The President Whose Words Once Soared

This is an interesting article that discusses about the effects of Obama's speeches on decision making and public opinion. It questions whether Obama's speech making skills are beginning to lose their influential touch, and whether he will be able to have his expected impact in policy making as he continues to give multiple speeches a day and the intended audience begins to tune out. The article also mentions the large increase in the frequency of presidential speech making over time, referencing specific president's such as Truman and Reagan. Because of this change, individual speeches are less influential in general, which can be detrimental to a president like Obama who strives on his ability to communicate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/weekinreview/08baker.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

Those who voted for the bill.

After our discussion about LBJ and negotiating for votes, I wonder what these Democratic members got for voting in favor of the healthcare bill? This link has a list of Democrats who represent GOP-leaning districts but still voted with the caucus.

Summarized into 3 groups: 

R+11 or worse: 0 Yes, 14 No 

R+3 to R+10: 20 Yes, 18 No 

R+2 or better: 199 Yes, 7 No

YES votes in R+3 to R+10 group: 

ND-AL Pomeroy (R+10) 

WV-01 Mollohan (R+9) 

AR-01 Berry (R+9) 

IN-08 Ellsworth (R+9) 

PA-10 Carney (R+9) 

OH-18 Space (R+7) 

SC-05 Spratt (R+6) 

AZ-01 Kirkpatrick (R+6) 

IN-09 Hill (R+6) 

WV-03 Rahall (R+6) 

AZ-05 Mitchell (R+5) 

AR-02 Snyder (R+5) 

CO-03 Salazar (R+5) 

VA-05 Perriello (R+5) 

AZ-08 Giffords (R+4) 

TX-23 Rodriguez (R+3) 

KS-03 Moore (R+3) 

MI-01 Stupak (R+3) 

NY-19 Hall (R+3) 

PA-03 Dahlkemper (R+3)

The Health Vote

The New York Times has an extremely informative table showing the characteristics of the House Democrats who votes against the health bill. A summary:

Only one Republican voted for the bill, and 39 Democrats opposed it, including 24 members of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition. An overwhelming majority of the Democratic lawmakers who opposed the bill — 31 of the 39 — represent districts that were won by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, in the 2008 presidential election, and a third of them were freshmen. Nearly all of the fourteen freshmen Democrats who voted “no” represent districts that were previously Republican and are considered vulnerable in 2010. Geographically, 22 lawmakers from southern states formed the largest opposition bloc. Below are details on the Democrats that opposed the health care legislation in the House.