illusory.
Singer, July 7: "So Obama probably isn't down by 7 or up by 5. Somewhere in between. That's my guess."
Nice guess.
Also be sure to check out High Country News' interview with Obama CoS and Montanan, Jim Messina. There's some interesting stuff on the Plum Creek land deal, Messina's view of politics, and the daily grind of running a multi-million dollar campaign.
Here's my favorite quote, about Obama's chances in the West:
I think Barack has an appeal to the Western independent ethic that he has on his own, that we (staff) have nothing to do with. He appeals to the can-do attitude of the West. In the primaries, he did very well in Western states. ... He speaks in a language (Western voters) can hear, speaks in a way that gets through the politics and speaks to people in a third way, not red and not blue, just change and progress. I think that's what (much of the West) is -- Westerners are not partisan. ... People ask me all the time, "Why are Democrats doing so well in Montana?" It's because we are able to speak to all Montanans about issues that are important to all, like public access to lands -- that's not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, but the fact is, Democrats are better at it than Republicans are, and it speaks to a whole bunch of people who are unaffiliated and who care deeply about it.
This is big news both for Messina and for Obama. Messina is well-known in Montana for being a demanding political manager who runs hard even when faced with a landslide victory.
And while I've seen some national sites wondering if this is a sign of a change in policy direction, it should be said that policy isn't really Messina's top concern -- nor does it appear that his role in Chicago will be policy focused.
Instead, Jim will be doing what he does best -- overseeing a massive field and political operation to win in November.
