http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=01&year=2010&base_name=what_id_like_to_hear_a_congresWhat I'd Like to Hear a Congressional Democrat Say.
This is what I'd like to hear a congressional Democrat say:
"We're obviously disappointed about the results of the special election in Massachusetts. But the fact that we have gone from a 20-seat advantage in the Senate to an 18-seat advantage in the Senate doesn't mean that Republicans are in charge. They had eight years under George W. Bush to push their agenda, and they pushed it good and hard. There's a reason that at the end of that eight years, the voters elected Democrats to the White House and large majorities in Congress. That hasn't changed.
"So for the next nine and a half months, we’re going to do everything we can to improve our country's fortunes and set it on the right course. That includes health care reform – we promised it when we ran, and we're going to deliver it. In their role as the minority party, Republicans will try every parliamentary maneuver they can to stop us. That's no surprise – they've been fighting against reform all year, just as they've been fighting against it for 70 years. As the minority, they certainly have the right to try to obstruct our agenda, and try to make sure nothing gets accomplished. But as the majority – one that still holds 59 percent of the seats in both the House and the Senate – we have both the right and the obligation to do all we can to overcome their obstruction.
"Republicans would like people to think that because their candidate won one race in one state, the Democratic majorities have somehow ceased to exist. Well they haven't. The need for health care reform is no less great than it was yesterday, and we believe no less strongly in the agenda that got us elected. Our opponents won't like it – they'd rather we surrender to them, and make believe that they're running things, like they were during the Bush years.
Well tough luck. Come November, the voters can judge us on what we've accomplished and what we haven't, and judged our opponents on what they say they'd like to do. Until then, we're going to keep working."That's what I'd like to hear. Anyone? Anyone?
--Paul Waldman