She Voted Against It Before She Didn’t Vote Against It

Powerline has a post on Stephanie Herseth Sandlin's advertising. Here is the SHS ad that the post discusses.

I thought this was pretty good. SHS reminds us that she has always campaigned by putting distance between herself and her political party. The only thing of substance in this ad is her vote against bailouts and "the trillion dollar health care plan".

Powerline notes the problem:

… she seems to be saying, is an insupportable monstrosity. So Herseth Sandlin must support repeal of such impossibly costly legislation? Actually, no. According to Herseth Sandlin, "repealing it wouldn't be a productive way forward."

Representative Herseth-Sandlin is in a tight spot, to be sure. She has to sell herself as an independent, and she uses her vote against health care reform to that effect. She also has to hold on to a much Democratic support as possible. Perhaps she judged that she couldn't afford to vote for repeal. That means she voted against it before she didn't vote against it.

All this resolves to a simple calculation. If you are a South Dakotan in favor of all the things that Obama/Reid/and Pelosi had been doing, you certainly ought to vote for Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin regardless of how she votes on health care. You will still more of what you want than you would from Kristi Noem. If you lean in the other direction, you certainly ought to vote Noem.

This explains, I think, my friend Cory Heidelberger's fascinating series of anti-Noem, pro-SHS posts. See here for the latest installment. Cory reads the bottom line as I do above.

On the other hand, there is this press release from the Noem Campaign:

South Dakota Republican U.S. House Candidate Kristi Noem announced today that her campaign raised more than the three-term incumbent, Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in the most recent reporting period. Noem raised $332,462 from May 20th to June 30th. Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin raised $297,168 during that same period.

That fund raising deficit suggests that Heidelberger's uncomfortable enthusiasm for SHS is not infectious.

Comments

[Andrew]

Herseth-Sandlin's comments that repealing health care would not be a positive step forward can be taken a variety of ways. For example, Herseth-Sandlin may support several of the Republican proposals that didn't make it into the final bill, such as allowing health care companies to sell insurance across state lines. She may also support the liberal proposals, like the public option, that didn't make it in the final bill.

Further, I'm somewhat perplexed by the anger from the right regarding healthcare. We (the US) are still using a for-profit, private system without a state operated option citizens that do not fall within special criteria such as being very poor, very old, or being a veteran. I fail to see how keeping the private system of insurance intact can qualify as the "government takeover of healthcare" decried by conservatives. Increased regulation? Yes. Takeover? No. My point is not to get into a discussion about what policies we ought to take, but rather to point out my belief that the conservative's characterizations of the bill seemed over-the-top. Health care is a complex issue, but I think we can all agree we pay too much for it and don't effectively address the problems that plague us the most.

When we calm down and actually begin addressing our health care system with calmer heads, I think we'll realize we have more options than we think. Further, I think we'll discover that at least some parts of the bill should remain. Finally, of the so-called universal health care systems out there, there is far more variety than most of us realize. The press seems to categorize our options as being for an NHS-style system like the British have or a completely private system. There are a lot of alternatives to this. Germany uses both public insurance and private insurance. Private insurance tends to have Cadillac coverage options like massage therapy and alternative medicine. Canada retains a per-visit fee service and although government funded is mostly in the hands of private companies. Japan has a really complex private-public split of costs. All of these countries have arguably better care (certainly better in terms of life-expectancy and infant mortality) and lower costs.

[dhmosquito]

Noem's got my vote. Period. At this point I wouldn't vote for a democrat if he were a Scoop Jackson. And I bet I speak for a lot of folks west of the river. I am convinced that Herseth Sandlin got some sort of back-door "approval" to vote "No" on obamacare because she's from a "Red" state and she wanted some kind of credibility back home in SD. Her position on repeal of obamacare says it all. Oh, and the comment above about " ... I think we can all agree we pay too much for it [healthcare] and don't effectively address the problems that plague us the most". Like the COMPLETE ABSENCE of any tort reforms in that 2000+ page bill that we "... have to pass to see what's in it". Yep, trial lawyers still have democrats in their hip pockets. Vote these clowns out.