In a sense Jerry Brown never really left California politics, except for a relatively brief period in the mid-1980s. The turning point came with Brown’s 1982 senate defeat at the hands of Pete Wilson, after which he appeared for many years to be someone with more political past than future. But it was only a short six years later that he was back as state party chairman. After another four years he was running for president again and half a dozen years later he was elected Mayor of Oakland.
Nonetheless, for those of us who grew up or lived in California in the 1970s it’s a little stunning that Brown appears to be the Democrat best positioned to win the governorship again in 2010. Although the election is 14 months away (and that’s several lifetimes in politics), by most conventional measures he’s now the frontrunner to reclaim at 72 the governor’s office he first held at 36.
The latest data shows him beating each of the possible Republican contenders.
Brian Beutler is liveblogging the afternoon session of the Senate Finance Committee debate on public option.
We interrupt this public option coverage to bring you week #2 of Tom Delay on Dancing With the Stars, featuring Tom doing the tango until a wince-inducing final move. Watch.
The Senate Finance Committee rejected by a vote of 15-8 an amendment to the Baucus bill from Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) that would have added a robust public option provision.
Sens. Kent Conrad (D-ND), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Tom Carper (D-DE), Bill Nelson (D-FL), and Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) joined with all the committee’s Republicans in defeating the amendment.
The Senate Finance Committee has moved on to debating Chuck Schumer’s public option amendment. If Rockefeller’s version of public option was a stout, Schumer’s is an IPA. You can follow our coverage here.
Late Update: And Schumer amendment goes down 13-10.
What’s more annoying than Wolf Blitzer’s inability to grasp why it’s a bad idea to allow all insurance companies to all compete across state lines? (Answer: it makes it virtually impossible to regulate insurers at all.) Sen. Rockefeller’s inability to give a straightforward answer to the question.
Bonus complaint: Who can tell Wolf that the UK’s insurance system is very different from the French one?
Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) is revising his weekend claim that President Obama is an “enemy of humanity.” His spokesperson Bethany Haley now says he actually believes Obama is only an enemy of “unborn humanity” and should have been more clear.
Schumer on Finance Committee Vote …
“To come up only two votes shy in the Finance Committee, the most difficult terrain for this proposal in the whole Congress, makes us increasingly optimistic that we can pass a bill with a good public option in the end. We had more votes at the end of the day than we did at the beginning, and many members who aren’t yet for a public option are still approaching us to seek out areas of agreement.”