As I describe in a new Huffington Post story, Republicans are looking to "Blue Dog" Democrats to block true healthcare reform (with a public option).
Co-chair of the Pro-life [or anti-choice] Caucus in Congress, Bart Stupak, is the point man in the apparent strategy. And, Stupak is a long-time member of the mainly-Republican radical free-market, union-busting theocratic Washington fundamentalist group known as "The Family," which runs the "C Street House", registered as a church, where Bart Stupak has enjoyed Christian fellowship and cheap rent for years.
Stupak's former "C Street" housemate Senator James DeMint (R-SC) has vowed to make the fight against health care reform President Barack Obama's "Waterloo".
At a "townhall" event on health care held during the Family Research Council Action's Voter Values Summit last week, House Republican Chris Smith (R-NJ) agreed with an audience member that "pro-life" (or "anti-choice" as it were) Democrats in Congress constituted the most significant roadblock to healthcare reform legislation. Leading the pro-life Democrats in Congress is Bart Stupak.
Blue Dog Democrats in Congress played a "magnificent" role in blocking health care reform during the Clinton administration and now, under the "courageous" and "smart" leadership of House Pro-Life Caucus leader and Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, and with the support and prayers of Republicans categorically opposed to the Democratic Party's health care reform effort, the Blue Dogs may be able to do it again.
That's what Stupak's caucus co-chair Chris Smith (R-NJ) told his audience [see video, below]. Another Republican at the event, Tom Price (R-GA), suggested that lockstep GOP opposition to health care reform affords the Blue Dogs "an opportunity to show some backbone" and "stand up to their leadership to say 'no more will we allow this travesty to go on.'"
During Family Research Council Action's over-one hour "townhall" event on health care, featuring a panel of three GOP house representatives that included Smith, Price, and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn), an audience member addressed Representative Smith:
It's been said that the main roadblock to this legislation in the House are the Blue Dog Democrats. I actually happen to think it's the pro-life Democrats. And I'm just wondering - I also read on a pro-life blog not long ago -- that Steny Hoyer was apoplectically reaming the pro-life Democrats after a vote sometime ago.
I'm just wondering -- are you all confident that the pro-life Democrats are not going to have their arms twisted by Nancy Pelosi and that they are going to not waver from this and, more specifically, what are you all as Republicans doing to voice solidarity with them -- because I think if there's any group in the Congress right now that needs our prayers it's those courageous pro-life Democrats.
In response Representative Smith gushed:
[Bart Stupak] has been absolutely valiant and brave and courageous, and very smart.... the pro-life Democrats, and there are fewer now then when we went through this trial with HillaryCare, and they too, during that difficult time, were magnificent - standing there with an amendment saying that, 'we will not be part of the greatest expansion of abortion in United States history since Roe vs. Wade.' So Bart Stupak, and people like Jim Oberstar from Minnesota, and others, have signed letters to the speaker and to the president saying that they will not vote for ObamaCare unless all the pro-life problems, the pro-abortion problems, have been rectified.
[read full story, at the Huffington Post]