• About
  • The Poetry of Protest

Show Me Progress

~ covering government and politics in Missouri – since 2007

Show Me Progress

Tag Archives: Robin Carnhan

Uh, Claire, you got to dance with them what brung you

22 Friday Jan 2010

Posted by Michael Bersin in Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Claire McCaskill, Democratic Club, health care reform, Ike Skelton, Johnson County, missouri, resolution, Robin Carnhan

Previously:

Not really. They forgot about Joe, Evan, Ben, and Mary

Claire Never Fails to Disappoint, Does She?

The Johnson County, Missouri Democratic Club meets monthly on Thursday evenings in downtown Warrensburg. The membership of the club includes Democratic Party activists and a significant number of the members of the Johnson County Democratic Central Committee. A motion addressing health care reform, and specifically, Senator Claire McCaskill’s (D) recent statement, in the aftermath of the Massachusetts special senate election was offered under new business by a member of the club and central committee.

The monthly meeting of the Johnson County Democratic Club in Warrensburg, Missouri.

The motion:

January 21, 2010

We, the members of the Johnson County Democratic Club, are disappointed by the recent statement Senator Claire McCaskill made after the special senate election in Massachusetts.  We are especially disappointed in the following:

As I said to somebody last night:, everybody needs to get the Washington wax out of their ears and listen and pay attention that people out there believe that we are going too far, too fast. (January 20, 2010)

 

Actually, the results Massachusetts indicate that by not passing health care reform and proposing a watered-down version the Democratic-controlled Congress has not gone far enough and has gotten there much too slowly.

First, polls show that a majority of voters for the winning Republican candidate support a single payer option.  

More importantly, voting patterns reveal that the strongest areas of support for President Obama in Massachusetts had a turnout lower than the statewide average.  In other words, the results in Massachusetts suggest that Democrats did not vote in necessary numbers because the democratic-controlled Congress has not gone fast enough and far enough in enacting the agenda we elected them to pass.

We, the members of the Democratic Club of Johnson County, worked last year for health care reform and regulation of our financial institutions and government support for working people.  

If our elected officials do not feel that the Democratic agenda is worth fighting for after the loss in one special election, we will surely lose in November.  

We, the members of the Johnson County Democratic Club, call on our elected officials in Washington, Senator McCaskill and Representative Skelton to remember that they are Democrats first and enact the agenda we all fought for in 2008.

If they fight for us in Washington now, we promise we will fight for them in Johnson County in 2010 and 2012.

There were approximately forty individuals in attendance. These are the local people who go door to door, make the phone calls, make the literature drops, register new Democratic Party voters (in large numbers), and write the campaign contribution checks. These are also some of the people who know people without insurance or have family members without access to affordable health care or who are without access to affordable health care themselves. And they didn’t just work their tails off in 2008. These are the people who are and were the lead volunteers who do and did the heavy lifting in 2004 and 2006, too.

After extensive discussion the motion passed overwhelmingly by a voice vote. There was some dissent.

The club will forward the motion to Senator Claire McCaskill, Congressman Ike Skelton (D), and Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (D).

As Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO said a while back:

…but to our friends, the leaders in every level of government who aren’t afraid to stand up for workers, well we want them to know that so long as they stand with working people the American labor movement will always, and I mean always stand with them. [applause]

And then there’s that other group. Those fair weather friends who can’t seem to decide, quite frankly, which side they’re on. I’m talkin’ about politicians who love to have our help come election time. They love to see us makin’ those door knocks, those telephone calls and passin’ stuff out on their behalf, and tellin’ all our members how they ought to jump up and down and vote for them. But then they seem to forget about us after the votes are counted. Now you know who I mean. They’ve been in the news a lot lately. They’re the ones who say that they’re all for health care reform so long as it doesn’t offend the insurance companies and the drug companies. They get those big contributions from both and then they pretend this is somehow about principle, that they just happen to be defendin’ those big companies.

They’re the same people who say that the way to pay for health care isn’t to tax the rich, it’s to tax our health care benefits. They’re the ones who lack the guts to tell the truth. That the only way that we’re ever gonna get a handle on the health care crisis is by creating a public system that puts people before profits, not the other way around. [applause]

Well…, we need to send them a special message. That is, you may have forgotten what labor, the labor movement did for you when you got elected, but, by God, we’re not gonna forget. And if you stab us in the back on the Employee Free Choice Act and health care and a bunch of other things don’t you dare, don’t you dare ask for our support next year, whenever you’re running. [applause] We need people who stand up for workers. [applause]….

Massachusetts is what happens when a very unhappy base sits on its hands come election time. It ain’t pretty.

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007

Categories

  • campaign finance
  • Claire McCaskill
  • Democratic Party News
  • Healthcare
  • Hillary Clinton
  • Interview
  • Josh Hawley
  • media criticism
  • meta
  • Missouri General Assembly
  • Missouri Governor
  • Missouri House
  • Missouri Senate
  • Resist
  • Roy Blunt
  • social media
  • Standing Rock
  • Town Hall
  • Uncategorized
  • US Senate

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blogroll

  • Balloon Juice
  • Crooks and Liars
  • Digby
  • I Spy With My Little Eye
  • Lawyers, Guns, and Money
  • No More Mister Nice Blog
  • The Great Orange Satan
  • Washington Monthly
  • Yael Abouhalkah

Donate to Show Me Progress via PayPal

Your modest support helps keep the lights on. Click on the button:

Blog Stats

  • 285,677 hits

Blog at WordPress.com.