Oooof. Not a good day yesterday for Meg Whitman — or her campaign spokesperson. But a solid day for an ornery pack of California journos who didn’t take too kindly to being shut out of a Whitman campaign event they’d been invited to. Take a look.
Even the big policy and interest group fights tend to get fought, in person, with a lot of ‘we’re all pals’ mumbojumbo. But there was at least a bit of respite today, when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius decided, on short notice, to go speak at the AHIP conference, the lobbying organization for the big health insurers and go head-to-head with the insurance industry’s chief lobbyist, Karen Ignagni.
“You have a choice,” Sebelius told attendees. “You can choose to continue your opposition to reform. [Or] you can choose to take the millions of dollars you have stored away for your next round of ads to kill meaningful reform, and use them to start giving Americans some relief from their skyrocketing premiums.”
Lots of talk from Democratic senators today about reforming Senate rules to lessen the crippling effect (depending on whether you’re the one wielding it) of the filibuster. Harry Reid says it time for a change. Chuck Schumer says he’s going to hold hearings on the issue. One caveat: the senators are making the remarks at what they’re touting as a “Progressive Media Summit,” so they’re pitching to a particular audience today.
It may be game, set, match for former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) here shortly. We’re hearing that within the hour on-the-record accounts will be published of guys who served with Massa in the Navy and were witness to or victim of his brand of heavy-handed, unwanted fraternization.
More soon …
Late Update: Here’s the piece we were hearing about, from Joshua Green at The Atlantic.
Awful generous of all these Republicans warning Democrats of how bad it’s going to be for them if they pass Health Care Reform.
An enraged Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) took to the House floor during debate on Afghanistan today and called out the press as “despicable” for not covering the debate and focusing instead on stories like Eric Massa. Watch.
The House ethics committee has decided to close its Massa investigation, the Washington Post reports.
A really bad graph … if you’re the black line and not the red one.
Click here to see the full size graph.
This is the trend graph for the Republican senate primary race in Florida, pitting incumbent Gov. Charlie Crist against Marco Rubio.
The second poll in two days just came out showing Rubio with a better than 30 point margin over Crist. Read More
When I heard yesterday that the House Ethics Committee had dropped the Massa probe I thought it was basically a given since he’d already resigned. The Committee has no jurisdiction over anyone who’s not a member of the House. But it turns out it wasn’t automatic that they had to drop. There’s actually good precedent for an investigation continuing after someone resigns.