Throw down the gauntlet, draw a line in the sand, etc.

Remember how, during the Presidential primary and general election, many of us were moved by a profound sense of urgency to do things like donate money and make phone calls to get Obama elected? Well, this would probably be a good time to get into that mentality again, because health care reform lies in the balance.

The Obama administration has signaled that it is willing to use the public option as a bargaining chip to get health care legislation passed, which has touched off a bit of a revolt on the progressive left. Even though I think that Obama is basically right substantively when he says that the public option is just one part of the overall reform and that it doesn't make sense for the legislation to live or die by the public option, it is also true that the left needs to--at some point--assert itself and take a hard stand if it is to have any influence on the final legislative product. The public option is just as good a rally-point for this as any other.

An organization called ActBlue is targeting specific Democratic House members and 1) getting them to pledge to vote 'No' on any bill that does not contain a public option, and 2) rewarding this behavior with donations. The idea is that if we get a large enough block of Congress to believably commit to this, then it will become a "political reality" that no bill can pass without the public option, and Rahm will have to factor this into his calculus the next time he goes to deal with the centrists and the Blue Dogs. Anyway, today I donated some money to their cause; you can do the same here.