I was a guest today at a fundraising luncheon for local congressional candidate and fighting Dem Patrick Murphy, sponsored by VA Gov. Mark Warner’ Forward Together PAC. (The 32rd floor of the Mellon Building. Oo la la!) Duncan was there, as was Booman and Alex Urevick-Acklesberg of Young Philly Politics.
I just love Patrick, a real good guy who surely won’t forget his roots (for one thing, I don’t think his wife Jennifer will let him). Go give him some money if you can, kids - I think he’s gonna win it.
The food was wonderful, as you’d expect. I was looking for a reason to take Warner seriously but didn’t find one. He gave what I thought was a sloppy speech. He brought up a couple of proposals which already exist in some form, he talked about Iran, saying it’s “the real thing” (as a potential threat), and said he doesn’t support single-payer health care “because it doesn’t work.” He struck me as, oh, I don’t know, a little eager to prove Dems can start wars, too.
Here’s what I wrote in Booman’s comments:
I wasn’t as impressed with Warner as I was with the food. (And by the way, they do already have a program where high school seniors work for college credits - AP classes. Why not subsidize the expense so more districts can afford to offer the full AP program?)
He also talked about mandating standardized electronic medical records, when that law was already passed - in 1996, as part of Teddy Kennedy’s HIPAA legislation. Problem is, once the Bushies took over, they simply ignored the compliance deadline.
Take a look here.
He didn’t seem bad - just not all that engaging, certainly not all that progressive. For instance, he said he doesn’t support a single-payer health care plan “because it doesn’t work.” That’s just plain bullshit, but something the insurance, medical and pharmaceutical lobbies do like to hear.
It was nice of him to invite us, and I’m sure he’s a fine Democratic governor, but president? I’m not feeling it.
Damn. I’m pissed that he’s still flogging the Iran thing. I asked him at YKos why he thought Iran was the biggest WMD threat when Pakistan, which already had nukes and was the one who sold plans to Iran in the first place, was just an Islamic fundemantalist coup away from Al Qaeda being given nukes.
He didn’t have an intelligent answer (he proceeded to rehearse all the non-WMD reasons Iran was a threat) then, and it sounds like he doesn’t have one now.
«said he doesn’t support single-payer health care “because it doesn’t work.※
Ah. This country is _soo_ screwed if this is the sort of bright light that’s being shilled as a “progressive” candidate. I’d like to ask him just which single-payer system “doesn’t work”, and just what he’s comparing it to.
Emptywheel’s comment really highlights the state we’re in. (S)He asserts simple common sense that should be obvious to all (the Pakistan problem), and gets nonsense about Iran in return.
My mother, who just went through major surgery in a Canadian hospital, and my wife, who had major surgery in a British hospital a few years ago, would be very surprised to hear that single-payer health care “doesn’t work”.