"Joe The Mercurial!"

It's time to Break It Down!

Chances are you do not know Samuel Wurzelbacher; at least not by that name. Mr. Wurzelbacher’s middle name is Joseph. Adding that information may have provided some political junkies the all-important clue needed to solve the puzzle. If you guessed, inferred, or otherwise concluded that this name should be a correspondent appellation to Joe the Plumber, give yourself a gold star.

Now that we have identified the more familiar moniker, it is likely you recall the Rise and Fall of Joe the Plumber during the 2008 Presidential Campaign. During October 2008, Mr. Wurzelbacher became more familiarly known as Joe the Plumber when he was recorded posing questions of then-Democratic Senator and Presidential Candidate, Barack Obama, about his proposed small business tax policy. Mr. Obama was campaigning in Joe’s Ohio neighborhood three days before the final Presidential Debate, held at Hofstra University, October 15, 2008. The rest is history; the McCain-Palin Campaign immortalized Joe, effectively making him a symbol of their claim that Obama’s tax policies would penalize the middle class.

Fast-forward a month and another Joe was catapulted to the forefront. Previously, in 2006, Senator Joe Lieberman, Democrat, Connecticut, lost in the Democratic primary, but won re-election in the general election as a third party candidate. He characterized himself as an Independent Democrat; he attended the Democratic Caucus. However, he was an ardent supporter of the War in Iraq, and during the 2008 Presidential Campaign, Lieberman was an outspoken backer of John McCain.

After Senator Obama won the election, the newly elected President prevailed upon Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada, to work with Senator Lieberman as he attempted to broker his return to the Democratic Caucus, and to retain Chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. Ultimately the President persuaded his fellow Party members to accept Senator Lieberman back into the fold.

Many Democrats, and especially their more liberal and progressive supporters found this decision disappointing. There was a strong belief within the Party that Senator Lieberman was not in sync or aligned with the general thrust of Democratic Party priorities. President Obama, however, fresh off an historic victory carried the day on this matter.

The President’s vision of Change incorporated precepts such as unity, bipartisanship, and reconciliation. In his big-picture world view, he believed “welcoming” Senator Lieberman back (in spite of the Senator’s speech at the Republican National Convention, filled with Anti-Obama rhetoric) into the Party was an act of reconciliation. In fact at the time, Senator Lieberman described the Democratic Party’s decisions to accept him and to permit him to retain his Chairmanship as acts of reconciliation.

The President is a pragmatist. He understands the virtue of the elusive 60 votes in the Senate. The Senate is steeped in ritual, and tradition. One particularly longstanding practice in the Upper Chamber is the Filibuster, which is basically the art of speech making to prevent an item from being voted upon; essentially, talking a measure to death.

During the last several weeks, President Obama and the Democratic leadership have been trying to craft and shepherd a Health Care Reform Bill through the legislative process. This is where the President’s pragmatism and vision of unity, bipartisanship, and reconciliation have run headfirst into the brutal force of politics as usual, courtesy of “Joe the Mercurial!”

Be careful what you ask for. After Democrats devised a proposal that included a Public Option, Senator Lieberman lined-up with a group of Senators that opposed such an option. In response to this not surprising development, Senator Reid led an initiative to eliminate the Public Option, and replace it with a provision for an early-buy-in to Medicare. It was at this point, to the surprise; make that exasperation, of many Democratic Senators, the Independent junior Senator from Connecticut opposed the inclusion of the Medicare buy-in provision, and threatened to join a Republican filibuster.

With his eyes always on the prize, President Obama once again emerged to urge Democratic Senators to coalesce, not implode, in the face of this hostile resistance from what took on all the characteristics of “the enemy within.” In the quest for Health Care Reform, it appears the shadowy fringe area where one vote determines the outcome is perpetual ground zero. In October, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, Maine, cast the deciding vote to get the then Health Care proposal out of the Senate Finance Committee. President Obama was instrumental in securing Senator Snowe’s vote then.

The Senator from Maine made it quite clear at that time, her Committee vote was not an indication she would support the full bill. Republican Senators have given every indication their full complement will vote against the Democratic sponsored legislation.

That brings the matter full circle. President Obama asserted yesterday that despite remaining differences to be worked out, “Congress is on the precipice of passing a sweeping Health Care Reform bill." I am sure, if the bill passes; The President will praise the legislation, and offer thanks to “Joe the Mercurial.”

I’m done; holla back!

Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: http://thesphinxofcharlotte.blogspot.com. A new post is published each Wednesday. For more detailed information on a variety of aspects relating to this post, consult the links below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Lieberman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/14/politics/main5977243.shtml

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/health-care-reform-in-peril.php

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091214-709441.html

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/58482

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/13/lieberman-nelson-oppose-medicare-buy-/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Reid

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/04/lieberman-public-option_n_381005.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama

http://washingtonindependent.com/19199/lieberman

http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/11/lieberman-wat-1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Lieberman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia_Snowe

http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=9be136e6-802a-23ad-4167-7a1305f4fff9&Region_id=&Issue_id=d694210e-a855-b510-43be-f20b134100cf

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/15/health.care.lieberman/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstra_University