White House Didn't Have MA-Sen Health Care Contingency Plan

I can completely understand not having a contingency plan if the Kennedy seat flipped. However, Robert Byrd is pretty frail, and he is 92. Um, I don't want to be too blunt about this, but surely the possibility of losing a Democrat might have occurred to them? I realize that WV has a Democratic governor, but we've seen how filling a seat can be kinda time-consuming. . .

Maybe this is why they brought Plouffe back?

Even surrounded by a plethora of micromanagers, maybe they were just too overwhelmed by the difficulties they were dealing with, and simply missed some important cues.

Bringing Plouffe back seems like the smart thing to do, when all the rest of your people are overwhelmed already with the mess Bush left behind.

This is ridiculous.

Reliant on the CAMPAIGN?

Listen you moron Axelrod, the reason the Obama campaign was such a wonder was that it has been a decade or more since a national Democrat last conducted a good campaign before you. YOU CANNOT ASSUME DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGNS KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING. ASSUME THEY SIT AT THE FEET OF BOB SHRUM AND PLAN ACCORDINGLY.

The fucking BLOGS had a plan faster than you.

Although I guess I shouldn't be surprised. The blogs have been right every fucking time since 2002.

They are self-imploding. For a group of supposed big league pols and strategists to take the Mass election for granted after what happened in VA and NJ is inexcusable. The whole way HCR has been handled by both Obama and the Dems in Congress has been sickening. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...

I just ran across this which suggests that the powers that be only started to understand what was going on with the voters in MA about 4 days before the election:

DNC Chairman Kaine Blasts Scott Brown for Standing with Banks, National Republicans and Against People

PR Newswire

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15

Good grief! This is an incredibly bad report. We have campaign monitoring and fund-raising from the House, the Senate and the Party. We have legislative actions progressing in the House and in the Senate. We have a president giving speeches, interviews, and the like. And we have folks running local campaigns to elect national Democrats all out there apparently on their own for most of the time.

There's no one in charge. Axelroad says the campaign didn't ask for help. Obama in interviews with George S. says Congress is in charge of legislative "stuff" and last night wants us all to avoid being in political campaign mode all of the time in the belief that we can pass legislation if we are politically "pure".

We've now discovered the reason for the complete message meltdown after the Mass election. No one put themselves in charge of the overall Democratic Party strategy. A prez was advocating for healthcare in 2009--watch Josh's video for how devastating this was. The House and the Senate were given free rein without any apparent overall strategic control--allowing Grassley and then Snowe to delay the process. And no one has been in charge since the mess--and this apparently is the reason that no strategy has been rolled out to recover the momentum on healthcare.

It's a disgrace.

Arrogant, clueless Dimocraps just don't get it. American people don't want death panels, government enticements for abortion, and mandatory transfer of wages to fatcat insurance companies. The Annointed One is a one-termer.

It's about freakin time!

"We'll have more soon from the Axelrod briefing, including the White House view of a path forward on health care now and a plan to be more aggressive highlighting Republican obstructionism."

Pretty obvious that Congressional Dems had no contingency plan either. The WH and Congressional Dems were caught flat-footed.

Couple of points here:

1.) DC has a tendency to bring out DC mentality. A piece of this mentality: MA is Democratic because Ted Kennedy was reelected ninety times in a row. This ignores what Teddy accomplished over his lifetime, both legislatively and politically. It also ignores how popular he was with independents, the plurality in Massachusetts. That Obama didn't have a plan is not the point: the Senate, the House and the White House political shop didn't have a contingency plan. That is significant.

2.) There are many ways to accomplish reform, but the most successful path is the one where the House passes the Senate bill.

Absolute political malpractice. Are you fucking kidding me? NO PLAN??? With the 60th vote at stake in the person of Martha 'What, I Should Be in Front of Fenway Pahhk?' Coakley???

This fills me with anger and despair, for what happened and for the future.

Weeferdog

WOW.

I mean, freakin WOW.

The burden is all BHO's.

Great leading. I guess because your thought of the new messiah doesn't mean you can think beyond your own hype.

Fix it pal, we don't need another round of GOPig legislation.
But then again that's what your doing now isn't it.

Sorry to read this; it seems to be yet another thing that makes this big Obama supporter surmise the President and his team are in over their heads. It's worth remembering that Clinton had the same rough go in his first year. He, too, started with a gang of new, unproven politicos. Let's hope Obama and Co can right the ship this year. (Although I'd prefer to say "left the ship," if you know what I mean).

This is all bullshit. Coakley lost because she sucked as a candidate. Entitled. Lazy. Clueless. Out of touch.

No one could have saved her.

Not with her being who she was, and the economy being the way it is.

The only lesson of Mass is "Don't nominate candidates that suck. Or learn to love losing."

The WH did everything they were asked to do.

Move ON!!

Good lord.

You people don't want a Presidential Administration, you want a frakkin' nanny. You want a whole team of damn nannies.

I've never felt an ounce for any politician, elected official or staff - but I'm as close as I've ever come to feeling it for this one... and my political cognizance goes back as far Carter getting unfairly blamed for not giving Americans happy talk pablum, Pat Schroeder crying, etc.

"The blogs knew"?

Frakkin' great... why didn't the almighty blogs get off their ass and do something about. More than likely, because it would have cut into Administration bashing time.

Jeebus... I can see it now. This must be how conservatives are made.

You're bringing all sorts of conservative strawmen to life, right before my eyes.

I just can't help commenting..... like a fly drawn to one of those bug zappers.
Why is it that no one looks beyond Coakley's campaign, or the WH and POTUS' input, and at the issues themselves? Can no one on this site imagine a reality where the people of Massachusetts chose to reject the Democratic agenda? That it wasn't just a matter of a poor campaign, the wrong spin, a lackluster candidate? That, just perhaps, the people of Massachusetts followed their beliefs, listened to their own concerns and doubts, and voted for the candidate who's campaign specifically focused on opposing the Democratic agenda?
I realize that most progressives feel that the majority of this country (myself included, of course) is filled with backwards, unwashed, gun-totin', bible-thumpin' rubes who can only spell F-O-X. Coakley made that clear, Obama has made that clear on multiple occasions, as have his slupers in the mainstream media. And, as this article and the comments make clear, progressives feel that they know best, and the only problem is selling it to the masses. Progressives simply cannot accept that many in this country (perhaps even the majority) reject the nanny state, reject ever-bigger government, and reject the gradual erosion of individual independence that progressives hold so dear. That's the take home message from this election. Continuing to ignore this fact will help re-define the political landscape come November, regardless of any slick sales pitch by Axelrod and Plouffe. As Obama himself (lowercase on the himself, by the way) once gloated, 'elections have consequences.'