Obama to Dems: Your Political Suicide Will Save us Both

Is anyone really buying this?

In seeking enough votes to overhaul the nation's health care system, President Barack Obama is telling nervous Democratic lawmakers that their political fates are linked to the bill's passage, discouraging the notion that they can save themselves by opposing it, House members say.

They also say the president's not asking lawmakers to save his skin either, while the White House insists that no special favors in exchange for votes are being offered or accepted.

The president has pushed aside almost all other matters, including a long-planned Asia trip, now rescheduled for June, to try to embolden House Democrats who have wavered on the health care legislation, which he has championed for a year.

"I think the president, in the calls and the meetings that he's having" with lawmakers "is making great progress," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Thursday.

Gibbs, who said the president has spoken with more than three dozen Democratic lawmakers since Monday, repeatedly sidestepped questions of whether Obama has told them his presidency's fate depends on the legislation's passage.

Even though it does. Loss of his signature issue renders the entire term to date a failure and makes his remaining term that much more difficult. He thinks this issue will save him and the party with voters, but the opposite is true. If he and the Dems would simply listen to the voters and stop this thing their chances in November would dramatically improve. However, they've decided that the voters are too simple and stupid and don't know what's good for them, therefore it's up to the Dems to save them from themselves.