Lessons on progressive strategy from HCR

The basic history is this: some of the more progressive blogs and organizations got dozens of members of congress to sign on to pledges saying they would vote against health care reform if it didn't have a public option. In the end, all of the progressive members voted for the bill. Their threats were not taken seriously, and thus they had relatively little power in the process.

Glenn Greenwald explores the history and some of the possible lessons here.

Ed Kilgore responds, linking to arguments that the progressives did achieve something, and may not have had the power in this situation to achieve that much more given the circumstances.