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Grayson Targets Snowe: She Wasn't Elected President Last Year
Sen. Olympia Snow (R-ME) and Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL)
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Rep. Alan Grayson, garnering national attention recently for blasting Republicans on health care, says he's collected 90,000 signatures on a petition that criticizes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Olympia Snowe.
Grayson (D-FL) has teamed up with Progressive Change Campaign Committee and at 1:30 today will deliver the petitions to Capitol Hill that tell Reid:
"Any Democratic senators who support a Republican attempt to block a vote on health care reform should be stripped of their leadership titles ... Americans deserve a clean up-or-down vote on health care," and "For the last six months, Democrats have been dwelling, debating, and hoping for Republican Olympia Snowe to vote for health care reform. Why? Olympia Snowe was not elected President last year."
Grayson charges Reid (D-NV) should "lay down the law" with conservative Democrats on health care and called out Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) for saying he wasn't sure he'd support the bill.
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lousgirl84
October 14, 2009 12:51 PM
I really really like this guy. More of him please
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mans_best_friend
October 14, 2009 12:56 PM
File this under too much of a good thing. Dial it back a little, Grayson. You're getting carried away.
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kash79
October 14, 2009 1:09 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
I agree he is all over the place all the time. How easy it is to become a liberal hero these days.
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commie atheist
October 14, 2009 1:37 PM in reply to kash79
Easy? I think you're reacting that way because no elected Democrat has ever done this before. As far as I'm concerned it's about time someone in that party showed they actually stand for something other than comity and moderate centrism.
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oleeb
October 14, 2009 1:45 PM in reply to kash79
When you're one of the very few Democrats in Congress with any balls you get noticed. Grayson ought to just be one voice in a chorus. Instead, because the Congress is filled with cowardly weakling Democrats Grayson has to go solo.
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Captain Dan
October 14, 2009 2:47 PM in reply to kash79
But is a hero to you? I like it; Rep. Alan Grayson is the darling of the intellectuals.
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Walter Mitty
October 14, 2009 1:45 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
He is drunk off the coverage tie progressive blogs are giving him. It's virtually hero worship...
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Schmed
October 14, 2009 1:49 PM in reply to Walter Mitty
It also helps that he's absolutely right.
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neesy08
October 14, 2009 2:58 PM in reply to Schmed
amen to that. they all need to be more like grayson. he has spunk.
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VictorShaw
October 14, 2009 2:41 PM in reply to Walter Mitty
So what, Walter? He is in a swing/light red district. He needs to get out in front and educate his constituents on the issues of the day. Who cares if smart politics and being strong (and right) on the issues coincide. The guy is not in it to make money (started and sold a multi-billion dollar company already and a Harvard Law grad), so I have to give Grayson the benefit of the doubt that he's doing it because he wants to serve his country. I think it's fantastic. The day he took the entire CNN panel to the woodshed was a thing of beauty! :-)
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Chris
October 14, 2009 1:33 PM
I think he's right on. Let him keep hammering them. There's no reason they should be let off the hook for this. Parties are built around consensus and if you can't hold votes together, then you're pretty useless.
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oleeb
October 14, 2009 1:39 PM
I think saying Grayson "targeted" Snowe is an exaggeration. Grayson was merely noting the idiotic extremes to which the President and other Democrats have gone to, to try and please Olympia Snowe just for the sake of claiming they have bipartisan support.
I like Grayson a lot. He is honest and that is what upsets the cowardly and very dishonest Democratic mainstream in Washington DC. So I say: let's have more of that! Hopefully, others in Congress will join Grayson and emulate him.
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commie atheist
October 14, 2009 1:40 PM
To everyone who thinks that Grayson should "dial it back:" Is there anything that he's saying that you disagree with? Or is it just that you consider it unseemly for a progressive to make as much noise for what he believes in as the typical conservative politician does? If it's the latter, please explain why.
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mans_best_friend
October 14, 2009 2:06 PM in reply to commie atheist
Yes.
"Olympia Snowe was not elected President last year."
How, exactly, does this move the debate forward. Calling out people for being obstructionist is one thing. Rapping those who you're trying to work with is not constructive.
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commie atheist
October 14, 2009 2:33 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
For months, Democrats have been watering down the health care bill in the hopes that Olympia Snowe, in her great wisdom, would vote for it. Why? There are 60 Democrats in the Senate. If party discipline were enforced, it wouldn't matter what Snowe or any Republican thought about the bill. Grayson is saying out loud exactly what I've been thinking, and I salute him for it.
And if you seriously think that Snowe, or any Republican, is "trying to work with" Democrats to pass effective health care reform, then I want some of what you're smoking, Goofy.
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gaarvark
October 14, 2009 3:20 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
I think Grayson's comments are more directed at the Democratic leadership more than Snowe per se.
However, constructive is a relative term. If you're opposed to a public option, then Snowe's involvement is constructive. If you support a public option as I do, then Snowe's involvement is not.
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Gopherit
October 14, 2009 5:07 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
How exactly does ineffectual swipes at bipartisanship help? The majority of republicans in the senate have made it clear they plan to be speedbumps on the road to heath care reform. That Snowe is willing to both vote her conscience and in accordance with her constituency instead of along party lines isn't laudible.
Go get'em Grayson.
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oleeb
October 14, 2009 5:48 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
So it's a matter of taste and not of fact that you object to because he was pointing out a fact: she wasn't elected President. Grayson, by the way, is not working with Senator Snowe and I'd hardly say she is working with our side. She's trying to scuttle any public option. Some friend.
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superfly
October 14, 2009 1:40 PM
The problem isn't so much him, it's that he's the only one saying it. If the same message was coming from other Reps and Senators as well, then Grayson wouldn't seem over-exposed.
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Icarus
October 14, 2009 1:59 PM
Alan Grayson is so refreshing.
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melior
October 14, 2009 2:13 PM
Cue pearl-clutching by Conservadems over how "shrill" Grayson is behaving...
Why, he and the rest of that Liberal Wing of the Democratic Party should just sit down and shut up about the silly old public option, or it will be all their fault for forcing the Blue Dogs to filibuster their own Party's bill. Can't Grayson see that Rahm has everything under control, and if he doesn't mess it up by insisting on biting the hand that feeds them then everyone will get political cover to keep the Health Insurance industry payoff money! /concern trolls
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Tanjaoui
October 14, 2009 2:21 PM
He's great. We need more like him!
And I want that pin-stripe suit. Is it purple?
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Tanjaoui
October 14, 2009 2:41 PM
Just to make sure: is the reason they're being so solicitous that they need her vote to avoid a filibuster in case Lieberman joins the Repuglicans on that? He's perfectly capable of that, unprincipled creep that he is.
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rbe1
October 14, 2009 2:41 PM
At last, two dems with a set: Grayson and Pelosi.
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runfastandwin
October 14, 2009 3:29 PM
We need more like him. Stand up for what you believe and people will follow. No one want to make a decision, they would rather have it made for them.
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salame
October 14, 2009 4:35 PM
OK - so, we have a coup and make Grayson King of the Senate. He pushes
through all of the prez's agenda, by decree, and then abdicates in
2010 in time to run for re-election in Orlando.
Voila! Job done, Harry and Chuck are relieved of having to do any heavy
lifting or anything that may be controversial, wingers dropping like
flies of the vapors, job done.
Then I woke up to Chuck's, "Now, it's Harry Reids job to get the reform
done".
Oh, the humanity.
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Cath
October 14, 2009 4:49 PM
I like Grayson. Don't trust him entirely, but admire his spirit and wish there were more like him in the House and Senate. I don't believe that his comments about Snowe are personal, but they ARE true. She wasn't elected president last year. Why should a Republican Senator from Maine, a state with just 1.3 million citizens, dominate the health care reform issue? Why do Democrats seem to cower in the face of all this? I know some of them are in precarious seats, but it's about time the Democratic Party stood for something, even if they have to take some heat. I will no longer support a party that's Republican-Lite.
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Gopherit
October 14, 2009 5:09 PM in reply to Cath
Yeah....but who really ever trusts a politician? As long as he's walking the walk to keep the Dem leadership honest to their party, I am a major fan of his.
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Tanjaoui
October 14, 2009 6:24 PM in reply to Cath
Those from precarious seats now have perfect cover in voting for a strong, national medicare-like public option with an opt-out clause. So they opt out. Or they stay in and individuals can fight it out with the private insurers of their choice: all 2 of them. Honestly, there's no excuse. Put the public option in the bill, Harry.
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