Democratic campaign ad, 2010

Here is a campaign ad which the Democrats can run against any and every Republican candidate next year:

Where were you when Obama offered the GOP just about everything the Republicans said they wanted? When he gave them what they wanted on tort reform, abortion, immigrants, deficit spending, tax increases on middle class, “death panels”, forcing people to buy insurance even when costs come to 13 percent of annual income, banning cuts in Medicare benefits, coops governed by members rather than the government, coops not government sponsored, coops without guaranteed government subsidy beyond a certain date; small business tax credits; allowing private insurers to sell across state lines; McCain’s catastrophic health care plan; state-level coops which insurers would be able to crush easily…Where were you when your leaders rejected everything on the table? Where were you when your “leaders” said “no” to an independent insurance board, to single payer, to mandating employer participation, no to health care information technology, to comparative effectiveness research, to eliminating overpayments to insurers? When they said “no” to the public option, and then to the trigger option, and then to coops?

Why didn’t you step forward, speak up, and lead? Obama waited for ANY Republican to come forward and negotiate a health reform bill – where were you?

Where were you when your GOP “leaders” were spewing lies about birth certificates, about Sotomayor, about the stimulus, about torture? When your field generals were hollering that Obama will kill seniors, kill our troops, kill Republicans, promote suicide, let people go blind, invade your home and decide how to raise your kids, impose martial law? Why didn’t you have the guts to speak out against the lies?
Where were you when your “spontaneous” goon squads were sending armed thugs to Obama events, launching violent attacks, shouting down all real debate, committing acts of vandalism, painting swastikas on the doors of black Congressmen, making death threats, joking about killing Democrats, screeching insults during a Presidential address to Congress? Why didn’t you have the guts to speak out against these tactics?

Where were you when your GOP colleagues were bragging about blocking all reform, admitting that the compromise effort is a joke, promising to oppose any bill regardless of content, trying to rewrite Senate rules to block reform, offering poison-pill amendments? Why didn’t you denounce this pattern of obstruction?

Where were you when the people who hope to run for President – Perry, Palin, Huckabee, Pawlenty – evinced not only a hatred of their country but also a staggering ignorance of the Constitution, in insisting that health reform violates the Constitution (wrong – see Article 1 Section 8) and that states should nullify whatever Obama does, or even secede? Why didn’t you speak out?

You now condemn budget reconciliation – where were you when Bush used it?
You now condemn the Obama plan – why is that the only plan you ever put forward was either completely impractical, or a mirror of Obama’s exchange system?
You now condemn death panels – where were you when the original authors of the plan – Republicans – proposed the language you’re now criticizing?
You now condemn massive government spending – where were you when Bush launched one massive program after another, all of which were funded by…debts which our grandkids will be paying off?
You now condemn the public option – where were you when the American people said in poll after poll that they want it?

You say you’re a leader – so where were you, when it was time to lead? There was a gigantic national battle last year, and you ran away from the battlefield just when we needed leaders. And now you want to lead us in Congress?