Was Democrats’ Health Care Strategy Written In Federal Prison?
Devil's Advocate
by Joel B. Pollak
http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/07/was-democrats-health-care-strategy-
written-in-federal-prison/
On August 31, I headed to the health care town hall meeting of
my congressional representative, Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). I
suspected that she planned to stack the meeting with paid
organizers, after she vowed on Real Time with Bill Maher to
bring �millions� of people into the streets to support the
so-called �public option.� So I brought a video camera.
A friend and I took turns filming protesters on both sides of
the issue. We caught an organizer from the group Health Care
for America Now (HCAN) instructing followers to block
dissenting views: �So if they stand up and start asking
questions, and you�re in that area, simply stand up, and start
chanting� �Health care now! Health care now!��
My experience at Rep. Schakowsky�s town hall meeting that night
convinced me to challenge her in the 2010 election. I had
already stood up to Rep. Barney Frank at Harvard University,
when I asked him about his role in the financial crisis. I
could not simply watch thugs drown out the people of my own
community back home, and do nothing.
The HCAN video became a YouTube sensation, the �smoking gun� in
the controversy over which side of the debate was
�Astroturfing��i.e. creating a false image of grass roots
support. I have since discovered that the video contains clues
about how the entire nationwide health care campaign was
planned and executed by congressional Democrats and the White
House.
It turns out that the organizer in the video is John Gaudette,
the Illinois director of HCAN. Gaudette also works for a
left-wing group linked to ACORN called Citizen Action/Illinois.
Rep. Schakowsky sits on the Policy Council of the group, which
suggests that she may have known about or even coordinated the
suppression of her own constituents� views by HCAN.
The plot thickens.
Rep. Schakowsky�s husband, Robert Creamer, used to be the
leader of Citizen Action/Illinois. He also founded its
predecessor, Illinois Public Action, in which Ms. Schakowsky
served as Program Director. He runs a political consulting
firm, the Strategic Consulting Group, which lists ACORN and the
SEIU among its clients and which made $541,000 working for
disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.
Creamer resigned from Citizen Action/Illinois after the FBI
began investigating him for bank fraud and tax evasion at
Illinois Public Action. He was convicted in 2006 and sentenced
to five months in federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, plus
eleven months of house arrest.
While in prison�or �forced sabbatical,� he called it�Creamer
wrote a lengthy political manual, Listen to Your Mother: Stand
Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win (Seven Locks Press,
2007).
The book was endorsed by leading Democrats and their allies,
including SEIU boss Andy Stern�the most frequent visitor thus
far to the Obama White House�and chief Obama strategist David
Axelrod, who noted that Creamer�s tome �provides a blueprint
for future victories.�
In the book, Creamer draws lessons from decades of experience
on the radical left, including the teachings of arch-radical
Saul Alinsky, and several episodes from Rep. Schakowsky�s
political career. He also lays out a �Progressive Agenda for
Structural Change,� which includes a ten-point plan for
foisting universal health care on the American people in 2009:
�We must create a national consensus that health care is a
right, not a commodity; and that government must guarantee that
right.�
�We must create a national consensus that the health care
system is in crisis.�
�Our messaging program over the next two years should focus
heavily on reducing the credibility of the health insurance
industry and focusing on the failure of private health
insurance.�
�We need to systematically forge relationships with large
sectors of the business/employer community.�
�We need to convince political leaders that they owe their
elections, at least in part, to the groundswell of support of
[sic] universal health care, and that they face political peril
if they fail to deliver on universal health care in 2009.�
�We need not agree in advance on the components of a plan, but
we must foster a process that can ultimately yield consensus.�
�Over the next two years, we must design and organize a massive
national field program.�
�We must focus especially on the mobilization of the labor
movement and the faith community.�
�We must systematically leverage the connections and resources
of a massive array of institutions and organizations of all
types.�
�To be successful, we must put in place commitments for
hundreds of millions of dollars to be used to finance paid
communications and mobilization once the battle is joined.�
Creamer adds: �To win we must not just generate understanding,
but emotion�fear, revulsion, anger, disgust.�
Democrats have followed Creamer�s plan to the letter. They have
claimed our health care system is in crisis despite polls
showing the overwhelming majority of Americans are happy with
the care they receive. They have�with the help of President
Obama�circulated false horror stories about Americans dying for
lack of health care and health insurance.
They have targeted the health insurance industry, with Rep.
Schakowsky herself promising to �put the private insurance
industry out of business,� though it is a top employer in
Illinois.
Democrats have cut deals with the pharmaceutical industry and
the American Medical Association, among others. They have
brought in the President himself to tell wavering �Blue Dog�
Democrats that their re-election chances depend on passing
health care reform. They have bused in SEIU members to town
hall meetings, and used rabbis and pastors to back health care
reform from the pulpit.
They have used a complex, interconnected web of
organizations�including HCAN and Organizing For America, the
former Obama campaign arm�to whip up support and silence
opposition. And they have benefited from hundreds of millions
of dollars in advertising to convince the public to support
bills that their representatives have never read themselves.
Creamer wrote his plan in 2006, explicitly proposing that it be
carried out in 2009, once a �progressive Democrat is elected
President� and once Democrats could count on 60 votes in the
Senate. It is curious that Creamer, sitting in prison, could
have predicted the details and the timing of President Obama�s
legislative agenda so precisely.
The likeliest explanation is that Creamer helped design the
Democrats� health care strategy. That would explain why
President Obama made health care an obsession in 2009, when it
was only one among many issues he raised on the campaign trail
in 2008. It would explain the role of several overlapping
left-wing groups, including Creamer�s own Citizen
Action/Illinois.
It would explain why HCAN was particularly aggressive at Rep.
Schakowsky�s own town hall meeting. And Creamer�s involvement
would also explain his high profile after being released from
prison. He worked for the Obama campaign, training volunteers
at �Camp Obama.� He has continued his work at the Strategic
Consulting Group, leading �many of the country�s most
significant issue campaigns,� he claims. He was also at the
White House state dinner last month�together with Stern,
Axelrod, and other cronies�despite the fact that ex-convicts
are usually barred from such events.
Creamer�s broader aim, as laid out in his book, is the
�democratization of wealth� in America and �progressive control
of governments around the world.� As he recently wrote on his
blog at the Huffington Post: �If we succeed in winning health
insurance reform we will have breached the gates of the status
quo. We will demonstrate that fundamental change is possible.
Into that breach will flow a wave of progressive change.�
It is a radical agenda, making use of Rep. Schakowsky�s public
profile, a network of far-left organizations, and Creamer�s old
friends in the White House. It began in federal prison, and has
unfolded exactly as intended, over the protests of thousands of
ordinary Americans across the nation. It will not end with
health care. It will continue until Mr. Creamer�s Alinskyite
dream of radical change is realized�or until voters stand up
and put a stop to it in 2010.