In search of backbone
Health care supporters and others want Democrats to stand up and fight
By André Coleman 01/28/2010
In an effort to get Democrats to fight more vigorously for changes promised in the 2008 election, fed-up area residents rallied on Tuesday in Old Pasadena’s Memorial Park.
“Rep. Adam Schiff, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Harry Reid need to step up and fight now for a strong health care bill that increases coverage and affordability for American families,” said demonstrator Myrna Robinson. “Now is definitely not the time to scale back or give up on health care reform.”
Memorial Park is directly across the street from Schiff’s office. According to spokesman Sean Oblack, Schiff was in Washington during the rally, which about 100 people attended.
“My boyfriend and I spent four years taking care of my mother who didn’t have insurance,” said Leesa Watternorg of San Gabriel. “We spent our retirement money paying for pills and medicine and now we are unemployed. Everybody deserves basic health care. People are so easily distracted by polls and opinions. If people are tired of hearing about health care, they need a wake-up call.”
As campaigning begins for midterm elections in November, Republicans are attacking Democrats and President Obama, who rode into office on promises to bring change to Washington and is now seeing his approval ratings dip, mainly due to continuing high unemployment rates, excessive spending and a sagging economy.
The party received its own wake-up call last week when Republican Scott Brown won a special election and captured the Massachusetts Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for nearly 50 years, ending the Democrat’s super-majority in Congress that was able to stop GOP filibusters. In many circles, Brown’s win was seen as a vote against Obama’s policies.
After the loss, Obama said he was willing to send a scaled-down version of the health care bill passed by the House to the Senate, which pushed organizers from moveon.org into action.
“After one bad Senate election, most Democrats in Washington are on the verge of full-fledged retreat,” rally organizers said in a written statement. “Everything we’ve fought for together hangs in the balance. President Obama has signaled that he’s open to dramatically scaling back health care reform. The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee says he might gut the financial reform bill to appease Republicans. And on top of all that, the Supreme Court just opened the floodgates of corporate cash on politics! We need to show Democrats that we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.”
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