Repost a Comment - Posted originally at Kevin Drum

I'm curious who those 6% or so are that like the public option but NOT current reform. I mean, I know they don't need to overlap necessarily, but there's a certain chunk out there that apparently like the public option but DON'T support the plan. Would that mean that the talk of triggers and co-ops is making these folks pessimistic, and would only be happy with the public option?

Also, though, I'd like to agree with JS up top, there. I know Obama has tried to explain those points, and if the whole nation watched his address they'd get that the public option doesn't make up more than 25% of this multi-pronged health care fix. Again it comes down to a messaging war, though. Your progression of points is great, but it requires an actual speech to make; you just need scary pictures of mourning, frightened seniors looking out windows at a cloudy sky in a 30 second spot to refute that for millions of folks.

This whole debate has felt like a free-fall in ambitious discourse... we're supposed to argue, and we're supposed to make reasoned arguments like JS. Instead, we get health care ads running one after another that are so utterly contradictory that one or both need to be either fabricating or badly mutilating what few facts we have. We're going into new territory, so there's a certain amount of uncertainty, but these aren't the days when one can make an argument and be respectfully heard.