Sen. Landrieu To Get Nelson Treatment Over Health Care Reform
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) took quite the political heckling in Nebraska the past few weeks. Both he and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) have come under fire for their on-again-off-again opposition to a public health care option as part of the overhaul now in Congress.
Nelson has said he won't filibuster a bill with a public option in it, so his foes have moved on.
Now Landrieu will be getting the Nelson treatment. Change Congress, the group that sniped at Nelson the last few weeks, is now setting its (web) sites on her. She'll be on the receiving end of $10,000 worth of online ads targeting her for taking $1.6 million from big health care and insurance interests.
The ads link to a petition calling on Landrieu to back a public option and break with big insurance companies.
The Howard Dean funded group Democracy for America will also go after Landrieu, sending e-mails to its 20,000 Louisiana members asking them to call her office and press her to back a public option.
If Landrieu doesn't move back in support of a public option, said Adam Green of Change Congress, direct mail will be sent to Louisiana donors calling on them to withhold campaign funds -- call it fund-suppressing. DFA, meanwhile, is working on a TV ad set to attack Landrieu for her opposition to a public plan.
Before opposing the public option, Landrieu signed a letter declaring, in specific terms, her support for it.
It's literally unbelievable to me that when you have polling that shows that the public supports a public option for health care by enormous margins (83-14%) and yet we have Democrats dithering over it. The Change Congress ad hits home to Louisianans pretty effectively:
