Hard-core Dem to Herseth Sandlin: This one’ll cost ya
November 6th, 2009By Kevin Woster
One of my Democratic pals called this afternoon to rant about Herseth Sandlin.
He does that from time to time, usually when she votes in a way he considers unbecoming of an officer and gentlewoman of the party.
He was really worked up this time. It’s was her health-care vote. The big NO on the House plan.
My buddy is big on the Obama reform plan, and just about any version Democratic leaders want to push that has a public option.
So he got a bit feverish when he read that Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin announced this morning that she couldn’t vote for the current House version of health-care reform.
The nerve of that woman, he said, voting against a health-care reform plan by her Democratic leadership and her Democratic president.This one will cost her, he said, if not in outright Democratic votes for the Republican challenger, then at least in Democrats abstaining from voting for her.
Then, he said it: If she keeps voting like this, she should leave the Democratic Party.
Tough talk from a hard-core Democrat who, while pretty darn liberal, typically has a pretty solid head on his shoulders when it comes to appreciating the pragmatic necessities of surviving as a Democrat in a Republican state.
There’s some of that in Herseth Sandlin’s political calculus these days. Maybe quite a bit. And I advised my Democratc buddy that her handling of this touchy issue probably makes pretty good political sense.
That mad him madder.
I also suggested that her opposition to the House plan (remember, she liked the Senate version a lot better) also might be based on legitimate criticism of that plan and even the views and preferences of a good number of her constituents.
That made him madder still. So mad he ended the conversation.
But it is possible, isn’t it? Stranger things have happened in Congress.
