On January 12th Mike Stark from firedoglake caught up with Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D) in Washington for a short interview on the prospects for the Health Care Reform bill:

Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D): ….Two components of, of the bill that I do have appreciation for that I would other, otherwise find complete disdain in, uh, embracing. One, is that we have, uh, a, uh, a stop or a halt to the, uh, pre-existing conditions at, you know, we get rid of that. And the secondly, we get thirty million more Americans able to, uh, secure health care.

Mike Stark: Something.

Representative Cleaver: Yes, something, something better than they, than they had previously.

Mike Stark: I don’t want people to get the wrong idea, so before you go, right now the bill’s a non starter with you?

Representative Cleaver: I don’t think that, I don’t think this bill is gonna go anywhere and, uh [crosstalk]…

Mike Stark: What has to be corrected in the senate bill in order to get the progressives on board over there?

Representative Cleaver: Yes. I don’t think there’s any question. And, uh…

Mike Stark: Specifically, what has to change [crosstalk] in that bill?

Representative Cleaver: Well, we, uh, uh, the Congressional Black Caucus, of which I’m a member, Vice President, just sent a letter to the President, uh, restating our commitment to the, to the public option. I’m actually a, um, recovering, although I’m, my, recovery is not, is not complete, uh, single payer, uh, member. So, uh, I’ve already compromised, uh, by moving to the public option. So, uh, I think, uh, in spite of the fact that the news media is proclaiming this bill, uh, approved I, I, I’m not in a, uh, position, based on everybody I’ve spoken with,  to, uh, agree with them.

Mike Stark: You think it’s in trouble right now?

Representative Cleaver: I, I do think it’s in trouble.

Mike Stark: Uh, before I let you go…

Representative Cleaver: But I think ultimately we, we, we’re gonna get something. I think what’s, what, what comes out may, may be disapproved and then in thirty days we may bring something else, uh, forth because we’ve never been this close before. Uh, but it may take a no vote, um, in order to get people back on board.

Mike Stark: Before I let you go, uh, usually politicians get nothing but, you know, vituperative bile and you’re always screamed at and all the rest. A lot of my readers and a lot of our, the people that follow what we’re doing, uh, wanted me to expressly thank you folks for standing up and doing the right thing in fighting for decent health care. So, to all the people on the progressive side that are concerned about keeping the Democratic majority and getting good health care bill passed, well, thanks.

Representative Cleaver: Well, that’s reason to, uh, think that we can enter, uh, two thousand ten optimistically. Thanks.

Mike Stark: Take care….

That’s how you keep fighting the good fight.

The excellent FireDogLake is doing a little online fundraiser for Emmanuel Cleaver and 7 other Democrats for standing strong for a public option. Cleaver committed to voting against any bill that did not contain a strong public option. As Jane Hamsher writes, we can’t just express anger when we disagree with our representatives. We have to support those who stand up for us.

Check it out:

These members are committed to a real, meaningful public option.  And if we can get 32 more, we can keep any health care bill from passing that doesn’t have one.

It can’t be all stick, no carrot.

Our page is already #3 on the front page of ActBlue, and we want to get to #1 so people can see we’re willing to support members of Congress who support health care.   And  ActBlue calculates ranking based on number of donations, not size of donations.  So $1 each — $8 to 8 candidates — will really help us get there.

Let’s show these members of Congress that we support them, that we are there for them, and that we will remember that they took a courageous stand to insist that health care for all Americans should be a basic human right.

Please give $8 for 8 to Health Care Heroes.

I got the following e-mail from Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake with some good advice:

Dear Clark,

The House passed a version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) last week that included retroactive immunity to the telecom companies that conspired in Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. And now, as the bill heads to the Senate, it looks like we have one last chance to stop this massive erosion of the rule of law.

Thankfully, we have a few champions, like Russ Feingold and Chris Dodd, who look poised to fight this to the very end, but they can’t do it alone. They need both strong support from progressive senators and the vote of those senators currently sitting on the fence. This is where you come in.

Sen. McCaskill could be the deciding voice and vote on stopping retroactive immunity. Please take a minute right now to give her a call and ask her to strip the retroactive immunity provision of FISA.

You can call either by dialing the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or by using our list of direct number for target senators.

After you are done with the call, please take a moment to let us know how the call went.

Senator Feingold effectively summed up the insanity of retroactive immunity yesterday by saying, “It doesn’t simply have the impact of potentially allowing telephone companies to break the law. It may prevent us from ever getting to the core issue…which is the president ran an illegal program that could’ve been an impeachable offense.”

I hope that you’ll join me and do what you can to help prevent this from happening.

Thank you,

Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake