Now Democrats Must Find the Votes

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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February 26, 2010

Now Democrats Must Find the Votes

After nearly seven hours of health care discussion yesterday, Roll Call sums up President Obama's strong words for Republicans: "Find common ground with Democrats in the next six weeks or we're moving on without you and letting voters decide in November who was wrong."

Likewise, Ezra Klein says the big story out of the summit is that the White House "has dug its heels into the dirt. The Democrats are not taking reconciliation off the table, they are not paring back the bill, and they are not extricating themselves from the issue. They think they're right on this one, and they're going to try and pass this legislation."

Greg Sargent: "Whether Obama and Dems will succeed in passing reform on their own is anything but assured, to put it mildly. But there's virtually no doubt anymore that they are going to try -- starting as early as tomorrow."

The big question now: Where do they find the votes?

John Dickerson: "According to strategists involved in 2010 races, fence-sitting Democrats needed to see Obama change the political dynamic. He needed to show how health care reform could be defended and how Republicans could be brought low. He did neither. White House aides and the president himself said he was going to press Republicans for how their plans would work, but he did that only twice -- and mildly. There was no put-up-or-shut-up moment."

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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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February 26, 2010