President Obama Speaks at a Fundraiser for Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.)

SPEAKER: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

[*] THE PRESIDENT: Hello, Philadelphia! (Applause.) It is good to be back in Philly with a man who's always put his state before politics, before party -- your senator, Arlen Specter. (Applause.) We've got a number of other luminaries here today, starting with the great governor and sports fan -- (laughter) -- here in Pennsylvania -- Ed Rendell is in the house. (Applause.) The outstanding young mayor of the city of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, is here. (Applause.) Not here, but I want to give him a shout-out anyway because we're in his district -- Congressman Bob Brady, doing great work for us. (Applause.) Senator Bob Casey is on the way and will be here soon, and we love Bob Casey. (Applause.)

TJ Rooney, chairman of the Democratic state party, is here. (Applause.) And I want to acknowledge a special friend, somebody who is a great supporter of mine and is the chairman of this event -- David Cohen is in the house. Please give him a round of applause. (Applause.)

Now, I want to say a few things about Arlen Specter. Arlen is not someone who came to Washington to fight for a particular ideology. He came to fight for the working men and women of Pennsylvania. And he has a long and successful record of doing just that. This is a man who has voted to raise the minimum wage 20 times -- (applause) -- because he understands if you work in this society, you shouldn't be in poverty. This is a man who's fought for workplace safety and mine safety, who stood up for the American steelworker and American manufacturer; who has voted to extend unemployment benefits time and time again.

I'll never forget that in the height of this recession, when we had just been sworn in -- you remember. There's some selective memory going on out there. (Laughter.) You remember what it was like. We thought we might be tipping into a great depression, losing 700 [sic] jobs per month; financial system on the verge of collapse. We had to act boldly, we had to act swiftly, and Arlen Specter cast the deciding vote in favor of a Recovery Act that has helped pull us back from the brink. (Applause.) A Recovery Act that's already making a difference in the lives of millions of Pennsylvanians.
ad_icon

Since the Recovery Act was signed, nearly 5 million Pennsylvanians are seeing a tax cut in their paycheck. Think about that -- 5 million people getting tax cuts -- as I promised during the campaign. We provided relief to 2.5 million seniors and veterans and other struggling Americans. This puts money in their pockets. (Applause.) That means they're spending it in small businesses and circulating it within the economy.

We've extended unemployment benefits for over 800,000 Pennsylvanians who've borne the brunt of this recession. We've approved over 700 loans to small businesses throughout Pennsylvania.

You talk to your governor, Ed Rendell, about the kinds of drastic cuts and layoffs that would have had to occur had it not been for the Recovery Act -- tens of thousands of state workers potentially laid off.

At the time, this was not an easy vote for Arlen to take. You can imagine the pressure he was under from the other side. But Arlen knew that it was more important to answer to the people who sent him to Washington than to the party he belonged to. That's why you should send him back to Washington for six more years -- because you know he's going to fight for you regardless of what the politics are. (Applause.)

For the same reason that Arlen has been fighting so hard for health insurance reform -- for him, this is not an issue of politics or party; this is personal. This is a man who has seen the health care system up close -- the good and the bad. This is a man who courageously battled cancer, and is here today because he was able to receive some of the best health care available in the world -- and also because he's a tough son of a gun. (Laughter and applause.)

And he knows that. And he believes that every American should be able to get that kind of care, no matter who you are or how much money you have. (Applause.) That's why he's spent the summer holding town hall meetings across the state. That's why he hasn't been afraid to take some criticism and some hard questions and occasionally some -- well -- (laughter) -- he knows how important it is to pass health care reform this year.

It has now been nearly a century since Ted -- Teddy Roosevelt first called for health care reform. It's been attempted by nearly every President and every Congress ever since. And our failure to get it done year after year, decade after decade, has placed a burden on families, on businesses, and on taxpayers that we can no longer sustain.

We know what will happen if we don't do anything, if we fail again. If we do nothing, premiums will continue to rise faster than your wages. If we do nothing, more businesses will close down; fewer will open in the first place. If you have health insurance, you are going to see more and more of those costs taken out of your paycheck. And eventually, some of your employers are going to decide, we just can't afford to bear the burden.

If we do nothing, we will eventually spend more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. We would end up having to use all the money that we currently spend on student loans, or national parks, or Department of Homeland Security -- all of that would be consumed by Medicare and Medicaid -- if we don't make a change in the system.

That is not an option for the United States of America. (Applause.) Arlen Specter understands it's not an option. That's why he's fighting alongside me to get this thing done. (Applause.) Because as I said last week, I may not be the first President to take up the cause of health care reform, but I'm determined to be the last. (Applause.)

The plan we've put forward will offer security to those Americans with health insurance. It will offer health insurance that's affordable to those who don't have it right now. And it will bring down the cost of health care for families and businesses and taxpayers.

If you're among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through the job, or Medicare, or Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change your coverage or drop the doctor that you have. But what it will do is it will make sure that even if you lose your job, you can still go get health insurance, even if you have a preexisting condition. (Applause.)

Well, this young lady knows all about that. It will make sure that your out-of-pocket costs are capped, that you are not -- meaning, on the other hand, a lifetime cap where at a certain point an insurance company just says, you know what, we can't pay anymore. It will make insurance work better for you. That's if you have health insurance.

Now, if you don't have health insurance, you're going to be able to buy into an exchange with millions of other Americans, which means you have leverage and you can now get the same kind of better deal that people who work for the biggest companies or work for the federal government -- or, by the way, our members of Congress are able to get for themselves. That's a deal that all Americans should be able to enjoy. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE PARTICIPANT: Particularly Joe Wilson! (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: Now, everybody knows we have to change the system. But people have a legitimate question, and that is, how are we going to pay for all this? Arlen is fiscally conservative. He doesn't want to see us wasting taxpayer dollars. Neither do I. We can't afford it -- especially when we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit, in part because the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, and the prescription drug plan and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans were not paid for. I'm not going to make that same mistake when it comes to health care. Arlen Specter will make sure we don't make that same mistake. (Applause.)

And that's why what we've said is let's use the money that's being wasted in the system right now -- subsidies to insurance companies that are already making a profit; tens of billions of dollars in waste and abuse -- the majority of this health care plan can be paid for with money that's already in the system but just not used wisely, not making people healthier. (Applause.)

And I want to say to all the senior citizens out there, don't let these folks scare you about Medicare. Nobody has been more of a champion of Medicare than me and the Democratic Party. We are going to keep on doing it. Not a dollar is going to come out of the Medicare trust fund. (Applause.) Don't believe these stories. We want to make Medicare stronger and close that doughnut hole in the Medicare system that is causing seniors to have to shell out thousands of dollars for their prescription drug costs.

We're going to get this done. This is going to be a priority because one of the things that Arlen Specter came to Washington to do is to solve problems. He and I, even when we were on the opposite side of the aisle, understood that the American people aren't looking for slogans, they're not looking for ideology, they're not looking for bickering. They're looking for the solutions that can help build a foundation for long-term economic growth and security for the American middle class. That's what they're looking for. That's what we're fighting for.

But we can't do it without you. There is a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of misinformation out there -- not just on health care. We also need to have a clean energy economy that can produce good jobs that can't be outsourced. (Applause.) We've got to have the school system that works for every American and every young person here in Philadelphia. (Applause.)

Those are all parts -- part of a foundation for long-term economic growth. And it's not going to happen unless the American people mobilize and say to themselves, now is the time -- we're going to stop putting off the tough problems.

I understand that the American people are feeling anxious and we're going through a recession right now, and people are wondering, can this be the "American century" the way the 20th century was the "American century"? I know that there are doubts that creep into people's minds. I know that there's a tendency during tough times for us to turn on each other instead of come together. But the one thing that American history shows us is that each and every time that we confront major challenges, each -- every time where we come to the fork in the road where we can keep on doing the same thing and going into slow decline, or we can go through some transformation and make some changes even when they're hard, we always take the harder, better road.

We do it not only for ourselves; we do it for our children, we do it for our grandchildren. We know that the central idea in America is we don't have to stand pat; we are going to make sure that the next generation has it better off than we do. (Applause.) We're going to build a stronger America, a more prosperous America, a more secure America.

That's why Arlen got into politics so many years ago. That's why he was a prosecutor. That's why he has excelled in the United States Senate. That's why he is -- he was a great senator when he was a Republican; he's going to be a even better senator now that he's a Democrat. (Applause.) And that's why you are all going to work just as hard as you can to make sure that he gets reelected and is continuing to help me move this country forward.

Thank you very much, Philadelphia. (Applause.) I love you, and I love Arlen Specter. I appreciate you guys. Thank you. (Applause.)

END

Changing Political Money

To hear some commentators, the U.S. Supreme Court is about to gut restrictions on corporate and union spending to influence elections -- a move critics fear would upend a century-long effort to contain the power of big money to determine elections. Their proof is last week’s argument in a case in which an overzealous Federal Election Commission blocked the showing on cable TV of an unflattering documentary about presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Several conservative justices were sympathetic to the view that corporations, like individuals, have 1st Amendment rights.

That's a provocative possibility, and it pits campaign reformers against free-speech advocates, two groups not accustomed to disagreeing. Yet alarms about what the court might do are overstated. It does seem poised to invalidate a well-intentioned provision of the 2002 McCain-Feingold law banning the broadcast close to an election of advertisements, funded by unions or corporations, that refer to a candidate for federal office. As we have observed before, that provision goes too far in stifling speech.

The justices also could overturn a 1990 decision allowing government to prohibit corporations from paying for ads endorsing or opposing candidates. That further step is unnecessary. But even if the court decided to take it, unions and corporations would be forbidden, as they have been for generations, from contributing directly to election campaigns. As the court has recognized, contributions create more of a risk of real and perceived corruption than independent expenditures expressing an opinion about an election.

The problem with McCain-Feingold is that it bans the broadcasting of some political ads even if they stop short of endorsing or opposing a candidate. These are the spots, sometimes called "phony issue ads," that assail a politician's position on some issue and allow the voter to infer that the candidate isn't worth voting for. It was this provision that regulators used to prevent a nonprofit corporation from transmitting over cable television a 90-minute attack on Clinton titled "Hillary: The Movie."

In a 2007 case, the court narrowed the ban on "electioneering communications" to cover only those ads that were susceptible to "no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate." Still, applying that standard case by case would, in the words of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., "put our 1st Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats." That's to be avoided, but the extreme alternativeis perilous as well: Giving unions and corporations carte blanche to fund candidates could result in staggering opportunities for corruption.

There is a middle ground: Unions and corporations, profit and nonprofit, should be allowed to engage in political communications without micromanagement by federal regulators, but they should continue to be barred from contributing to campaigns. That solution serves the interests of both clean campaigns and free speech, even if it means that institutions viewed with suspicion by many Americans (and not a few judges) are freer to express their opinion and, yes, influence elections.

Politics and the Age Gap

U.S. policy has been defined by the differences between the sexes, racial gaps and geographical divide between religious and secular.

Now comes the geriatric gap. As the population ages, and the nation is facing fierce fighting on the rapidly rising cost of health care and pensions, it seems that U.S. policy has become increasingly polarized on the generations.

The question is, how real, and this gap will be defined - whether in 10 or 20 years there will be as intense as a result of or, say, the gap between the sexes, especially in what was going on in the last presidential campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As unpleasant sound the concept of conflict between the generations may seem, the battle for health care - not to mention the election of the chief representative of the current health care reform that President Obama proposes - is that something happens. The older Americans tend to oppose the initiative of Mr. Obama than any other age group. The White House believes that this is a dynamic as the main obstacles in public concern about the actions trump and attach a legislative coalition to get a law passed by Congress.

Older voters were one of the few groups that Mr Obama has won in the presidential elections last year, allowing him and his party, of particular significance to young voters who are not as reliable as polls show the elderly. They have a dimmer view of his presidency as the rest of the nation.

And there is no reason that everything has been discovered that tensions will think in this battle worked to put an end once it is resolved. Obama has his intention to the long-term financial problems of Social Security, another issue to fight signaled the elderly to play a disproportionate role, and they are resistant to change in the rule, too.

The baby boomers have reached retirement age began in the last year. Americans are living longer and healthier longer. With him came a more active approach to life in retirement. The older Americans working longer. You are seeing more television news, to attend City Council meetings and call their members of Congress. Who is especially true when it comes to health.

While friction drives the strategies of both sides in the struggle for health care. The Republican National Committee has funded a television advertising campaign and internet advertising for older Americans in places like Florida, say that Democrats are proposing a threat to Medicare, would services healthcare rationing and involve the government at the end of life decisions (the infamous But that does not exist a symbol of death ").

The Democrats have responded by attacking the Republicans for past efforts to Medicare. Mr. Obama devoted a long chapter in his speech before Congress on Wednesday night, reassuring older voters about his plan. Pensioners' lobby AARP, with the White House last week was working on letters of nine million members of the health sector reform, officials said there favor.

David Axelrod, a senior advisor, Mr Obama said: "We are certainly not allow that someone from Little Red Riding Hood in reverse - passes for Republican Friends of Medicare, if they do not.

Nevertheless, Mr. Axelrod acknowledged the obstacles Obama faces as the Republicans argue that the proposal would be the cost of extending Medicare health insurance services for a total Medicare beneficiaries reduce reduced.

"The Americans have all the earlier reporting," he said. "I'm not saying that they are not interested in someone else. But it is a natural tendency to want to keep them. It is not a strategic overview of things to say, 'Let's go rattle older voters and raise objections."

For all the comings and goings, there is no evidence that this demographic votes as a block or base electoral decisions primarily on issues of concern to older Americans, said Robert H. Binstock, professor of aging at Case Western Reserve University. Mr. Binstock said that older voters prefer Sen. John McCain over Mr. Obama since the elections last year - 53 percent to 45 percent - partly reflecting a population that tended to have more Republicans.

It may also be difficult to adjust for some older voters to the novelty of the first African-American president himself.

Meredith Minkler, Professor of Health and Social Behavior at the University of California at Berkeley, argues that the concept of the war generation is exaggerated anyway: vote suggests that other issues such as reform of health care, older Americans are no different than the rest of the country, how they divide the questions.

"The whole issue of conflict between the generations, the proportion has blown out," said Professor Minkler.

However, it is difficult to console, the politicians are reading the same polls and observe their offices are to blame by telephone calls, emails and faxes, not overwhelm, to note in this story. Their fear, as Mr. Binstock said, is a mistake, "the mobilization of a sleeping giant."

No matter how they vote on older voters turn out in heavy numbers in the elections for the medium term, as the emerging next year.

"You have seen the polls: I think older people are affected, especially on the cuts in the Medicare program, said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee." And they are a significant influence on the election 2010. "

And it remains to be seen whether the influx of young voters who were in favor of Mr. Obama in the presidential elections last year, and - who helped Obama overcome a relatively low growth in the electorate no longer 65 - turn without Obama on the ballot.

"There is no doubt that one of the challenges that we in this cycle, it is young voters in the polls," said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The latest CBS News poll found that 51 percent of people over 64 said that the reform would affect health care seniors, compared to 36 percent of surveyed adults. Only 31 percent of respondents over 64 said they approve of Obama's handling of health care compared to 40 percent over all.

And 48 percent said more than 64, it was against the work of Mr. Obama, against 35 percent over all.

Democrats and Republicans have focused on older voters return of at least 50 years that one is clearly important and growing at stake, because it was something of a reversal of roles today focused on the Democrats attacking Republicans on Medicare.

"The Democrats should be very concerned," said Robert B. Hudson, president of the Boston University School of Social Work. "That is simply incredible that the Republicans, or a subset of the Republicans after 20 years of war between the generations, suddenly on a dime and present themselves as defenders of Medicare."

Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, head of the campaign committee for Senate Democrats, said he did not think that would be next year, the Republicans in a position to make attacks. "People who have fought Medicare, the credibility, to demagogue this issue," he said.

Maybe. But it will still take some time before the gap can be measured between the generations. A year from now, the fight for health care May in oblivion. The problem for the White House is that even if the difference of geriatrics proof is a little more of a political city, this is for very strong indeed - this is a significant influence on how the Democrats look at re-election in the troubled neighborhood approach could be very difficult to vote in next year.

Obama: 'Our healthcare problem is our deficit problem'

President Obama was determined to follow through his main goals on the hotly-debated health care reform issue early this evening in an address to Congress and the nation.

Obama's three goals are to provide security and stability for the already insured, provide insurance to those without it and slow the growth of health care costs without adding one dime to the deficit.

He said that every day 14,000 people lose their coverage and that insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages. Obama also said that insured people pay a hidden and growing tax to cover those without insurance.

"Our health care problem is our deficit problem," said Obama, noting that costly emergency room visits for the uninsured are only making fiscal issues worse.

Jason McDaniel, an SF State political science assistant professor, said Obama spoke directly and challenged people on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum in his speech.

"I was impressed by how strongly he tried to situate himself and his ideas in the center politically but also with the core of American values," said McDaniel, who showed the speech live in his American politics class.

Obama spent a large chunk of his time going into details on how he plans to make health care a well-rounded system that will be the most beneficial.

The president also mentioned that young and healthy individuals who choose not to be insured would be required to carry health insurance the same way some states require the purchase of auto insurance -- to avoid expensive emergency room visits.

"For those who can't afford health care, that's one more bill they have to pay every month," said freshmen Natasha Newman, 18.

Other SF State students agree that requiring young people to purchase health coverage would be a lot to ask.

"If we are in school we don't have the means to be purchasing insurance," said George Tano, 18.

After laying out what exactly would be covered in his plan, he went on to clear up any misconceptions that some might have had.

Obama discussed the public option, which Albert Angelo, a health educator at SF State's Student Health Service Center, likens to having to drive a car not of a person's choice.

"The issue with a public option is really to say that everybody could get health insurance and the government could compete with Kaiser, Blue Cross and HealthNet and offer something," said Angelo. "If there's no public option then you have to pick a private organization."

Obama tried to squelch these fears by assuring that the public option would be available only to those who are not insured.

Another issue that could not be ignored was the constant talk of "death panels." Many feel that if the government becomes too involved in health care, panels of bureaucrats would decide when senior citizens would die.

Obama concluded his speech discussing a letter given to him by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. He said that Kennedy believed that this would be the year for health care reform and that it is "the great unfinished business of our society" -- a sentiment Obama whole-heartedly agrees with.

"I am not the first president to take up this cause but I am determined to be the last," Obama said early on in his speech.

Obama's Big Political Gamble

Red-state Democrats are being asked to risk their seats.

Millions of Americans watched President Barack Obama's speech last night to a joint session of Congress. Much of it was familiar, having been delivered in at least 111 speeches, town halls, radio addresses and other appearances on health care. But his most revealing remarks on the topic came on Monday, at a Labor Day union picnic in Cincinnati.

There Mr. Obama accused critics of his health reforms of spreading "lies" and said opponents want "to do nothing." These false charges do not reveal a spirit of bipartisanship nor do they create a foundation for dialogue. It is more like what you'd say if you are planning to jam through a bill without compromise. Which is exactly what Mr. Obama is about to attempt.

Team Obama is essentially asking congressional Democrats to take a huge gamble. The White House is arguing that ramming through a controversial bill is safer for Democrats than not passing anything. This is based on the false premise that the death of HillaryCare is what doomed Democrats in 1994. Mr. Obama told a reporter in July that the defeat of HillaryCare "Helped [Republicans] regain the House." Former President Bill Clinton echoed that thought recently by saying "doing nothing" today is "the worst thing we can do for the Democrats."

Actually, attempting to pass HillaryCare is what brought down the party. Voters rejected a massively complicated, hugely expensive government takeover of health care and the Democrats who pushed it.

In reality, it is riskier to be at odds with where Americans are than just standing by as an unpopular proposal goes down. The problem for Democrats is they are scaring voters by proposing a takeover of health care that spends too much money, creates too much debt, gives Washington too much power, and takes too much decision-making away from doctors and patients.


The political risk for Democrats is clearest among seniors. A late July Gallup poll showed they were the age group least likely to believe health-care reform would improve medical care. Seniors are coming out strongly against Mr. Obama's health-care plan even though they're already covered by government care. Perhaps it's because, as a White House fact sheet makes clear, he wants to pay for his plan's $948 billion cost over the next 10 years by cutting some $622 billion from Medicare and Medicaid.

The latest Pew poll (August 20-27) found that 30% of seniors supported health-care reform while 54% were opposed. In July, Pew showed 29% in favor and 48% opposed. The same August Pew poll shows Republicans gaining 12 points among seniors on the generic ballot, compared to where they stood in the 2006 congressional elections. The generic ballot among seniors then was at 50% Democrat, 39% Republican. Today, it's 51% Republican and 43% Democrat.

This matters because seniors make up a disproportionate share of the off-year vote. CNN exit polls showed that they were roughly 16% of eligible voters in 2008, but 29% of the turnout in 2006. The generic ballot among seniors in 1994 was 45% Republican and 43% Democrat.

These numbers should worry red-state Democratic senators and the 70 Democratic congressmen whose districts were carried by John McCain or George W. Bush. The people back home are likely to punish Democrats if they vote for ObamaCare.

Already, many of them are drawing fire for having toed the party line on a stimulus package that's likely to celebrate its first anniversary with unemployment near 10%. They're also likely to be blasted for supporting a budget that doubles the national debt in five years, a new energy tax in the form of cap and trade, and a host of other liberal policies that voters did not expect from a candidate who ran as a centrist.

Until Ted Kennedy's vacant Massachusetts Senate seat is filled and there is confidence West Virginia's Robert Byrd is well enough to show up for a vote, there simply aren't 60 Senate Democrats to invoke cloture. That means Republicans will have considerable procedural sway, even if the White House isn't interested in giving them a real role by taking out a clean sheet of paper and starting over.

Given the Senate situation, do vulnerable House Democrats really want to go first in voting for ObamaCare? They've already done that by slamming through cap and trade, which is now stalled in the Senate. How much political capital will Speaker Nancy Pelosi have to spend to pass an increasingly unpopular health-care measure?

The danger for vulnerable Democrats is they have a president who is losing popularity while championing an unpopular proposal. The wise course would be to push for more time to figure out the best consensus policy and for more bipartisanship in crafting any solution.

Congressional Democrats will be under enormous pressure to stand with Mr. Obama. But the prospect of their own political future may yet concentrate many Democratic minds in Congress.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

About Karl Rove

Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy making process.

Before Karl became known as "The Architect" of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.

Karl writes a weekly op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, is a Newsweek columnist and is now writing a book to be published by Simon Schuster. Email the author at Karl@Rove.com or visit him on the web at Rove.com.

Or, you can send him a Tweet@karlrove.