Catching up with the hometown campaign to pass healthcare reform:
Business was brisk — and infectiously encouraging — this morning at the modest pro-healthcare reform booth that the liberal group Organizing for America had set up in the bosom of the bustling weekly Farmers Market at the 3rd Street Promenade.
“Booth” probably is an overstatement.
More like a narrow, low-slung old-fashioned card table for pretty short people that Billy Barty could have leaned his elbows on.
When you have passion, dripping-wet conviction, for an enterprise, who needs props?
The pro-reform partisans fighting to drastically alter national policy do not need fancy architecture to impress the masses they are hoping to attract between now and whenever Congress passes a bill in the next 4 months.
The tall and burly middle-aged gentleman in the command post at OFA’s table brought 3 accoutrements to the buzzingly busy Farmers Market:
• A large smile.
• A friendly, accessible but not intimidating personality.
• Finally, a fairly broadbrimmed straw hat that came in much handier than he could have imagined.
While casually shmoozing with an inquiring visitor, somewhere between 1 and 3 birds overhead shrewdly positioned themselves to make embarrassing deposits that plopped onto the right shoulder of the gentleman’s dark polo shirt that had featured but one color when he donned it.
Name That Name
The gentleman’s true identity evolved into a separate and fascinating story.
When the aforementioned visitor approached, he swiftly read the name tag, “Dave Kennedy,” then repeated the full name aloud and proceeded to introduce himself.
But Mr. Kennedy turned out not to be Mr. Kennedy.
Referring to his fleet of a dozen OFA volunteers who were roaming the milling shoppers for likely petition signers, the faux Mr. Kennedy explained that it was a tribute to a fallen hero:
“We are all Kennedys today,” he said, “because of the death of Ted Kennedy, Edward Moore Kennedy.”
Sure enough, each volunteer who checked in at the OFA headquarters wore a name tag bearing his or her true first name above the legend “Kennedy,” among whom were “Pam Kennedy” and “Lonnie Kennedy.”
“We are celebrating Ted Kennedy’s legislative career by all being Kennedys today,” said the OFA foreman, who is Dave Card the rest of the time.
Many regarded Mr. Kennedy as a godfather of healthcare reform.
Mr. Card’s volunteer army was armed with a straight-forward form letter pledging healthcare reform support, the accumulation of which is to be dispatched to 3 key members of Congress, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), and both of California’s U.S. Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.
The letter pledges support for
“President Obama’s three pillars of healthcare reform.
1. Reduce costs for families, businesses and government.
2. Protect choice of doctors, hospitals and health plans (including a public option).
3. Assure affordable, quality healthcare for all Americans.
I support President Obama’s call for a healthcare public option now to ensure choice, cost reduction and competitiveness in the healthcare marketplace.
“We want to send a message to our Congressman and U.S. Senators,” said Mr. Card, “that we have their back. The good news is that we have had more signatures on letters this week than any of the 3 weeks I have been here.”
The foreman’s answers to questions frequently were interrupted by a steady stream of prospective petition signers — after all, Santa Monica remains a reliable bastion of liberal politics.
“You get all kinds of people,” Mr. Card said. “But everybody who has stopped here has been polite and respectful.
Their Targets
“I think the majority of people either have made up their minds or they are apathetic. We are trying to convince the apathetic ones to engage.”
Passionate partisans are not known to harbor pessimism, and so Mr. Card is sunnily optimistic that a serious healthcare reform bill will be signed. “I hope and pray it will have a robust public option,” he said. “I hope members of Congress will take Sen. Kennedy’s passing as a sign that healthcare reform is something we need not only for all U.S. citizens but for his memory, too.”
Mr. Card, an at-the-roots activist and advocate, was asked why such stout resistance to healthcare reform has sprung up across the country this summer.
“People are resistant to change,” he said, perhaps a more illuminating response than any offered so far from Washington.”
There can be no doubting that Mr. Card is one of those absolutely authentic true believers whom political movements covet.
A self-employed landscape designer by profession —David Macgregor Card Ltd. — he was a very early apostle for Mr. Obama. Propelled by a whoosh of sudden energy, he leaped aboard the Obama bandwagon before many Americans knew there was a bandwagon.
Well before Mr. Obama declared his candidacy in February of ’07, Mr. Card journeyed across town, to Burbank, to the first Camp Obama, “to learn how to be a community organizer.”
Among his reasons for supporting candidate Obama: “I liked the way he gave a speech. I supported his vote not to go into Iraq a second time. I am a Navy veteran from the Vietnam era, and I am okay with Afghanistan because that’s where Al Qaeda. Wherever Al Qaeda is, I am in favor of rooting them out.”
Mr. Card promised he will return to the 3rd Street Promenade Farmers Market every Wednesday morning at 10 to recruit popular support until a healthcare reform bill is signed.
One of the louder leading voices in the Senate, Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, made a two-tiered forecast yesterday, that a bill definitely will not be signed before December, and possibly never.
