Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney


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July 21, 2009

Daily Pulse on Health Care Politics

"Emboldened by divided Democrats and polls that show rising public anxiety about President Obama's handling of health care and the economy," Republicans "launched an aggressive effort to link the two, comparing the health-care bills moving through Congress to what they labeled as a failed economic stimulus bill," the Washington Post reports.

"And the news that the Obama administration would delay release of a congressionally mandated report on the nation's economic conditions only stoked the rhetoric, spawning GOP speculation that the White House is trying to avoid bad news amid the health-care debate."

Meanwhile, Roll Call notes President Obama and his aides "for the first time are directly targeting the GOP and specific Republicans, characterizing them as spoilers hoping to delay and sink the legislation for their own political gain."

But they are also backing off their original deadline of having bills passed in the Senate and House by the August recess.

The New York Times says Democratic Congressional leaders "signaled a retreat from their ambitious timetable" and "it was increasingly clear the Senate would not be ready to vote on its bill before its recess begins on Aug. 8, and that House Democrats seemed unwilling to vote to raise taxes without knowing where the Senate stood."

President Obama also spoke on the Today Show about health care reform and the need to set a deadline.

Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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