If Lincoln votes "yes," however, it will send a signal to all
moderates that even the most endangered of their species is willing to risk
backing the program and will do a great deal to shore up the president's
defenses.
All this means that if the elderly citizens of Arkansas and
Maine -- and their families -- want to avoid the evisceration of the
Medicare program contemplated in the Baucus/Obama bill, they had better get
busy. They need to deluge both senators with urgent pleas to vote against
the $500 billion cut in the Medicare program. Neither senator can afford to
alienate her elderly constituents, but what do they expect when they vote to
take the hatchet to Medicare?
Newt Gingrich found out that cutting Medicare is a ticket to
political oblivion. Barack Obama will learn the same lesson. The question
is: Will Olympia Snowe and Blanche Lincoln join him?
Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
Dick Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of
2010: Take Back America. To get all of Dick Morris’s and Eileen McGann’s columns for free by email, go to
www.dickmorris.com