Howard Dean: “Kill the Senate Health Care Bill & Start Over!”

After months of debate, infighting, and all out tom-foolery, former Democratic presidential candidate, and DNC chairman, Howard Dean thinks that we should scrap the health care bill and start over. According to Dean, all of the negotiations and deal making has water down the bill so much that what is being proposed in the Senate isn’t truly health care reform. Dean, who thinks there are good elements in the bill, believes that the current legislation being debated in the Senate (which lacks the public option) is more of the same old ish. “No one will think this is health care reform. This is not even insurance reform,” he said.

Dean, of course, has more insight into this topic than most other elected officials due to the fact that he is actually a physician.
That’s why his words are resonating so strongly in the blogospehere.
According to several sources, Dean even stated that America needs to start over in Obama’s second term. (If he gets a second term.)

Man, it’s hard to believe that after all this craziness, Congress still continues to jerk around the American people, especially young folks who will have to pay for these half-baked reforms.

Posted by:

Biko Baker

Winning the Fickle Vote

According to social scientists and political practitioners, people are less loyal to products and political parties than they were in the past…a trend that is likely to affect the next election.

Think about it…Everyone knows people who have abandoned their religion, been divorced, or changed their political affiliation. Americans today are more likely to make such important changes than ever before.

Peter Hart, Democratic pollster, found that college students are more willing to transfer schools and that 40% of Americans will change their religion at least once. Linda Lea Viken, divorce attorney, has found a clear increase in the number of divorces among the elderly, even after being married for fifty years.

So how does this affect elections? When running Howard Dean’s campaign in 2004, Joe Trippi witnessed the fickleness of Americans. After coming in third place in the Iowa caucuses, Dean lost his supporters as quickly as he gained them. According to Morris Fiorina, political science professor at Stanford University, “Obama benefited from the looser ties people have today…” (Not a surprise considering the distrust of the Bush administration.) However, “…the flip side is that he cannot count on the depth of support that a winning candidate might have had a generation ago…And, of course, if ties are looser, then change can occur faster than if the ties bind more tightly.”

After all, didn’t we learn not to trust politicians? It may not be fair to say that it’s bad to be fickle and good to be loyal. Of course, fickle isn’t exactly a positive adjective but blind allegiance isn’t something we want either. What do you think? Is it good that Americans aren’t bound to a specific politician or should we be more loyal?

Posted by:

Kiera Aaron