Blue Dogs' saving grace: Obama threatens not to campaign for Dems voting no!

With the fate of ObamaCare in the hands of nervous Blue Dog Democrats, Obama has decided to do what he does best: strongarm Chicago politics.

The president will refuse to make fund-raising visits during November elections to any district whose representative has not backed the bill.

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Mr Obama's threat came as the year-long debate over his signature domestic policy entered its final week.

Mr Obama is personally telephoning congressmen who are still on the fence this week, in between several personal appearances devoted toward swinging public opinion.

It will be interesting to see if moderate Democrats actually vote no based on the president's threat. Most Blue Dog Democrats are from fiscally conservative districts where Obama's approval rating is in the toilet plumbing. Keeping the president away during election season, as Obama threatened, has to be a top priority. This isn't mockery or hyperbole: Last week vulnerable Democrats in Pennsylvania and Ohio skipped scheduled speeches by the president on health care. Every serious poll shows that voters will be far more likely to vote against a Democrat if he or she votes yes on health care reform, and Obama is the front-and-center face of health care reform. This is one arm-twist that might actually backfire.

Paul Ryan: The anti-Obama

At yesterday's House Budget Committee meeting, the show was once again stolen by Rep. Paul Ryan. Aided by an alarming graph that showed the spiking national debt, the young Wisconsin Republican eloquently railed against ObamaCare, tax-and-spend, deficit spending, and statism. "We have a great tidal wave of debt coming in this country," he warned. "This is how great empires fall." After Democrats hit back with the usual accusations that he was siding with the insurance companies over the American people, Ryan quipped, "Listening to these arguments, I'm reminded of a pyromaniac in a field of straw men."

This is nothing new for Ryan, who has proven himself to be Obama's most principled and damning critic. At the vaunted health care reform summit two weeks ago, Ryan waited his turn, then patiently explained to the president's face that he was lying about the deficit, calling the health care bill "worse than Bernie Madoff." Obama looked slighted, but responded to Ryan with deference. He didn't have much of a choice. The congressman had pulled the rug out from under the president.

Ryan is only 40, though he looks about ten years younger. Elected to the House in 1999, he quickly rose through the Republican ranks to become the Ranking Member on the House Budget Committee. It's easy to understand why. Ryan is a policy wonk, easy on the eyes and ears, and an unabashed small-government conservative. He has said he was inspired by Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, a polemic that explores progressives' roots in the fascist movements of the early 20th-century. Last year, he introduced an alternative budget that would have frozen discretionary spending for five years and completely privatized Medicare.

Ryan actually is everything that Obama pretends to be. While the president poses as a deep thinker, Ryan has run rings around him in policy discussions. While the president hides his arrogance underneath a faux charm, Ryan genuinely seems like a nice guy. While the president fakes being articulate in front of a Teleprompter, Ryan is one of the most eloquent speakers in Congress.

Ryan's name is already on the GOP's short list of presidential contenders. It's unlikely he'll make a move in 2012, as House members almost never seek the presidency. But it's a shame that he won't. As the president's political fortunes plummet, Ryan could be that fresh face that the GOP is looking for. We'd put his intellect and charm up against Obama's any day of the election season.

Update: Here's the video of Ryan attacking ObamaCare on the House Budget Committee yesterday.

Democrats confirm: Health care summit is a fraud

The health care summit is still going on and it's relatively uneventful so far. But it looks like none of that will matter anyways. Democratic strategists have confirmed that the health care summit was a sham to make Republicans look bad.

"A Democratic official said the six-hour summit was expected to 'give a face to gridlock, in the form of House and Senate Republicans.'

Democrats plan to begin rhetorical, and perhaps legislative, steps toward the Democrats-only, or reconciliation, process early next week, the strategists said.

After the summit, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid planned to take the temperature of their caucuses.

'The point [of the summit] is to alter the political atmospherics, and it will take a day or two to sense if it succeeded,' the official said."

Obama is such a stubborn radical, he still plans to jam his bill through. Meanwhile unemployment has skyrocketed and the American people overwhelmingly oppose his health care remedies. Hopefully the bruising that the GOP gave Obama today will only hurt his plans even further. But this much is clear: Obama is hell-bent on passing a health care bill and doesn't care what it takes and who gets sacrificed in the process.