Nancy is on Bulls & Bears on the Fox Business Network. Asked whether the US Chamber of Commerce’s $50 million post-healthcare push-back on legislation details will be effective this November, she says it’s like Tennessee trying to redouble their efforts in the NCAA Basketball Tournament – they lost to MSU – game over. Better luck next time!”
Archive for March, 2010
Nancy vs. Sarah Palin
Nancy will be on MSNBC this afternoon at 3:30 p.m. ET (2:30 CT; 1:30 MT; 12:30 PT) discussing Sarah Palin and whether her “charisma” will affect the coming elections.
Remember, Nancy helped prepare Michigan’s Governor Jennifer Granholm to stand in for Palin in VP Biden’s prep for the vice presidential debate, so she knows everything there is to know about Sarah Palin.
This should be an interesting segment, so tune in or record it!
Nancy on MSNBC talking toxic tea parties
Nancy joins David Schuster on MSNBC and debates Armstrong Williams on the question of whether tea parties are toxic to the Republican party. Skinner says that people resent the tea party folks constantly saying that they alone represent the “will of the people”. The real measure of political will is at the election polls and not shifting public opinion polls.
A Brave New World
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Do you feel different this morning? You should. Something special happened yesterday. I’m not just talking about the historic vote on healthcare reform. I spent the entire weekend watching the debate on all the cable channels.
I watched as the tea partiers got nasty. I’m not just referring to the racist and homophobic slurs, but the majority of the crowds with signs talking about communism, socialism and-the-end-of-freedom-as-we-know-it types. I saw Dems on TV trying to answer why they were proceeding in the face of poll numbers that showed the American public opposed the bill by a small margin, whilst John Boehner and the gang insisted that it was in violation of the consent of the governed. Nevermind that the GOP wasn’t too concerned about consent of the governed when they impeached Clinton. All polls showed only between 17% and 25% support for that option, yet they persisted.
Nevermind that the bill has been demonized for months on end and every scare tactic in the book was used to alter the polls from the widespread support for the plan in June 2009, even among Republicans and especially Independents. Never mind that the GOP has used a big scary boogeyman called November 2010 elections to frighten Democratic lawmakers in swing districts.
Something strange happened. The Dems came together and pulled the trigger regardless, and today, not only are they OK, they are stronger than they have ever been.
Republican calls for repeal are tantamount to a football team who just got scored on trying to take 7 points off the board instead of scoring their own touchdown. It ain’t gonna happen!
Guess what else ain’t gonna happen? Losing control of Congress. The American public, who has been confused by the debate and the deliberate mischaracterization of it, will now get to choose between the “problem solvers” and the “ranters and ravers.” The list of immediate benefits will be the referee in the rhetorical battle. The death panels will be revealed as fable.
But most importantly, I feel that the Democrats have finally developed the confidence they need to act on even more pressing issues. To take on huge special interests and their proxies in congress who have up to this point been so successful in scaring Democrats and stopping action on healthcare, climate change, financial reform, deficit reduction, trade policy reform, immigration reform, etc.
Doing the right thing is good politics. Time reveals that. Just take the war in Iraq and the flip in the polls. The same is happening with the stimulus bill and the automaker bailouts. We took hard political steps, but they are working.
They were hard votes because the GOP could scare people or divide them into them and us camps. Democrats showed last night that American is not a zero sum game. The whole of this country is greater than its parts, its factions. Our founding fathers actually feared factions more than anything else. So despite their best shot at Obama’s Waterloo, manipulating the words of the founding fathers, those who sought to divide this country are all the weaker for it.
It’s a brave new world for progressives. I certainly hope we all feel it as move on to tackle climate change. The planet itself is certainly not a zero sum game. There are no winners and losers if we fail to act, we will all be losers. I hope that Democrats carry with them the moral of this story. Do the right thing, and you’ll be okay. More importantly, history will smile on your bravery.
Nancy vs. Laura Ingraham on O’Reilly Factor 3-19-10
On the eve of historic healthcare reform, conservative radio host Laura Ingraham fills in for Bill O’Reilly and tries to scare the American people about the bill and paint a picture of doom for Democrats in November. Nancy sets the facts straight and takes Laura up on a bet for the fallout in November.
Listen up Liberals: Progressive means Progress!
I lost my U.S. Senate primary race to Barack Obama six years ago today. I remember because it was my birthday. I also remember something that our President, then state senator, said in a light moment during the campaign after I impersonated him and he shot back one of me, “All we need is courage and big bold ideas,” he said in his best high-pitched Skinner voice. He was right on with that as I repeated that mantra at every chance. I was pleased to hear him say it yesterday in Cleveland on his last- minute pitch to pass healthcare reform.
“I don’t know about the politics, but I know what’s the right thing to do,” he said, nearly shouting as the crowd cheered. “And so I’m calling on Congress to pass these reforms — and I’m going to sign them into law. I want some courage. I want us to do the right thing.”
Well, Mr. President, I have also believed that doing the right thing is good politics. President Obama and I both opposed the war in Iraq at a time when the polls were hugely in favor of the war. Look what happened. With time, the truth came out. The public slowly assimilated it, the polls completely flipped, and we are withdrawing all troops.
The moderate and conservative Dems should heed this experience. Get some spine and pass the bill. The truth will come out. People will be happy. The polls will change, and we can move on to make it better and better.
To the liberals in the party, I must say the same. I am strongly in favor of a public option, as you can see from untold TV food fight battles and my advocacy efforts. In fact, I first started talking about a public option during my Senate primary with Barack Obama in 2003. I didn’t call it that, I called it USA Choice for Healthcare, and described it as a government plan that will compete with the private sector to provide an affordable plan to Americans who could not find one in the private market. I was not a single-payer advocate because I knew that politically, a single-payer could never pass given that the vast majority of Americans were enrolled in an employer-based program. But, more importantly, the idea of “competition” was a keyword in GOP rhetoric. How could they win that spin battle?
They managed to twist “competition is a good thing” into “anything the government touches is a bad thing” and won the short-term rhetorical war. But they cannot win the battle.
Healthcare reform is too fundamental to our survival, as a nation, and as individuals. Americans know that. And just as they came around with Iraq, they will come around on healthcare. So listen up, liberals (and I don’t care which name you call me), but progressive means progress. Abolitionists didn’t tie their fate to women’s suffrage. They made progress with each movement.
The same is true with healthcare. You have to free Dennis Kucinich and the others who signed the pledge letter for the public option to do the right thing. It’s not perfect, no. But it’s traction. When people get used to having the government involved, even if for now it is to stop the worst abuses in insurance company behavior and end monopolistic premium increases, it is progress.
I believe that offering a public option in the next congress and the next one after that will get us closer to that goal. As people understand the cost structure, they will choose to have “government competition” over “repealing progress” and returning to the days where insurance companies are allowed to throw you off while you are sick and dying, when having a pre-existing condition means a very insecure future.
All or nothing is fine when we are playing poker with chips, not when it literally means life or death for untold thousands of Americans while we wait another decade to try it again.
Your exemplary efforts to push it this far and get it done deserves the highest of praise. I was with you in that. The other side says they will kill the bill at all costs. You can’t aid or abet that obstructionist behavior.
As President Obama said yesterday. Have the courage. Do the right thing. This week we can make more “progress” as progressives than anything we’ve done in literally decades.
It’s time to unite in the 11th hour and put something historic in the history books. Then let’s start writing the next chapter. Much work yet to be done.
Big News!
We’ve got big news. Very soon Nancy will be launching a new daily national conference call for her listeners called The Quantum Call– “The QC.” You can participate on the call every day by phone or computer, and download a podcast that captures the best of the QC and much, much more each night.
The Supreme Court, in its outrageous “Citizens United” decision, has inspired the gang at nancyskinnerlive.com to get creative, and The QC will deliver on that!
We will also be adding a new feature to the site called “Prep Me!” As you know, Nancy has been doing lots of TV these days and she wants your help. We are going to put our topics out there and ask for your two cents before the food fight. Nancy gets so many good e-mails after an appearance, she wants to hear from you beforehand. The spin wars are heating up and we want you on the team.
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Clips of Nancy vs. Ann Coulter on Kudlow 3-5-10
Nancy and Ann Coulter discuss why federal pay is fifty percent higher than the private sector.
Nancy and Ann Coulter discuss whether the stock market depends on a political regime change.
Nancy on Happy Hour 3-4-10
Nancy on Happy Hour taking on the whole gang over the jobs bill. Why would the GOP vote against a paired-down, pork-free, paid-for Jobs Bill?
