Kucinich to Vote with Republicans on Health Care

The death of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) is a blow to Democratic efforts to pass the Senate version of health care reform in the House — they’re now down one vote from a swing district Democrat willing to make the tough choice.

But what might turn out to be an insurmountable problem is the intransigence of two liberals in the House conference, Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio.). Both say they won’t vote for anything less than a single payer system. Kucinich, in this e-mail sent to his list, asks for help scoring an endorsement from Firedoglake — the liberal website has been polling Democratic districts and its data suggests voters don’t want a mandate-based bill — based on his pledge to vote with the GOP against the bill.

E-mail below the jump:

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I Need Your Help in Winning This Poll at firedoglake.com

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Dear Friends,

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Popular progressive blog, Firedoglake (FDL), has launched a new poll to identify three ‘Fire Dogs’ in Congress. Firedoglake will provide the winner with get out the vote tools, voter lists, in district voter registration and fundraising support. This support will help us in our re-election campaign.

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We are currently 2nd in the poll out of all the Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives.** I need your help in getting us into 1st place.** Please log onto http://action.firedoglake.com/page/content/fdlpacvote and click the link on the right-hand side of the page to vote for FDL Fire Dogs. Then please enter your contact information and select me as your first choice. After selecting all three choices, then click ‘Submit Form’

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Firedoglake is evaluating candidates on three criteria:

Pledged to vote against any war funding that does not have troop withdrawal provisions
Voted against June 2009 war supplemental
Pledged to vote against any health care bill that does not have a public option

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I’ve been a leader in the effort against the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and led the efforts against funding for the wars. This week I will introduce legislation in Congress on the question of withdrawal from Afghanistan. Together with Representative John Conyers, I’ve led the effort on single-payer, passed an amendment in committee to protect the rights of states to pursue single-payer and voted in committee for the bill that had a public option. I will continue to oppose any healthcare bill that does not have a robust public option. I will never give up on the dream of Medicare for All! Your continued support makes it possible for me to take strong progressive positions.