On Welfare... or at least on discretionary and complicated cash payments to poor who jump through hoops

interesting idea. But I like the fact that they thought " holding down a full-time job" with a cash incentive of $150 a month was going to do the trick. Presumably there is already a cash incentive to having a full time job, and this would have subsidized those who already had jobs (which I'm fine with) but do absolutely nothing about creating more jobs. 

But it's very telling about what they think is at root in poverty: 25$ is not going to get anyone to attend school unless there is absolutely no good reason why they aren't in school already. It's a tiny push at the margins, implying that maybe when they designed the program they believed that the reason for truancy was just a tiny marginal preference for not going. 

Times when I agree with Nixon

It does happen

Nixon later confirmed this report of his attitudes toward social workers when he wrote in his memoirs of how he "abhorred snoopy, patronizing surveillance by social workers which made children and adults on welfare feel stigmatized and separate. The basic premise of the Family Assistance Plan was simple: what the poor need to help them rise out of poverty is money."

 From "Responding to the New Dependency: The Family Assistance Plan of  1969" by David A. Rochefort, in Critchlow & Hawley, Poverty and Public Policy in Modern America, p.293.

The FAP, however, was woefully deficient (total of $2,000 a year for a family of four in 1970) and would have set a dangerous precedent, requiring recipients to accept jobs below the minimum wage. Leftist dilemma: take the deal and establish the principle that the federal government should provide all families with a basic level of income, but greatly undermining a core pillar of working class security, or reject the deal and risk losing the best and last opportunity for expanding and securing the direct welfare component of the welfare state.

I am more and more inclined to think that policy can be changed, but that principles establish parameters for political mobilization and for policy construction that are much more enduring.

Incentivizing the status quo

I think that Lamar Alexander revealed quite a bit when talking to the NY Times, both as to the broader Republican strategy and in regards to the incentives in favor of the status quo on an issue such as health care.

Mr. Alexander said Democrats would soon find themselves saddled with blame by Americans whenever they ran into a problem with an insurance company, even though Democrats have made a point of criticizing the insurance industry in the debate and asserting that without legislation the nation faced never-ending increases in premiums that would make health coverage less and less affordable.
“Insurance premiums are going to go up normally, and millions of Americans are going to experience higher premiums,” Mr. Alexander said. “All this is going to be coming, and the health care bill is going to get blamed for a lot of it.”

Alexander is almost certainly right in this. This was noted by Jonathan Bernstein as well: from now on, anything that happens in health care will be attributed to the Democrats and this bill. And given that a lot of the big-news items in health care are bad news (premium hikes especially), there will be ample fodder for Republican attacks.

This points to the broader incentives in favor of the status quo. The primary incentive for this bill, or more precisely, the incentive that was seen as being sell-able to the centrists Dems, independents, and maybe even some Republicans, was a potential future:* health care entitlements pushing out all other spending and leading to an unsustainable debt, premium hikes as costs increased well above inflation, leading healthy people to drop out of the system leading to more premium hikes, etc. That future remains, despite passage of this bill, plausible. It is less likely, and has gone from a near-certainty to one among many potential outcomes. But the judgements against this bill will likely be driven by a diachronic comparison between before the bill and after the bill, rather than between an actual trajectory and an avoided trajectory.

And given that in terms of cost control this bill is likely going to make things less worse less fast, rather than making things better in the short-term, this is not a particularly rosy comparison. It is the wrong comparison to make, but it is an intuitive one, and one that I expect we'll be seeing a lot of.

Surprisingly helpful GOP banner ad

Was wondering what time the vote was going to be today. Luckily, the GOP has me covered.

who to watch

Update: Kaptur is a yes.  This good news, however, is tempered by the fact that Loretta Sanchez, a former yes who wasn't on most lists of undecided dems has gone AWOL. Missing votes only help the dems if they were otherwise going to vote no, and then you would need two missing to get it down to 215 votes. 


Kaptur's decision apparently comes after the Stupak bloc met with the White House and Secretary Sebelius and got assurances that there would be some effort to ensure that existing abortion law is maintained. That will likely be in the form of an executive order applying the Hyde Amendment to the exchanges, which pretty much all sides in the abortion debate say they want. I will write later on why I think that Stupak and the Catholic Bishops knew that the Senate bill didn't change existing law of no federal funding for abortions, and were pressing for a much greater change to abortion coverage than they were admitting. But for now the big question becomes "whether this means more members of the Stupak coalition will follow suit. By some estimates a half dozen of them are still undecided, so if they break towards Yes, it could put House Dem vote counters over the top."

If you are watching the vote today, then which legislators should you be watching for?

I've found the NY Times graphic to be helpful, even if there are better and more up-to-date whip counts out there.

As of 10am this morning, it listed the Dems as needing 9 votes. Word is though that Henry Cuellar is a yes, so I take him out of the tally and list the Dems as needing 8 votes.


My sense of who to watch will be:
1) Brian Baird (He was a No last time, but he is a necessary get for the leadership)
2) Kathy Dahlkemper (possible Stupak-bloc)
3) Daniel Lipinski (almost certain Stupak-bloc... I would put him as a likely no, but if they got him then I suspect that there wouldn't be much cohesion left in the Stupak group)
4) Marcy Kaptur (Again, a Stupakite, but one that has been heavily courted by the leadership, with extended meetings by Pelosi throughout the last two days)


These won't get them to 216. But if they can't peel off some of the Stupak group then they won't be able to get there, and if they can't get Baird (who has no excuse to vote no) then that suggests that the leadership's strong-arm isn't up to the task. 


Additionally, I'm not at all convinced that Lynch will vote against it. He would get the firedoglake-left support for being an opponent from the left, but he would almost certainly lose his leadership position as a floor whip (unless Pelosi has the votes and is giving him a pass--and it would be pretty shocking if Pelosi were giving the leadership a pass) and probably lead to coldness if not direct opposition from unions.

Mammalian Regeneration

Sometimes I just use this page to bookmark things that I enjoyed reading, or found interesting in some ways, and want to be able to find fairly easily.

This one concerns the possibility of mammalian regeneration. I've always thought how lucky lizards were in this capacity, and now it turns out that we (or at least mice) lack this ability due to a single gene, one that can be knocked out.

The Party Line

Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas)

Rep. Chet Edwards, a Texas Democrat who remains a firm “no,” said he’s getting calls spurred by Organizing for America, the president’s unofficial outreach arm. He said he’s fine with constituents expressing their opinions — and even with the right of OFA to engage — but noted of the Obama organization, “It’s clear to me they could care less about my political future.”

This is absolutely true. I wonder though, does Mr. Edwards think it should be any other way? Politicians should care about their political future, and constitutional designers should try to harness their likely concern with their continued lucrative employment in pursuit of broader political and social objectives. This was one of the key insights of the Federalist Papers after all (#54):

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

But by the same logic voters should absolutely be instrumental in their concern for the careers of politicians: they should avoid the sort of sentimentality that congressmen frequently try to instill, and they should be concerned with the career prospects of a politician only if this is related in some tangible way to the success of their preferred policies. If Chet Edwards is willing to see the one consistent and dominant priority of the Democratic party go down in flames, at a time when passage is so close and failure is almost certainly going to lead to the return to power of an emboldened right wing, then absolutely Democrats shouldn't give a damn about his political future.

He doesn't even need to be the most reliable vote for him to be worth the Democrats' while: he can vote against them on all but the big bills and still be worth more than a Republican in that seat. But if he won't vote when it counts, then I see little value added from having a Democrat rather than a Republican in that seat.

This though raises the broader question: isn't toeing the party line an undesirable quality in a representative? in some cases absolutely. And if Chet Edwards really believes that this bill violates his conscience or the broad interests of his constituents, then he should absolutely vote against it. But then he should stand on that principle, rather than whine about how Democrats don't care about his political future.

More broadly, however, the aggregation of distinct district preferences in such a large and homogeneous country will always be highly problematic and unstable unless it is embedded within a larger institutional framework, such as a party system. It might not be ideal, we might want more parties or some other arrangement altogether, but given that we have chosen a two-party system (both by votes and by the various legal impediments to additional parties) to structure the aggregation of preferences, I don't have too much of a problem with requiring party members to stand up and be counted for the major policies advanced by the party. When they don't, they should get ready for the party backlash. Because at least some measure of party discipline is necessary in order to get anything done.*

* I think that there is an important difference between taking a position based on principle and based on short term calculations of electoral expediency. I think that having a robust and diverse body of principled legislators is an important thing, one that has all sorts of positive externalities on governance and policymaking. These positive benefits largely outweigh the negative, namely, the need to corral a bunch of self-interested bunnies. So I would be less willing to challenge principled opponents of a major party objective, as it is likely that their presence in the congressional delegation would enhance governance. But complaints of political blowback leave me absolutely unfazed. They want to keep their jobs, and so are willing to go against my policy preferences. I should be equally instrumental in seeing that they lose their jobs, or at least fear for their jobs, in order to achieve my policy preferences.

Health Care rolling on

I don't see this as terrible news

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.

While it probably makes it harder for House Democrats who don't fully trust the Senate to follow through on its promise, and while it definitely will be highlighted by the GOP (who were the ones who asked for the ruling in the first place) to scare House Democrats, I think that it will ultimately do little to de-rail efforts to pass the Senate bill in the House, and might even make for better politics.

On the one hand, Reid has just sent a letter to the GOP leadership letting them know that he plans to proceed on reconciliation. This is a pretty big commitment, and I'd be blown away if he didn't go for it. More importantly, the Senate leadership and the Administration have promised the House that they would move forward on this through reconciliation--if they screwed House Democrats now they would have lost all chance of getting any more legislation through this Congress. And, as Jonathan Bernstein has pointed out on numerous occasions, the reconciliation fix would be "ice cream and very little spinach." That is, it would be all the good stuff everyone wants to be on record for voting for.

As for the politics, I have been making the argument for a while that the best way to dampen the noise about procedural concerns with reconciliation would be to pass the Senate bill first. The headlines dominate the news cycle, the President gives speeches about how it's been a century in the making. And even the most clueless of reporters will have gotten it through their heads that what is being passed through reconciliation isn't the bill, but a small series of popular amendments. This ruling from the Parliamentarian doesn't change that dynamic, and in fact only enhances it. Next to the historic passage of health care, reconciliation becomes an afterthought.

All that said, it still might make it harder for skittish House Dems, and the skittishness of these particular ponies should never be underestimated.

air cover

The left has got to have the slowest moving machine ever.

We've heard promises that the unions are going to be running ads targeting vulnerable Dems, both encouraging them to vote for it, thanking them if they do, and challenging them in primaries if they do not. The DNC has put out an ad attacking the GOP, but not one that really provides targeted support to vulnerable Democrats who are being blitzed in their districts by the Republican's "Code Red" strategy.

And finally, today, MoveOn has decided to join the fray.

Member survey on the health care bill

**RESULTS: 83% support, 17% oppose**

Meaning presumably, in the next couple of days, they are going to start preparing ads, running ads, organizing phone banks, etc. Organizing for America has been doing similar work, but at a much reduced pace from last year, or hell even from January and February.

So these reassurances that I hear about how there will be air cover, even enough to match the $10 million that the Chamber of Commerce, insurance groups, and others will be spending opposing health care, leave me somewhat skeptical. When will we see them? This weekend? Next week?

It feels like watching the Tsarist Russian army trying to mobilize: the slowly-grinding gears that will, sometime by this summer, finally be ready to combat the Prussian onslaught. Hell by that point the GOP might have already taken France.

So while the left has definitely improved its overall infrastructure since 2006, we're still no match for the organized right.

The class which does not want to be named....

....always falls prey to its central weakness, its own vanity.

A friend tells me about new luxury condo developments in Philadelphia. Apparently, a cutting edge technique for building developers catering to the now middle-ageing children of the old main line bourgeoisie is for new condos to not be placed on the open market. Rather, you may purchase one of these luxury abodes by invitation only. It is called the 'Friends and Family' plan, and the purpose is to whip up interest amongst our always competitive and tight-knit social betters. Not only does it ensure an even more homogeneous 'neighborhood' than would have been achieved through the exorbitant price tag alone, but it has that lovely ring of exclusivity for which many will pay top dollar. After all, only a select few are able to even see the homes, let alone make an offer.

This is all very absurd, for numerous reasons. I also hope (but somewhat doubt) that this would be in violation of various state and federal fair housing laws. I am pretty sure the 1968 Civil Rights Act saw these sorts of faux-private arrangements (they are, after all, being organized by building developers who presumably aren't covered by the 'room to let' exemptions) as a not-too subtle run around against fair housing, and sought to have them outlawed.

This is not to suggest that the developers are trying to maintain 'a certain type of neighborhood.' In fact I suspect that if suitably bougie and networked African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, or what have you were to receive the special invite and make an offer, that the developers would love to have them. Our new 21st exclusivity is so much more tolerant than our old 20th century exclusivity. The point, rather, is that the developers see this as an excellent way to raise the prices on units that they would have been marketing to this crowd regardless.

There is always money to be made on the vanity of the bourgeoisie.

dissertation tribulations

I wonder if this is a common experience. Certainly I suspect it is a troubling sign.

The more I meet with my committee, and the more drafts I send them for comments and feedback, the less I am able to coherently talk about my research.

It hasn't always been this way, and I hope that this recent trend will abate sooner rather than later. But it is worrying, and I think it points to some underlying confusion (between I and I? between I and They?) that has not yet been noticed, and accordingly, not yet resolved.

The Stupak Sidecar

There are reports going around that there might be a third bill for health care reform. There is the Senate bill, which has passed the Senate and will be the basis for any action by the House. And there will be the reconciliation bill, that alleviates concerns that House Dems have with the Senate Bill. But the Senate bill is slightly looser on abortion coverage than the House bill (although it does not provide federal financing for abortions, despite Stupak's claim), which has left Stupak opposing the current Senate bill and looking for a fix.

The problem is that abortion almost certainly can't be adjusted through reconciliation: it has no direct effect on the budget, and so wouldn't survive the 'Byrd Bath'. So there has been talk of a third bill, this one not put through reconciliation, to bring the Senate language on abortion into alignment with Stupak's preferences.

The question though is how this would work, and specifically, the ordering of the votes: presumably Stupak doesn't trust the left-wing of the Democrats on abortion, nor--as a House member--is he likely to trust the Senate, especially a Senate that he sees as having passed a bill with looser restrictions on abortion financing. This suggests that he'll likely want his bill to be voted on before the health care bill is passed. But there are two problems with this: (1) I don't see how you could amend a bill before it is passed, which is what this would entail (the courts would presumably argue that the most recent law is the holding law), and (2) the Republicans would see that this is a bill necessary for mustering a Democratic majority, and would vote against it. It becomes a killer amendment, because there is no way that the Democrats could pass an abortion restriction amendment on their own. The votes just aren't there.

So if that is out, then maybe it can be passed after the Senate bill is passed by the House but before it becomes law. This seems a plausible option, as Republicans, seeing that the Senate bill has passed regardless, would likely vote with Stupak. But would Stupak, who already blames the leadership for bringing abortion into the debate in the first place (I have no idea whether or not this is true, but this is his claim and I'll accept it for the moment), is unlikely to accept this as there is nothing binding the leadership to follow through. The Weekly Standard reports that Stupak has taken this option off the table as well

Stupak affirmed that he will not settle for an agreement to pass the bill now and fix the bill's problems on abortion later: "If they say 'we’ll give you a letter saying we'll take care of this later,' that’s not acceptable because later never comes."

 So what's left? I think it is very difficult to pass a Stupak amendment before the Senate bill becomes law, for reasons both legal and political. And Stupak does not trust the leadership to follow through at a later date, meaning that it becomes very difficult to pass the bill and then pass the amendment.

I see one way out, but it's going to take some major action on the part of the President, and more importantly, it will require that Stupak and the12 democrats Stupak claims to have on board place a great deal of trust in the President. Step 1. Pass the Senate bill in the House. Step 2. Pass the Stupak Amendment in the House and Senate. Step 3. Pass the reconciliation bills in the House and Senate. Step 4. Obama signs the health care bill into law, followed by both the reconciliation bill and the abortion bill.

That is you pass the Senate bill, and then pass the abortion bill prior to signing the Senate bill. You then sign the bills in that order as well. This overcomes the legal problem of amending a bill that hasn't passed and so is similar to the second option that I outlined, but with one difference: Obama needs to be able to credibly commit to Stupak that he won't sign the health care bill unless the abortion bill is also passed. This though doesn't necessarily overcome the political difficulty: Obama needs to be able to commit to Stupak that his bill will not be left high and dry. But he needs to be able to do this without the Republicans believing that he would drop health care reform if Stupak's bill doesn't pass, or else they would have a strong incentive to vote against Stupak. This is a tough assignment, and I don't see how he could do it. The most likely outcome would be that the Republicans and left Dems vote against Stupak, killing his bill, and the President goes ahead and signs health care reform into law. But of course Stupak would assume that this would happen and so wouldn't agree to this voting schedule in the first place. The only way it could work is if (1) Stupak believes that Republicans wouldn't vote against his bill even if it meant killing health reform, and (2) Stupak trusts Obama enough to follow through on his bargain and wait for the vote on the Stupak amendment before signing anything.

All in all an unlikely set of events. Maybe the GOP would vote for the Stupak amendment even if it meant that health care was likely to pass. Maybe the administration could convince Stupak to settle for a vote, rather than a passage, and if the GOP votes against to really hammer at them for voting for the (slightly more) pro-choice position. And maybe Stupak was simply posturing with his refusal to accept a promise for legislative action after the bill has passed. But unless they can figure this out, the leadership might be headed for a vote it can't win.

good news?

This is surprising

As it stands now, high-ranking Democratic officials tell the Huffington Post that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) is just a handful of votes short ("two at best," said one lawmaker) of the majority needed to pass the Senate bill alone.

I am pretty skeptical about this claim. While I think that health care has a pretty good chance of passing, I have seen nothing to indicate that they are this close to having the votes. Obviously Pelosi and "high-ranking Democratic officials" have more insight as to which of the 20 odd undecided (there's also a useful whip count by David Dayan here) members can be assuaged by provisions in a reconciliation bill.

I expect we'll start to see some real movement after the reconciliation bill is drafted and released: all the 'undecideds' looking for cover for a no vote will quickly declare that they can't support it, all the 'undecideds' looking for cover for a yes vote (I'm not sure if there even are any of these) will quickly say that this solves their major concerns, and while not perfect is enough to get their vote.

This will leave us with the genuinely undecided and the genuine-Stupak folks (I can't imagine that there will be an abortion provision in the reconciliation bill, although i could see one in a follow-up sidecar bill). The genuinely undecided will look to see whether their concerns were addressed while at the same time see how it is playing out in their districts. I expect up to a week of continued indecision for these folks. The genuine-Stupak folks will continue to follow the Stupak-leadership negotiations. All in all I could see the leadership having a really good sense that they had nearly all the votes about a week or maybe even a few days after the reconciliation bill is released. But now? While everyone is still maximizing their leverage and all the fake undecideds have not yet been able to scramble for cover? That I doubt.

So why say it? Well given that it comes from "high-ranking Democratic officials" I suspect it's straight spin. Spin with a purpose, but spin nonetheless. Momentum counts for a lot right now. I think that a lot of Dems want this to pass. But they don't want the fallout if it does and they were the ones who put it over the top. No one wants to be the 215th voter if it fails, or the 217th voter if it passes. So if you think the leadership is getting close but doesn't have it, you might be more likely to stay undecided. If you thought it was certain to die, you'd help kill it. If you thought it was certain to pass, you could rest easy. Its when you think that you will be needed, that you stay pat. But what does it say if the leadership right now is trying to get people to keep saying they're undecided. Does it mean that they see momentum going against them, and can't afford to lose anymore votes?

The Blitz

The blitz against health care reform is coming into full gear. First we had the robocalls, and now the Chamber of Commerce and other business groups are ponying up $10 million for the following ads, certain to be targeted at centrist and wavering House Democrats (via Greg Sargent)





Meanwhile, what is the organized left doing? Well today MoveOn.org members received the following email:

Dear MoveOn member,

We're holding a full-membership vote TODAY to chart our course on health care. Can you weigh in?

As you've probably read, President Obama and Democrats in Congress are aiming to pass a final health care package before the end of March. Not every detail is decided yet, but the final package will most likely look like the plan President Obama released two weeks ago. (For more information, see below.)

The president has offered a proposal that resembles the health care bill the Senate passed in December, but with a few key fixes. It's definitely not the bill most of us hoped for at the start of this fight, but it does do some important things. And we need to know if MoveOn members want to support or oppose it.

Can you vote today? All votes must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. (PST) tomorrow, Wednesday, March 10th.

The official question is: "Should MoveOn support or oppose the final health care bill if it looks like the plan recently proposed by President Obama?"

http://www.moveon.org/healthcarevote/?id=19290-17550486-WV2grTx&t=1

Before you vote, you'll be able to see arguments for both options from other MoveOn members, and afterwards, you can post your own argument for or against supporting the bill.

MoveOn members have worked long and hard to win health care reform. The president's proposal doesn't include a public option, a key component we've pushed for—and regardless of what we decide together today, we'll keep fighting to pass a public option. But with big votes coming up, we need your input on the president's health care proposal.

Click here to vote today:

http://www.moveon.org/healthcarevote/?id=19290-17550486-WV2grTx&t=2

For more info, here are a few helpful links:

• An overview of the president's proposal from WhiteHouse.gov

• A CNN report on the highlights of Obama's health care proposal

• A ThinkProgress article on the president's proposal and the differences between it and the Senate legislation

Thanks for all you do.

To be perfectly honest, I like that they are soliciting opinions. I also like how it is organized so that both the pro and con statements reflect the preferences of their supporters (you get a series of statements as to why we should support or oppose the bill, and first you vote and then you get to weight the strength of the different statements). All very democratic. But a little bit late. There is now no possibility that MoveOn will be able to provide any cover to House Democrats. Not only have they let the conservatives have a head start in mobilizing people against the bill, but they haven't even decided--this late in the game!--that it's a bill worth fighting for.

A few weeks ago they had their Virtual March on Congress, which targeted Senators. This despite the fact that even then it was clear that House Dems would be the ones needing some spine. The result--apparently over 1 million people tried to contact their Senator that day, to absolutely no coverage, to no effect. There's also an email going around asking for $5 contributions to raise something like $400,000 to defend health care. Well I feel like Poland's calvary.

But there should be no mistake: if health care doesn't pass it won't be because the left was outmaneuvered, outgunned, outspent. It will be because at the key moment, it didn't know what it wanted, wavered, and dropped the cause.

Updates: Again via Greg Sargent

GOP billboard campaign! A GOP source says that a half dozen billboards will be erected in coming days in the districts of House Dems wavering on health reform, as part of the NRCC’s “Code Red” program

There are finally some ads from the DNC attacking the Republicans for being beholden to the insurance industry. But I agree with Sargent: Republicans are now irrelevant on health care, and the battle will be won or lost based on about 30 House Democrats, who are receiving virtually no targeted cover. And while it's nice to see that labor is (belatedly) going to be targeting these members as well, I'm not so certain how threatening to take them out electorally is going to play politically.

Edmontonians Flushin

Amazing graph from Pat's Papers (via Yglesias)

 Shows the changes in water consumption in Edmonton over a 6 hour period the day of the gold medal hockey game. Huge spikes in consumption immediately after the end of the periods, presumably when everyone got up and rushed to the bathroom. Notice, however, that very few rushed to the bathroom after the win. Instead, we gloried and reveled in the victory, dancing both out of joy and in an effort to keep it in. Only after the medals were given, the songs sung, and probably at least a few pants wet, did we collectively rush to the john.

GOP blitz against health care

I find this very worrying 

National Repubicans are planning to unleash a huge wave of robocalls tomorrow targeting dozens of House Dems and warning their constituents that Obama and Nancy Pelosi are plotting to “ram” their “dangerous” health reform plans through Congress.The robocalls — the first paid media by the NRCC’s new “code red” program, which targets Dems on health care — comes after Obama told Congress to pass reform via reconciliation.
The calls are meant to spook House Dems right at the moment when the White House and Dem leaders are about to undertake a grueling effort to round up support for what’s expected to be a hair-raisingly close vote. It warns constituents that the targeted House Dem risks supporting this “dangerous” move.

Not that this should be unexpected, just that I think it is unlikely that the organized left or the DCCC will be able to effectively counter this. Why? Because I think that they have already saturated their supporters with appeals for help and for pleas to join marches and make phone calls. And the supporters most likely to be concerned about health care are likely to be relatively unenthusiastic about the current bill, meaning that getting them involved in a last minute defensive scramble is going to be pretty tough.

Luckily, however, these are going to be robocalls. And if there is anything people hate more than this bill, it is being robocalled. Political scientists Green and Gerber find that robocalls are pretty useless, and even counter-productive in the context of turning out the vote. Hopefully the same dynamic plays here.

Also, I think it is worth pointing out that Jonathan Chait called this

You can imagine how this feels to conservatives. They've already run off the field, sprayed themselves with champagne and taunted the losing team's fans. And now the other team is saying the game is still on and theyhave a good chance to win. There may be nothing wrong at all with the process, but it's certainly going to feel like some kind of crime to the right-wing. The Democrats may not win, but I'm pretty sure they're going to try. The conservative freakout is going to be something to behold.

The concern though is that when the right-wing freaks out, the right-wing noise machine starts pounding. And when the machine starts pounding, the Democrats start losing the narrative. As noted by Kevin Drum

There's simply no liberal counterpart to Drudge and Fox and Rush: a conservative commentariat that concedes nothing, pounds home its points like a jackhammer, repeats its themes relentlessly, and has the ear of the Washington mainstream press in a way that liberal commentators don't. Dionne calls their approach the "audacity of audacity," and the press seems to take it as evidence of sincerity in a way that they don't with liberal arguments. As a result, even when they think conservatives are misguided the Washington press largely grants them the presumption that their beliefs are driven by deep and earnest heartland principles.

And the noise machine will be focusing on a few House Dems in particular, who are already in competitive districts, making their task all the easier. I don't like what's coming, and I'm not sure that passage by March 19 (which is the date suggested by a leaked memo) is soon enough to keep these members from wavering.