Conservatives warn against 'Wellstone effect' for Kennedy

[defendandprotect]

'Wellstone effect' for Kennedy?

AFP – Ben Smith – Thu Aug 27, 5:32 pm ET


Key conservative voices have begun to charge in the day after Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death that Democrats are inappropriately politicizing the senator’s death, his memorial and his legacy.
Kennedy was that ultimate political creature, a “lion of the Senate,” and the last son of the archetypal American political family — his passing is inevitably political. In his final days, he focused on a narrow political goal, pleading with state leaders to change state law to posthumously fill his Senate seat with an interim appointee who would be a vote in favor of the health care legislation he championed.

So his allies on the left have made no secret of their hopes that his legacy will serve to bolster the uncertain health reform plan, with Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) even suggesting the bill be named for Kennedy.

And that has some influential conservative voices sounding the alarm and calling foul.
While most prominent Republicans stuck Wednesday and Thursday to sober condolences — and several Republican operatives said it was too early to accuse Democrats of politicizing a sad moment — the conservative media, as well as some operatives, has seized on the whiff of politicization of his passing, recalling the bitter charges and countercharges that followed Sen. Paul Wellstone’s (D-Minn.) memorial service in 2002.

That service, a sometimes boisterous rally that included calls to carry on Wellstone’s political legacy and some catcalls for Republican speakers, turned the memorial into a central campaign issue, and many observers think the still-disputed event helped elect a Republican to fill his seat.
"Placing name on a health-care bill, in memoriam, or using his name as a sympathy ploy to advance a health care bill that would deny Americans the choices Sen. Kennedy had is an insult and is supreme hypocrisy,” the talk show host Rush Limbaugh said Wednesday. 'The senator's passing is going to give them the opportunity to use the sympathy play to get as much done in his name as possible."
"No government was a partner with God in Ted Kennedy's death. To put his name on this current health-care bill would be to insult what he stood for,” Limbaugh said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/26514



REPUBLICANS POLLUTING THE WELL EARLY AND OFTEN ....

MEANWHILE, WHY SHOULDN'T KENNEDY'S DEATH BE A RALLYING CRY FOR MEDICARE FOR ALL - ?????