Obama tries to rally Democrats, defends healthcare overhaul

Subject:	Obama tries to rally Democrats, defends healthcare overhaul
Date:	Mon, 8 Feb 2010 19:12:41 +0000 (UTC)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-obama-dnc7-2010feb07,0
,4756598.story

The president urges the party not to abandon his agenda. Some members
express skepticism toward their leaders.

Reporting from Washington - Attempting to rouse a party shaken by
electoral setbacks, President Obama told fellow Democrats on Saturday
that he would press ahead with his healthcare proposal and other pieces
of his ambitious agenda, rejecting suggestions that a more cautious
approach might minimize losses in the upcoming midterm elections.

Obama, who left the White House during a blizzard, sought to rally
Democratic National Committee members in a speech that was part pep talk
and part prescription for what the party must do to overcome problems
culminating in the loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat held by the
late Democratic icon Edward M. Kennedy.

Trimming goals and postponing hard choices are the wrong approach, the
president said.

In an emotional high point of his 20-minute address, Obama conceded that
the public wonders whether elected officials can overcome the immense
power of lobbyists and special interests and "confront the real problems
that touch their lives."

He said: "So just in case there's any confusion out there, let me be
clear. I am not going to walk away from health insurance reform. I'm not
going to walk away from the American people. I'm not going to walk away
from this challenge. I'm not going to walk away from any challenge.
We're moving forward."

His voice rising, he added, "We are moving forward!"

The snowstorm disrupted the DNC's winter meeting, with some delegates
unable to attend because of flight cancellations and sporadic subway
service. Not even the presidential motorcade was spared. During the
five-minute drive to the event a few blocks from the White House, a
black ambulance lost control on snow-covered streets and veered into an
SUV carrying reporters. No one was hurt.

As the motorcade returned to the White House, a tree branch weighted
down by snow snapped off and fell on top of a Chrysler SUV carrying a
group of photographers. Obama, who often portrays himself as a hardened
Chicagoan immune to Washington's comparatively tepid winter weather,
paid full respect to the storm, labeling it "snowmaggedon."

Obama's appearance came at a time when the party's core membership is
demoralized. With the president's poll numbers dropping, some Democratic
congressional campaigns are weighing whether to distance themselves from
Obama in the run-up to the midterm elections in November.

The party's leadership has become a target. Steven Ybarra, a former DNC
member from Sacramento, said in an interview: "The DNC is a disaster.
Have we seen the chairman of the DNC [Tim Kaine] on any of the Sunday
programs talking about how the party is going to react to any of this?
Does anybody know who the chairman of the Democratic National Committee
is?"

Ybarra said Obama should install as the head of the DNC his 2008
campaign manager, David Plouffe.

Roberto Prats, a DNC member from Puerto Rico who attended the
conference, said, "The mood is one of shock." He said members have found
it tough to digest the loss of Kennedy's seat to Republican Scott Brown.
Brown was sworn in to the Senate days ago, depriving Democrats of a
supermajority that the president had counted on for passage of his
agenda.

In this worrisome environment, Obama tried to rally the party by saying
it was no time to abandon the bold agenda charted at the beginning of
his administration. He did not specify how he intended to advance a
healthcare bill that is stalled in Congress. But he said it must pass.

"Yes, we could continue to ignore the growing burden of the runaway cost
of healthcare," said Obama, wearing a suit jacket but no tie. "The
easiest thing to do right now would be to just say, 'Ah, this is too
hard. Let's just regroup and lick our wounds and try to hang on.'

"We've had a long and difficult debate on healthcare and there are some,
maybe even the majority in this town, who say perhaps it's time to walk
away," the president told his party. "But here's the thing, Democrats.
If we walk away, we know what will happen. We know that premiums and
out-of-pocket expenses will skyrocket this decade and the decade after
that, and the decade after that."

Obama dished out some blame for Republicans, who he said have abdicated
their responsibility to govern.

The Republicans, he said, "made a political decision all too often to
jump in the back seat, let us do the driving and then critique whether
we were taking the right turns. That's OK. That's part of what it means
to govern."

Invoking Democratic presidents who faced tough challenges, Obama
mentioned the struggles of Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and
John F. Kennedy.

"I know we've gone through a tough year," he said "But we've gone
through tougher years."

Among those in the audience was FDR's grandson, Jim Roosevelt,
co-chairman of the party's Rules and Bylaws Committee.

Roosevelt said he welcomed Obama's message.

"I think it would be very dangerous to get cautious," Roosevelt said.
"Because it would give up on the change that has brought us back from
the brink of a full depression.

"But we have a long way to go."

--
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact, to
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel of New York's
million dollar tax evasion. Charles B. Rangel is still under
"investigation" by a "closed door" House Ethics Committee.

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