CAF In The News

blogs.tnr.com — Political autopsies of the failed campaign for universal health care in the 1990s frequently focus on the activities of special interests who opposed it. Not that many people saw the infamous "Harry and Louise" ads, in which an average-looking couple sat at their dining room table worrying that the Clinton health plan would take away their choice of doctor. But the ads came to symbolize the misleading, and expensive, lobbying campaign waged by small insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, and other conservative groups. Perhaps no less important, it gave the opposition to universal coverage a visible and sympathetic face (or, to be more accurate, set of faces).

But it wasn't just the lobbying against the Clinton health care plan that killed it; it was also the lack of lobbying for it. Proponents of reform had hoped that like-minded interest groups would push back against the anti-reform lobbies. But the unions, famously, sat out most of the health care debate because they had spent so much time and money fighting the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. The AARP, meanwhile, had to hold its fire because leaks about possible Medicare cuts had spooked seniors.

thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com — It could be a version of the “Harry and Louise” television commercial that helped kill Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health care plan in 1994, only this time, it will be in favor of reform.

A national advertisement by the newly formed group Health Care for America Now, to be released on Tuesday, will take on insurance companies and argue for comprehensive, affordable health care in the United States, a spokeswoman for the group said Wednesday.

Its theme? “You can’t trust the insurance industry to fix the health care mess,” said the spokeswoman, Jacki Schechner. “We’re educating the public about our principles and what we’d like to see from the president and the new Congress.”

Health Care for America Now, an umbrella group of labor unions, health care organizations and liberal activists, said Wednesday that it would spend $40 million to promote affordable health care.

— John McCain weighs in on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which Isaiah pithily describes here, and demonstrates the utter inadequacy of E. coli conservatism to grasp, well, reality:

"I am all in favor of pay equity for women, but this kind of legislation, as is typical of what's being proposed by my friends on the other side of the aisle, opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems," the expected GOP presidential nominee told reporters. "This is government playing a much, much greater role in the business of a private enterprise system."... "They need the education and training, particularly since more and more women are heads of their households, as much or more than anybody else," McCain said. "And it's hard for them to leave their families when they don't have somebody to take care of them.

Of course, as this document shows, average educational attainment has been higher for women than for men for ten years now. Read here for the definitive demonstration that, yes, women make less than men for the same jobs, and yes, the only possible way to explain that is discrimination.

Doesn't matter. The Senate's conservative minority just filibustered fair pay for women—or, as the AP laundered this shameful action, "killed the bill Wednesday night on a 56-42 vote that denied the measure the 60 votes needed to advance it to full debate and a vote."

inthesetimes.com — Take Back America 2008 was, as usual, rousing and inspirational. The keynote speeches that stood out for me were those given by Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future (the group that convenes the conference each year); Van Jones, a young and dynamic leader in the environmental movement; and Donna Edwards, the newly elected, soon-to-be, congresswoman from Maryland’s 4th district.

afp.google.com — A US liberal group Friday released an advertisement that rails on Republican White House nominee John McCain for backing a US Air Force decision to award a huge contract to Europe's Airbus.

"A message of thanks to John McCain from the French people," says the video ad, which is in French with English subtitles and was issued by the Campaign for America's Future, a self-described "progressive" think tank.

weblogs.baltimoresun.com — Sometimes, the pursuit of political partisanship carries a sheer entertainment value.

Such is the case with this political committee that is none too happy about Sen. John McCain supporting a military contract that takes a lucrative flying fuel-tanker contract away from Boeing and hands it to a French consortium that includes the Airbus aircraft.

blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com — In a new tongue-in-cheek video ad, Campaign for America's Future uses Sen. John McCain's ties to the Air Force tanker contract awarded to a group that includes European jetmaker Airbus over The Boeing Co. to attack the presumptive Republican nominee.

The video zeroes in on the contract's foreign ties, painting a caricature of a senator more loyal to France's economy than America's without much context. But thus is politics. You be the judge.

politico.com — MoveOn and the other groups participating in this week’s “Take Back America” conference are trying like never before to avoid stepping on each others’ toes — and messages — as they gear up for an intense general election battle.

On Tuesday, they presented Election Day 2008 as a historic opportunity thanks to the lessons they’ve learned from past efforts, loosened election rules, an electoral landscape tilted in Democrats’ favor and grass-roots networks that they say rival those mobilized by Republicans in past elections.

Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, which is hosting the conference, floated the possibility of $400 million in combined spending during a telephone interview with Politico after the news conference.

The exact size and shape of the spending remain unclear, though, partly because the Democratic presidential race between Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York is far from settled, and also because the groups behind the plan — and their legal structures — vary widely.

Borosage included in his calculation Rock the Vote and Women Voices-Women Vote, which promote voting by young people and unmarried women, respectively; ACORN, which advocates for expanded housing opportunities; and the National Council of La Raza, which backs Hispanic causes.

thehill.com — Leaders from six progressive groups participating in the “Take Back America” conference this week announced Tuesday that they would undertake the largest and most expensive effort in history to push progressively minded Americans to the polls.

“2008 has the potential to be a ‘sea-change' election,” said Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, the organization that hosts the annual conference. Borosage predicted a political transformation on the order of the conservative realignments that swept through the nation following Ronald Reagan's election in 1980.

ap.google.com — Activists who gathered at a Washington hotel this week said Obama and Clinton have energized the electorate with their prolonged contest, but several warned that a convention fight could be fractious and leave little time to mount a general election campaign against Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain.