Our new Blue America ad is running all over Arkansas and people are into it.

Roll Call featured it, so you know Blanche is not a happy camper -- and that's a good thing. She was elected as a Democratic Senator and hasn't said if she'll give the health care bill an up-or-down vote. Simply amazing.

Please join in Blue America's Campaign For Health Care Choice

Roll Call writes:

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), facing the prospect of a tough re-election bid next year, is under pressure from a liberal activist group to support a motion to proceed on health care reform legislation that is poised to hit the Senate floor next week. Lincoln has been on the fence on whether she would support a bill with a government-funded public insurance option. The Blue America political action committee is hitting statewide Arkansas cable television with a 30-second spot demanding that Lincoln “allow an up-or-down vote on the public option.” “Blanche Lincoln claims to fight for health care reform. But whose interest does she really represent?” the ad’s voiceover says as the spot opens. “Lincoln has taken thousands from PACs from Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Aetna and United Health Group — over $2 million from the health and insurance industries combined. That’s why 56 percent of voters think these contributions hurt her judgment on health care,” the ad continues. “With one in four Arkansans uninsured, let’s save sponsorships for the race cars. Help Sen. Lincoln get back on track.”

And Digby finds this very good article about the new ad that you helped pay for.

Democratic Strategist:

BlueAmerica's latest Lincoln ad is very tough, and graphically amusing, depicting Senator Lincoln all gussied up like a NASCAR driver, only the ads pasted all over her jumpsuit are for her many health care contributors. Slide the right-side bar at the link down and view three more 'Harry and Louise' style ads depicting a couple at the kitchen table wondering why Sen. Lincoln is so concerned about health insurers, when they can hardly pay their bills. The idea here is to build constituent awareness about her foot-dragging and get them to call her and urge her to get on the side of consumers, who need a public option to have any leverage with private insurers.

Some I guess would argue that these ads may do more harm than good if they alienate Lincoln from her progressive supporters. If she is that petty, however, she would probably vote wrong anyway. So I say it's time for the full-court press. The ads are honest, both in the facts presented and in depicting the utter bewilderment many of her constituents -- especially those Democrats who voted for her -- are feeling at her reluctance to even allow a vote on a measure that would let maybe 10 percent of Americans chose government health insurance over private insurance. Will Lincoln be a corporate lackey or champion of the people? Maddow puts the campaign to win Lincoln's support in perspective right here.

Howie Klein has a great post up detailing exactly where the ads are playing and in what cities.

Mike Stark catches up with Blanche Lincoln in Congress and asks her if she'll join the Republican filibuster. She has been virtually silent throughout the whole health care debate and Mike does a great job of getting her to say something on the record. What she said of course was nothing.

Stark: Can you see yourself filibustering or joining a filibuster?

Lincoln: I don't even know what the bill is going to be and I'm going to do what I think is most important for Arkansans and that is to look at the bill, to see if it's going to be helpful to Arkansans and the country in expanding health care...

She knows what's going on in this debate and gives a typical non-answer about supporting the public option like many have given up to this point. We at Blue America are running a brand new ad all over her state starting today so we can help her decide that filibustering health care is not in any one's best interests except the health insurance corporations that she's taken huge contributions from.

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post writes:

The squeeze is on for Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) on health care in the form of a new series of ads paid for by the liberal Blue America PAC that cast the Arkansas Democrat as bought and paid for by insurers. "Blanche Lincoln claims to fight for health care reform but whose interests does she really represent," asks the ad's narrator before noting that Lincoln has taken more than $2 million in campaign contributions from the health and insurance industries. The narrator concludes the ad by asking viewers to call Lincoln and "demand she allow an up or down vote on the public option." (This is the fourth ad paid for by Blue America targeting Lincoln this year.)

Polling shows Lincoln, who is up for re-election in 2010, holding relatively slim margins over a series of unknown Republican candidates. Lincoln's dilemma? How to walk the line between the conservative leanings of the Razorback State -- Obama took just 39 percent there in 2009 -- and the increasingly vocal and well-funded left within her own party who see the inclusion of a public option as a sine qua non for health care reform.

Her primary is the reason we targeted her originally and it's worked out very well so far.

Please help us continue running this ad and many more to come and join in on Blue America's Campaign for Health Care Choice. Donations are much appreciated.

And Digby writes:

Perhaps Lincoln should start worrying just a bit about what will happen if her Democratic base stays home. The numbers aren't looking all that good for her right now.

She's between little rock and a hard place but it seems to me that's easily solved at this point. She should vote for cloture, thus appeasing her base and then she can vote against the bill if she needs to appeal to neanderthals who want people to die quickly.

Believe me, none of her constituents will hold it against her. Most people think cloture is unpasteurized sour cream. And they like it.

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Blue America just produced a new ad that highlights the many payoffs she has received from the health Insurance industry and demands that she starts representing her constituents who unequivocally support the public option. I'm not much of a NASCAR fan, but you can see that the comparison we use in this ad matches her role well.

If you can, please help us to be able to blanket the entire state of Arkansas with this ad, because for a Democratic Senator to filibuster health-care reform is to become an active member of the teabagger/Republican party. She needs to vote for cloture and give Americans the right to an up-or-down vote and to be true to the will of the good people of Arkansas.

Howie Klein writes:

No, as we've been telling you all year, there's only one weak link worth trying to beat into submission: Arkansas' corrupt and reactionary-- don't those two terms always seem to find a way of cuddling up with each other?-- senior senator, Blanche Lincoln. Blue America has run TV spots against Lincoln all summer and fall and she's watched her re-elect numbers dwindle down to a place where if a serious opponent-- i.e., one with big bucks to buy advertising-- jumped into the race, she would lose. She may lose anyway, even though her current opponents would probably do better if they toured together as a carnival show. Yesterday the RNC started trying to push her to vote with Republicans-- as she so often does-- and against health care reform.

This week Blue America and our friends at Donkey on the Edge have a brand new ad for Arkansas voters to look at-- the fourth in our series-- and the message is very different from the Republicans'. By all means, be the first to view it-- and please consider making a contribution of our Campaign for Health Care Choice page so we can run it deep and wide.

If you live in Arkansas and contact Senator Lincoln, please let me know. Contact me at crooksandliars-AT-gmail.com. We need your help and so does America.

In the 2006 cycle the candidate who attracted the most support from Blue America donors was Ned Lamont, with his campaign that served notice on the Democratic Establishment that the grassroots was unwilling to just eat up whatever crap it was served up from Inside the Beltway hacks. Blue America raised over $77,000 for him in our first year in action. The following cycle, saw another inspiring progressive primary challenger, Donna Edwards, attract the most donors and the largest amount (almost $65,000). It may be too early to tell, but it looks like 2010 cycle will mark the year of Alan Grayson. It's still only 2009 but Blue America has already raised over $30,000 for him-- without having even made an official endorsement! We've been collecting contributions for him at No Means No, a page dedicated to members of Congress who voted against Obama's supplemental war budget in June, and at Getting Grayson's Back, a page dedicated to standing up for him when he got GOP noses out of joint by telling the truth about their health care obstructionism.

Today Blue America is joining a netroots money bomb effort on behalf of Grayson, urging our community to band together and answer the Inside-the-Beltway and Villager mentality that says there's no room for a plainspoken truth-teller like Grayson in Congress. Nevermind, they tell you, that he studied economics at Harvard, then worked as an economist, then studied law at Harvard and then successfully pursued war profiteers and Bush cronies in Iraq-- even before being elected to Congress in a Republican district and becoming the scourge of banksters and assorted evil-doers dragged before the House Financial Services committee. No, to the Villagers, he's all about "outlandish rhetoric;" he's "the left's Michele Bachmann;" he's "pugilistic" and a "wing nut."

Rep. Grayson joins us below in the comments section where you can see for yourself he's quickly become the favorite member of Congress of Democrats and independents from across the country. And please, help out with the money bomb today.

Rep. Alan Grayson will join us on Monday for a quick chat before he heads back to DC as we enter the final stages of health care reform. Please check out his website "Grayson Has Guts."

As you know, he says what's on his mind and it's usually calling republicans out for their gutless behavior.

The RNC, GOP and every other republican/teabagger group have targeted Alan Grayson as enemy number one and they want him defeated at all costs.

We're participating in a "Money Bomb" for him that takes place on November 2, so it'll be great that he'll stop by and chat with us during his insanely busy schedule.

See you all tomorrow....

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Today Blue America is hosting an old friend here at Crooks and Liars, Representative Paul Hodes. Paul first came onto our radar in 2006 was he was campaigning-- successfully, as it turned out-- against entrenched incumbent Charlie Bass in New Hampshire. Blue America endorsed him and has been gratified to see him consistently standing up for working families in the House of Representatives. He was one of the Democrats who put his foot down and refused to vote for the Wall Street bailout, TARP. He believes, firmly, that the government has to watch out for Main Street and for American consumers by reigning in the excesses of Wall Street. "I voted against the Wall Street bailout because I didn’t believe we should bail out the big banks while middle class families are hurting across America. I'm working-- fighting-- for tougher regulations on credit card companies, mortgage lenders, and big Wall Street banks so Wall Street’s greed will never be able to hurt middle class families again." When AIG's irresponsibility, unregulated avarice and gambler's instincts got them in trouble and they came looking for money from the government, it was Rep. Hodes who pointed out that to American taxpayers AIG "stands for arrogance, incompetence and greed."

Today, he's asked us to let our readers know that he'd like anyone who was considering donating to his campaign during this live blogging session, instead donate to the No on 1 campaign in Maine. Paul isn't a frightened, mealy-mouthed congressman tiptoeing around equality with a "separate but equal" non-solution for marriage rights. You don't hear him talking about domestic partnerships. He favors equal rights under the law for all couples regardless of gender. "The legislation passed in New Hampshire," he reminds us, "will ensure that all Granite Staters have equal rights under the law. And the law is consistent with the spirit of New Hampshire expressed in our state motto ‘Live Free or Die.’ Marriage equality gives equal justice to New Hampshire residents. I will continue to work for those same principles as a US Senator and I am a proud co-sponsor of the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act."

Please join us in the comments section below and let's talk with Paul about why he's demanding a timeline in Afghanistan and a public option in the health care reform bill-- and anything else you'd like to ask someone who's been serving in the House and wants to move over to the Senate.

Adam Green finds this gem.

Does this ad from the Chamber of Commerce make you furious?

There are like only 200 views of this hideous ad. I hate to post it, but I think some of you who have donated to our Blanche Lincoln action need to be aware of what you have supported and the conservative forces that stand against us. The Chamber of Commerce supports the squishy Conservadem Blanche Lincoln (who is squatting the with Backus Dogs) with a new ad that actually has the audacity to say she's standing up for working families. If she were, then she'd be on board with the public option.

This is our ad running against it right now in heavy rotation in Lincoln's back yard.

As Howie Klein says: The ads run for another 8 days and they are running on CNN, Fox (minus Glenn Beck) and MSNBC in every part of the state.

This ad is part of our Blue America's Campaign for Health Care Choice.
We need your support and have several more actions on the way.

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Rachel Maddow highlighted our Blue America ad which calls out Blanche Lincoln over her stance on the public option.

A Bad Day to Oppose Health Reform

Rachel Maddow: And of course there has been a barrage of ads taken out by progressive groups targeting conservative and potentially vulnerable Democrats like Senator Blanche Lincoln and Congressman Mike Ross both of Arkansas both of who have said they oppose a public health insurance option. A brand new ad produced by the political action committee Blue America just started running last night.

...Ad: We can barely pay our bills and Blanche Lincoln is worried about the insurance companies?...

Maddow: This is what a full court press for health reform looks like. And the terrible, no good, very bad day for the anti-health reform forces today is what it looks when a full court press is working.

There is a full-court press going on and I want to thank the blogosphere for not sitting back and letting Conservadems dictate the terms of the debate.

Digby writes:

We don't know what Lincoln's going to do. She, along with Conrad and Baucus, are the only Democrats to vote against all forms of the PO in the Finance Committee. It's hard to imagine that she's going to vote for a plan that contains one on the floor. But there is no reason that she shouldn't allow her party to have an up or down vote even if she votes no in the end. It's all about cloture at this point and we need to keep the pressure on.

Cloture, cloture cloture.

And as Howie points out, even the very shaky Rasmussen polling outfit shows she's in big trouble now:

...it's still worth noting that they are another firm, even if a compromised one, showing that Blanche Lincoln is likely to be looking for a new line of work next year.

Arkansas' Blanche Lambert Lincoln trails all four of her leading Republican challengers in the first Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 survey in the state.

Lincoln fails to get 50% of the vote in any of the match-ups, and any incumbent who falls short of that level is considered vulnerable.

And don't forget to chip in a few bucks if you can, so we can run more ads against anybody who opposes the public option.

(h/t Heather at Video Cafe for making the video clip.)

Yesterday, as expected, Lincoln voted against the public option in the Senate Finance Committee -- twice. She has a history of always sticking with her campaign donors when what they want conflicts with what Arkansas voters want. In this case only 38% of Arkansas voters -- almost all of them Republicans -- oppose the public option. 81% of Arkansas Democrats support the public option -- as do Arkansas voters. During the committee markup process yesterday, John Ensign taunted the Democrats on the committee by asking them why they couldn't pass a public option in the Senate with such large majorities in the country wanting it. Unlike almost everything Ensign said yesterday, this is a worthwhile question to ponder.

In fact, when polling companies have asked voters in conservative-leaning states and districts if they will be more or less likely to vote for a candidate who votes to kill the public option, the answer is consistently coming back that it would make them less likely to vote for that candidate. Lincoln can hardly afford to lose any of her base. Her unfavorability rating is 49% (favorables are down to 43%) and so far the only thing keeping her from joining the ranks of the political walking dead is the fact that the Republicans can't come up with a credible opponent. No one is polling the impact of the two independents in the race, Trevor Drown and Green Party nominee John Gray. Gray, a single payer advocate didn't mince words in his analysis of what happened yesterday in the Senate:

I’m not at all surprised. She has a rather large campaign chest, almost half of which is from the medical industries. The fact that she is loyal to her sponsors is not at all surprising... Eliminate the health care insurance industry ... and you would save enough money to cover every man woman and child in the United States. Nobody blinks an eyelash if we lay off 40,000 autoworkers, who actually produce something. These health insurance brokers, it’s hard to say what they produce.

This afternoon while Grassley was babbling on incoherently, I took a short break and ran down to the Blue America P.O. Box, where I found the latest report of our cable TV ads running, this time in Benton and Washington counties. The ads ran on a Thursday and Friday night when she was speaking in the area. They ran on Larry King Live, The Rachel Maddow Show, The Colbert Report, The O'Reilly Factor, Headline News Countdown With Keith Olberman, Hardball, The Chainsaw Massacre, Anderson Cooper 360, Showbiz Tonight, The Ed Show, Fast Money, CNN Newsroom and lots of other similar programs-- Nancy Grace and Shepard Smith but no Glenn Beck.

Keep in mind that Tom Harkin told The Hill yesterday that he feels he has enough Democrats now that Massachusetts has their second seat covered, to break the Republican filibuster, get a bill with a public option onto the floor and pass it with 51 votes. That isn't reconciliation; that's simple cloture and majority rule. Would anyone break from the party and vote with the Republicans to filibuster the bill? ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln are the only two who could conceivably keep the public option from even reaching the floor. Lincoln, who also opposes climate and energy legislation and has already declared that she will join the Republicans in filibustering Employee Free Choice, is not a good player. She doesn't deserve another term. You say, "neither do Nelson, Baucus or Conrad?" I agree. But they're not up for election in 2010. Lincoln is.

We'd like to run some more ads. In fact, we're going to. If we raise enough money we'll put them on network TV. If not, we'll keep running them on cable. The 3 ads are on the Blue America Campaign For Health Care Choice page, which is also where you can donate to the cost of running more spots if you're so inclined.

John Amato:

Blue America helped bring Blanche's approval ratings down with our initial ad campaign against her months ago when nobody was talking about her and we want to keep her accountable. Campaign For Health Care Choice has rocked and I want to thank you. Keep helping if you can.

The media, conservatives and the democratic deficit hawks are telling America that the cost of reforming America's health care system better not add one red cent to the deficit. Why doesn't the librul media explain to America that we are paying 10 billion dollars a month on two wars that Americans hate?

I asked Rep. Alan Grayson on a live chat on C&L how much the US of A spends each month on the wars, and he answered thus:

The appropriated cost is around $10 billion a month, which is enough to pay for the entire health care plan by itself. But that doesn't include the future health care costs for injured American soldiers, which is staggering. Nor the cost to the Iraqis or Afghans, of course.

Our soldiers get killed or maimed by one war that has been botched by Bush and we're no closer to a solution in Afghanistan after eight years of occupation and another war that Bush lied us into known as Iraq. The media is uncomfortable whenever we use the word "lie," for some reason. I wish they could give us a truer description of what happened, don't you?

Yet, the media never bothers to explain to us how much money we are actually spending each month that does NOTHING to help Americans. Well, it does fund the military complex and mercenaries like Blackwater, but why the f*&k does it matter to these budget freaks if we have to spend some jack to save the health-care system in the long run? Have they completely decided that America is staying in both countries endlessly and the costs for sustaining these wars is a non-issue?

UPDATE: You can donate to our "No Means No!" Afghanistan action here.

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Rachel Maddow highlights portions of the ridiculous McChrystal memos that were leaked to try and strong-arm Obama into sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Maddow: Over and over and over again this leaked report raises the specter of failure, of defeat in Afghanistan. Even as it defines what's going on in Afghanistan right now as I quote, "not a war in the conventional sense." If it's not a war but a thing that's not a war that we could lose....

Of course no one quite understands what it would be to win this not war either, but losing is perhaps politically stronger than the existentially dread of doing something indefinitely that just can't be won.

Blue America is taking a stand against an escalation in the Afghanistan war as the military is putting on their propaganda full court press on President Obama to send more troops in. We want to empower the 32 progressives in Congress that voted no to funding the war supplemental last time out and also expand the list so we can block further funding of the war. The American people do not like this war and Congress should represent that fact. C&L honors our troops and makes sure to list the members of the military that have fallen in Iraq Afghanistan every Sunday and although the media for the most part ignores our fallen heroes, we do not. I was happy to see that the President wasn't immediately bowing to the mighty general and remained cautious in his approach to the Afghanistan situation.

“Until I'm satisfied that we've got the right strategy I'm not gonna be sending some young man or woman over there — beyond what we already have,” Obama said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face or, in some way – you know, sending a message that America is here for the duration.”

Howie Klein explains:

Starting today expect to see a concerted attack on the president from the "We-Want-Obama-To-Fail-Right," making it harder for Democrats to back away from his misguided Afghanistan policies. But none of these games changes the fact this is a pointless and unwinnable war and must be brought to a close as soon as possible. This week Blue America is launching No Means No! a fundraising effort to help bolster members of Congress who already know that and who have been working diligently to end it.

If Obama keeps his pledge to end the Bush-era supplemental funding process, future appropriations for Afghanistan will be part of the budget, which means Pay-Go rules kick in. That leaves Congress with two choices when allocating money for the occupation of Afghanistan: raising taxes or cutting social programs. That's the next big battle facing Washington.

Here's the list of the House members who stood tall and refused to be strong-armed by Rahm Emanuel into voting for more war funding. I'll be having on Alan Grayson Thursday for a live chat on C&L to discuss the unfortunate situation George Bush left President Obama and America to deal with.

Digby lends her sharp perceptions to the latest campaign being waged by the military to hijack another war.

The military is obviously turning up the heat in Washington to get us into a much bigger war in Afghanistan and it's being done the usual way, with lies and leaks and back stabbing and grandstanding. And the politics are as confused as ever.

For me, this one is easy. Afghanistan is the most unlikely place to win a war on the planet. To apply the lessons learned in Iraq (such as they were) to this country seems insane to me --- especially the concept of "counter-insurgency," so beloved by the McChrystalites, which is being bizarrely misapplied. But more important than that: whenever you hear people saying that the primary purpose in continuing a war is because "to leave would send the wrong message" and declaring that "perceptions" are the reasons for continuing a slaughter, you know you are in Pentagon NeverNever land.

When you realize that we've had a hundred thousand more troops in Iraq -- which is like a third of the size of Afghanistan geographically -- then you really see how insane it is to send in a few more thousand troops into the impossible situation of trying to maintain the peace and defeat an insurgency and Taliban uprising. The Karzai government is also having problems being viewed as a legitimate ruling body by the Afghan people with all the charges of voter fraud.

Rachel Maddow, in the above video clip, goes over McChrystal's memo in detail and makes some accurate observations. His arguments are silly and really make no sense at all. Kevin Drum writes that even Gen. McChrystal describes the Afghanistan government as corrupt:

"The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and ISAF's own errors, have given Afghans little reason to support their government," McChrystal says.

The result has been a "crisis of confidence among Afghans," he writes. "Further, a perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents."

Spreading 28,000 troops throughout a country where we already had 140,000 in place would almost certainly have had no effect. But most of the troops were deployed in Baghdad, where it meant a near doubling of capacity, and that did have an effect. Baghdad was so central to the rest of Iraq that a reduction of violence there had a country-wide effect.

But no such concentration is possible in Afghanistan. Kabul isn't as important to Afghanistan as Baghdad is to Iraq, and in any case Kabul is already relatively safe. It's the rest of the country that needs more troops, and it's hard to think of any single place they could be concentrated enough to have a real impact.

Even though Kevin is uncertain about what will happen, what he outlines is a hopeless situation. How can we win this war, if it is a war and the hand-picked government is corrupt and their people know it? It's not shocking that Bush turned the country over to a man that seems to have rigged the election.

But let's face it, Americans don't like to lose in anything. So using the "we'll lose if you don't give me more troops or else" " strategy can have an impact to some who have not been following the situation closely.

Obviously the Neocon warhawks who helped get us in Iraq and Afghanistan will be given a huge megaphone to attack the president by the media even though they should be shunned. So please join in Blue America's action, because these bold progressives will be put under tremendous pressure again to vote for more war funding...

Daily Kos Research has a new poll out on Arkansas, and Blanche Lincoln has taken a big hit ever since Blue America came after her.
Daily Kos/Research 2000 Arkansas Poll

2010 Senate race

Blanche Lincoln (D) 44
Gilbert Baker (R) 37

Blanche Lincoln (D) 45
Curtis Coleman (R) 37

Blanche Lincoln (D) 46
Tom Cox (R) 29

Blanche Lincoln (D) 47
Kim Hendren (R) 28

Lincoln is under the 50 percent "safe" mark for incumbents, despite facing a lineup of potential foes unknown by 75-85 percent of poll respondents. There is certainly room for those Republicans to make gains -- or lose support -- as they become better known. Still, Lincoln's electoral prospects won't be harmed by the health care debate, as the public option polls extremely well in Arkansas.

Do you favor or oppose creating a government-administered health insurance option that anyone can purchase to compete with private insurance plans?

Favor Oppose Not Sure
All 55 38 7
Dem 81 14 5
Rep 22 71 7
Ind 56 34 10

The major reason we first targeted Lincoln back in July was that she's running for reelection in 2010, while many of the ConservaDems on the Senate Finance Committee did not have to face their voters.

It's amazing that she's under the 50% threshold now. We'll be running another wave of TV ads coming up, and I wanted to thank all our readers for making this possible. You can still donate to Blue America's Health Care for Choice Act Blue page so we can keep fighting for the public option

UPDATE: Change Congress has an action against AR's Blue Dog Mike Ross.

Today, we are announcing our latest TV ad -- calling out the "Blue Dog Democrat" leader, Rep. Mike Ross (Arkansas), for his special-interest contributions from the health industry.

Click here to see the ad and help us air it in Arkansas.

This ad includes a substantial cameo by Keith Olbermann, and for those of you who know my voice, you'll recognize a certain narrator.

We're all keeping the heat on.

One week ago we started a Netroots-wide action at Blue America, inspired by Darcy Burner's closing keynote speech at Netroots Nation, thanking the 65 stalwart progressives who have promised-- in letters to Speaker Pelosi and HHS Secretary Sebelius and to activists from Firedoglake-- to stick with the public option, even after the bribe-besoted Senate tries to kill it in the Conference Report this fall. Since then more than 6,400 donors have contributed almost $400,000.

Every member on the list has received over $3,000 from grateful donors, but some have been given way over that. People have asked me why some congressmembers-- like Barney Frank ($11,717), Lloyd Doggett ($9,173), Anthony Weiner ($9,836), Dennis Kucinich (7,622), Donna Edwards ($7,457)-- have wound up with so much more money than some of the others. After all, 60 of them signed Grijalva's letter to Sebelius clearly stating that they "stand in strong opposition to your statement that the public option is 'not the essential element' of comprehensive reform. The opportunity to improve access to healthcare is a onetime opportunity. Americans deserve reform that is real-- not smoke and mirrors. We cannot rely solely on the insurance companies' good faith efforts to provide for our constituents. A robust public option is essential, if we are to ensure that all Americans can receive healthcare that is accessible, guaranteed and of high-quality. To take the public option off the table would be a grave error; passage in the House of Representatives depends upon inclusion of it... a final proposal for the President's signature, MUST contain a public option."

Generally speaking the members with the most donations and the highest totals are the ones who have spoken out the most forcefully during the recess. Barney Frank's contributions shot to #1 after a Larry King Show YouTube went viral (over a million views) showing him answering a crazed and delusional teabagger comparing President Obama to Hitler. GOP propaganda whore Rush Limbaugh pushed Barney's donations even higher when he went off on a snide homophobic tirade the next day.

Similarly, the way Lloyd Doggett handled a disruptive mob of teabaggers at his town hall meeting early in the month won him a great deal of admiration from progressives, not just in Texas but across America. Anthony Weiner's aggressive and spirited defence of the Public Option on Morning Joe bumped him through the roof.

Donna Edwards' unimpeachable record of leadership has been an inspiration for progressives inside and outside of Congress. Last week she reiterated her commitment to real healthcare reform:

I just want to be absolutely clear-- comprehensive reform must include a robust public health insurance option. Otherwise, we're just tinkering around the edges and run the risk of giving even more power to the already too powerful insurance and pharmaceutical industries and their overpaid CEOs. I am unequivocal, unwavering, and unapologetic about my support of a robust public option-- in and outside of the Congress. Indeed I appeared on the CBS Evening News just this week urging Democrats to move forward on healthcare reform, including a robust public option, with or without Republican support since they seem more interested in the politics of taking down President Obama than healthcare for millions of Americans.

It is important that we stay focused on getting a robust public option included in the House version of the bill-- nothing watered down. As a progressive member of the House of Representatives, I can't spend time guessing or speculating about what the Senate will do. I do know that if we don't do our work to get a strong bill out of the House, we won’t be able to beg, borrow or steal a robust public option from the Senate. And, the naysayers and opponents of reform know this-- they know what's at stake. That's why they've tried to use August to kill reform. With your help, it hasn't worked and it won't work.

To accomplish our goal, we must be vigorous advocates for a public option that uses the Medicare provider network, starts immediately without triggers, and has a payment system that encourages quality patient care. We're almost there, and that's why it will take your voices outside of Congress and those of us inside to encourage our colleagues and our President to be courageous to the end. I hope you will continue to join me in this fight for comprehensive health care reform.

No more tinkering.

No more dictates by the big insurers and pharmaceutical companies.

No more deceptions and distractions.

Let's fight for a robust public option to ensure quality, affordable healthcare and lower costs for everyone and provide transparency and accountability. I know we can do this. I will keep fighting, but I need you to keep fighting with me.

Friday Steve Kornacki at PolitickerNY emphasized how powerful Jerry Nadler's message on health care has been and Nadler is assigning credit to the grassroots efforts inspired by Darcy Burner's epic speech.

“If they try to get a bill through the Senate with 60 votes without a public option, it won’t pass the House,” he said. “We will make sure it doesn’t pass the House.”

Other House progressives have been making similar threats, and Nadler admits he’s not sure how seriously the House leadership and the White House have been taking them-- until now.

He described a conference call this week for all House Democrats in which “people who you’d be surprised at” spoke up and told Pelosi they’d reject any bill without a public option. It was only a few weeks ago, after she struck her deal with the Blue Dogs, that Pelosi seemed to sneer at the threats of progressives.
But now, Nadler said, “I think she’s probably going to take that more seriously.”

“We’ve got to draw the line somewhere,” he added. “And this is where we’re drawing it. And we have to draw it here. We probably should have drawn it a little closer in.”

So what happens, I asked Nadler, if the House is ultimately presented with a bill with a cop-op provision instead of a public option-- and if the White House and House leadership then tell progressives that it was the best they could do and that if it fails, the Obama presidency might be sunk?

“They can’t allow it to come to that situation, because I’ll vote no,” he replied. “They cannot allow it to get there, and that’s what we’re telling them now. If it comes to that, enough members, I think, will vote no. And they certainly don’t want to test that.”

Strong stuff, huh? Yesterday's biggest recipient of netroots money on our page was Maxine Waters, who sent an unequivocal message to the Democratic Leadership that the line in the sand is for real. She spoke at a town hall meeting in a part of L.A. where teabaggers and nightriders don't venture and she made it crystal clear that without a public option she will oppose whatever the Insurance Industry and their congressional shills try shoving down our throats. I doubt there's much Emanuel can do to her-- except take her off the White House Christmas card list. Addressing President Obama directly, she reminded him that "[t]he people of this country elected you and gave you a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate... Yes, we know that you are a nice man, that you want to work with the opposite side of the aisle. But there comes a time when you need to drop that and move forward. We're saying to you, Mr. President, 'Be tough. Use everything that you've got. Do what you have to do. And we have your back.'" As for the corrupt members of the House of Lords... I don't think Rep. Waters will have their backs any time soon.

"Not only are we going to do everything we can to organize and put pressure on the senators-- some of whom are Neanderthals-- we're going to say to the president, 'We want you to use every weapon in your basket in order to get those senators to do what they should be doing,' " Waters said.

So... if you haven't said thanks yet, I'd recommend today would be a good day to think about Maxine Waters, Jerry Nadler, Donna Edwards, Barney Frank... and any of the other members you've heard speaking out forcefully about the public option. You can donate to one or two or as many of the 65 members of the House who have promised to stand firm as you'd like at the Blue America page.

MoveOn has generously joined in on our Standing Up For The Public Option fundraiser and it's helped keep the thermometer rising. When last I looked we were over 300,000 dollars and over 5000 donors. I can't wait to wake up and see where we are next. (I wrote this post at 11:15 PM Thursday)

Howie Klein adds:

UPDATE: MoveOn.org Joins The Battle

If you've noticed that our thermometer is going through the roof today, that's because MoveOn is in the process of sending out a request to their millions of members to join the effort to thank the Democrats in Congress who have drawn the line in the sand for a robust public option and real health care reform beyond the siphoning of public money that the insurance companies and their congressional shills want.

I was watching MSNBC and CNN yesterday and all I was hearing was that progressives supporting the public option are left to the left. WTF does that mean? When Bush used reconciliation to pass his massive tax cut for the rich bill, the media didn't say that it was a right to the right position. We get tarred for having a brain.

And now Terry McCauliffe of all people has said that he's for the public option and is offering to do a fundraiser for anyone who endorsers it in Virginia. Wow.

Not Larry Sabato has worked with Terry McAuliffe to do a major fundraiser for any Virginia candidate who makes the pledge (an effort probably worth six figures).

Terry McAuliffe? Wow! That's an effort! In fact, I'm going back on the Blue America page and donating some more.

And a new poll shows 77% percent of Americans still support the public option.

Yet, while the issue continues to be hotly debated in the halls of Congress, a new poll by Survey USA finds that the idea is as popular as ever amongst the American public:

More than three out of every four Americans feel it is important to have a “choice” between a government-run health care insurance option and private coverage, according to a public opinion poll released on Thursday.

A new study by SurveyUSA puts support for a public option at a robust 77 percent, one percentage point higher than where it stood in June.

The SurveyUSA poll finds similar results to several other polls that also show that the public option is very popular, a fact that some members of Congress consider to be a detriment.

Yes, I'm a 77%er...

Jane adds:

The House Dems have 77% of the country behind them. Conrad and Bayh have WellPoint and Blue Cross behind them, and messy financial ties to boot. Will they join with the Republicans to filibuster a Democratic health care bill? Because as Kagro X says, that is very much what they are saying they will do.

I guess we will see.

The progressive blogosphere is rocking D.C., and we really want to thank our readers for their support in our drive to reward the supporters of the public option. Progressives in Congress are learning what it means to do the right thing by your actions. Please donate if you can.

And Digby reads the NY Times and gets annoyed because they can't frakkin' read.

This NYT story indicates that it comes as some sort of surprise that progressives have just suddenly decided to hang tough. That's just not true. I first wrote about this back on June 3rd:

Darcy mentioned to me that this week is an important moment in the health care debate, in which it might be helpful for members of the netroots to weigh in with a little positive reinforcement to the progressive caucus, which has been holding the leadership's feet to the fire on the public plan option. Everyone pretty much agrees that if that goes down, health care reform will be a meaningless shell game.

I was somewhat surprised frankly (in a good way)to hear the the progressives caucus had pulled together on this one and was actually wielding some clout. They represent over 70 m4mbers of congress, which is a big bloc of votes. If they can stick together on the public plan, it will happen.

If one of these House members is your Congressional Representative, all the better. But contact one or more of them even if they aren't. They need to know that people other than lobbyists and big donors are engaged and informed on this and that we know what's at stake with the public plan.

The Village seems to have just awakened to the fact that the progressives are holding the line, but they've been organized around this for months.

Digby is usually ahead of the curve when it comes to matters of intelligence. There are so many people that have helped in "holding the line," but if you read the MSM you'd never know it.

Blue America, CPC, PCCC, DFA, C&L, Hullabaloo, Howie Klein, KOS, the Courage Campaign, Calitics and FDL -- to name a few -- have been targeting the House and the Baucus Dogs in the Senate for months now. Kudos to all. You know that the Ben Nelsons are dying to get their grubby hands on some of our money, but they'd have to act like real Democrats for that to happen.