The two party caucuses (Democratic, Republican) are very different thing from the voluntary caucuses that form to organize on specific themes or issues. It's not a meaningless label in either case, but its meaning is different: With the party caucuses, the meaning lies in who party you choose to have majority and control of the body's rules; with the other caucuses, membership indicates someone's legislative priorities, the things they don't merely support, but also focus their energy on working towards.
> The gamble is that it comes out with healthcare-Stupak and that you don't have to trade off something else.
No, that's what you don't get: It's not the gamble you think it is. Voting for the bill doesn't prevent them from voting no on it later if it still has the Stupak language. But if they'd voted no on it, that would've been a huge gamble: that the bill fails in the House and then the only option they get is whatever comes from the Senate - and from the Senate when it feels no pressure from the House, at that.
You keep talking about the public option without seeming to realize that if the pro-choice House members had voted no on the House bill, that would have absolutely, without a doubt, completely killed any chance of anything resembling a public option.
Voting yes, on the other hand, while distasteful, was a very small risk. It meant keeping the House bill alive, pressuring the Senate to do better, making a conference committee possible to improve on whatever the Senate passes. It preserved multiple opportunities to stop the Stupak language, or to vote down the whole thing at the end if it still contained that language.
Coakley didn't get it. And I think you still don't get it. Coakley will hopefully learn once she gets into the job, but if we'd had a bunch of Coakleys in the House, as she were, when those votes happened, we wouldn't have a chance at decent health care reform.
Bottom line: Voting yes on the House bill was not a gamble, it was the unequivocally correct vote for anyone who supports a public option or decent health care reform, regardless of their position on choice. This is *not* a matter of who's stronger on women's rights. Coakley is NOT stronger on women's rights. She's just less clueful about how to get the things she wants in a legislature.
Re: I like Capuano but
> The gamble is that it comes out with healthcare-Stupak and that you don't have to trade off something else.
No, that's what you don't get: It's not the gamble you think it is. Voting for the bill doesn't prevent them from voting no on it later if it still has the Stupak language. But if they'd voted no on it, that would've been a huge gamble: that the bill fails in the House and then the only option they get is whatever comes from the Senate - and from the Senate when it feels no pressure from the House, at that.
You keep talking about the public option without seeming to realize that if the pro-choice House members had voted no on the House bill, that would have absolutely, without a doubt, completely killed any chance of anything resembling a public option.
Voting yes, on the other hand, while distasteful, was a very small risk. It meant keeping the House bill alive, pressuring the Senate to do better, making a conference committee possible to improve on whatever the Senate passes. It preserved multiple opportunities to stop the Stupak language, or to vote down the whole thing at the end if it still contained that language.
Coakley didn't get it. And I think you still don't get it. Coakley will hopefully learn once she gets into the job, but if we'd had a bunch of Coakleys in the House, as she were, when those votes happened, we wouldn't have a chance at decent health care reform.
Bottom line: Voting yes on the House bill was not a gamble, it was the unequivocally correct vote for anyone who supports a public option or decent health care reform, regardless of their position on choice. This is *not* a matter of who's stronger on women's rights. Coakley is NOT stronger on women's rights. She's just less clueful about how to get the things she wants in a legislature.