MoveOn Raises $1M In Anti-Joe Campaign; Focus Switches To Nelson

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) may be a happy camper these days — he got Harry Reid to remove the public option and the Medicare buy-in from the Senate's version of health care legislation.

But the left is not happy with Lieberman, which they've made abundantly clear. According to Huffington Post's Sam Stein, in the two days since the senator accomplished his goals, MoveOn.org has raised more than $1 million — money that will "go to an ad campaign against Lieberman and into a fund to oppose his re-election in 2012."

Still, if we were keeping score, I'd say Lieberman wins this round. We don't even know if Lieberman is running for a fifth term in 2012. And if he decides to do it, he will have plenty of money at his disposal. I suspect this helps some progressives pound their chest, but ultimately Lieberman got what he wanted.

Now the attention has shifted to Ben Nelson. The Nebraska Democrat said today that attempts to woo him over for the health-care bill by compromising on abortion have been unsatisfactory, writes the Associated Press' Erica Werner, "raising doubts about whether the chamber can pass President Barack Obama's health care overhaul by Christmas." Nelson told Lincoln, Neb. radio station KLIN that the latest language on abortion — proposed by anti-abortion Democrat Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, "isn't sufficient." His amendment on keeping people who use federal subsidies for health care to pay for abortion coverage was rejected last month; a similar measure (the "Stupak amendment") is part of the House bill's language.

Meanwhile, Michael Goldfarb blogs in the Weekly Standard that, according to an unnamed Senate staffer, the White House "is now threatening to put Nebraska's Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn't fall into line":

As our source put it, this is a "naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson's vote." They are "threatening to close a base vital to national security for what?" asked the Senate staffer. ...

Its closure would be a massive blow to the economy of the state of Nebraska, but it would also be another example of this administration playing politics with our national security.

A great story except, according to Nelson, it's not true.

But that's not the point, retorts George Copeland in the Washington Examiner:

Despite these denials, Goldfarb's report should still be considered. It is unlikely that his source would have made the allegation up, and it is quite likely that both parties to the threat would deny it in any case. As Goldfarb says, "They protest a little too much", and he stands by the accuracy of his report.

Twenty Republican senators consider the report of the White House threat credible enough that they have demanded an investigation into the allegation. If the report is "baseless and false" as the White House asserts, the Senate Democrats have merely to allow the senate Republicans to conduct the investigation, knowing that no evidence exists.

And blogger Bob Ellis, writing in Dakota Voice, adds:

Of course, both the White House and Nelson are saying the threat never happened. This is certainly understandable; the White House doesn't want people openly realizing the kind of Chicago politics they play, and Nelson doesn't want people thinking he's vulnerable. And if he gives in and votes for this assault on the American way of life, he doesn't want people thinking he did it because of the threat.

Welcome to the world of rumors, 2009.