The 300

THAT'S NO RALLY, THAT'S A BARBECUE
In a clip from The Real News, David Swanson of Democrats.com says "thousands of people" attended the Healthcare Now! rally on July 30th in the Upper Senate Park on Capitol Hill. Not quite. Even the 1,000 people expected by the rally's hosts turned out to be an overestimate.

I have reported crowd numbers many, many times in my life. This rally drew only about 300 fervent souls. Yes, it's true: More than 1 percent were TPM bloggers.






There was no press platform, no real orchestration of speakers, no self-supporting stage banner (two men had to hold it up the entire time) and no cold water to provide the crowd any relief from the heat and swamp-like humidity. The band -- composed of a few people and a guitarist -- sang a poorly written nursery rhyme about Medicare to kick things off.

The speakers were not boring, but neither was there any crow of impending victory in their voices. A little red-haired girl who had been among those arrested for trespassing at a health care company came close to firing up the crowd. Speaking before her, Rep. John Conyers named lawmakers who he framed as having sold out Single Payer for a Public Option: Kennedy, Rockefeller, Boxer and others on his list. An hour into the rally with still no sign of Obama's former physician, Jason, Gumbun and I left. In St. Louis, it would have been a good turnout for a barbecue.

A FINE KETTLE OF FISH
This year's battle for Single Payer is lost. The government-run Public Option is on the ropes. Any variation of health care reform that is worthy of the name is being shouted down by special interests at town halls across the nation.

What is going wrong? And where does health care reform go from here?

It would be easy to lay all responsibility for the rally's low turnout at the feet of its organizers, and in fact, they must bear the brunt of it. But to be fair, the success of either Single Payer or a strong Public Option should not be made to hinge on turnout at one rally. Besides, there is more than enough blame to go around for our current fix -- which is another way of saying there are enough solutions to go around, too, if advocates for reform will only take heed and put them into practice.

Read the following imperatives down the page and think about implementing them in reverse order, from the grassroots up.

A WINNING HAND
We can pass a strong Public Option this year, if we really want. Single Payer is too far behind in mobilization, public support and votes to enact this time around. It's basic premise lies too far to the left of the political mainstream to survive the kind of tactics the Far Right is using against the less controversial Public Option.

Veteran advocates for Single Payer often seem bound to a glacial schedule for getting it passed, knowing how ingrained the knee-jerk reaction of "government takeover!" is among conservative and moderate voters. Those who bring a greenhorn's enthusiasm to the Single Payer fight must look impatient and naive to the ones who've been in the trenches for years. The truth is somewhere in between: Single Payer has taken too long and it will take too long still.

Make no mistake: President Obama calibrated his support for health reform based on his ability to deliver it safely into law. He gave away half his bargaining chips before sitting down to the table. But so did big union chiefs, who placed their bets on the Public Option. So did key reform organizations, who read the teabags and went green as leaves.

Even so, we are the ones who let momentum slip away. We allowed Mitch McConell, Rick Scott and Fox News to run roughshod over debate. We read our usual blogs while ignoring what we could do to counter the toxic dollars of Big Pharma and Big Insurance. We sat daunted by the task or paralyzed by the cheap allure of letting someone else do the fighting for us. We patted ourselves on the back for having elected our first black president and then retired to our easy chairs.

How pathetically lazy we have been. How easily we surrender to foes.

WE ALL WENT THAT-A-WAY
In every movement, there are natural allies with complementary, if somewhat competing, agendas. So it is with Single Payer and a government-run Public Option. Most advocates for the Public Option would probably be just as pleased if Congress were to pass Single Payer instead. On the other hand, a strong Public Option is tantalizingly close to our grasp while Single Payer is not nearly so.

But here's the beautiful part: Single Payer advocates don't have to abandon their principles, just as Public Option advocates don't have to abandon theirs. Both movements pull in the same direction, one just farther than the other. So ANY advocacy by either camp will have the effect of pulling the current debate, public opinion and votes more to the left. When either group criticizes the other's position, the net effect is counterproductive for both.

UNITE THE CLANS!
When I say "clans," I'm speaking of smaller factions than Single Payer or Public Option. I'm talking about the host of advocacy groups within either given camp. Within the Single-Payer movement alone, there are scores, if not hundreds, of organizations working on behalf of HR 676/S 703. Most of them have tiny, scrappy staffs. Yet all duplicate key aspects of communication, cooperation, fund raising, staff and overhead. Too much wasted, too little gained.

This is what happened in large part to both the HCAN rally in June (attendance 5,000) and more so to the Single Payer rally (attendance 300) last month. For national movements, those are poor turnouts. No one on Capitol Hill even looks out a window for rallies under 50,000 people. Considering the sheer mega-tonnage of the health care industry's wallet, it could take a million people for Single Payer to throw any weight on Capitol Hill.

• Get off your ass. Or at least Google your cause and follow up with an email or phone call of inquiry.
• Join an organization that has a record of accomplishment on the issue you care about.
• Whatever organization you join or now belong to, demand leaders who are grounded in reality yet have vision and determination. A good group owns its actions and co-owns the cause.
• Volunteer in ways that can expand the movement's influence: canvassing, calling, crafting strategy, clerical grunt work, whatever. It ALL has to be done.
• Insist your organization work with other organizations in a way that finds common ground on agendas and shares resources to achieve efficiencies of scale.

TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION
The most helpful thing you can do right now for health care reform is secure a list of the times and locations of town hall events in your area. Ask your representative or senator WELL IN ADVANCE if there is a phone bank you can work to increase turnout. Organizing for America has such a list and you can even use the web site to keep track of phone numbers to call and the calls you make. And finally, show up at the town halls yourself. Show up early. Make funny signs like "Decaf for Conservatives" or "Stuff a Sock in a Teabag."

If I think of anything else, I'll put it in the comments. Right now, I have to go to a town hall. I'm not waiting for Godot. I'm on a mission from God.