In the most recent issue of the Nashville Business Journal (text below the fold), Jim Cooper talks to a reporter about a range of issues related to his involvement in the health care debate over the past fifteen years, saying that if it wasn't for Hillary Clinton, "we would be talking about the 11th anniversary of universal health care coverage in America," referring to his proposed bipartisan legislation in the 90s that helped kill the Clinton plan.

Such a characterization certainly differs from the view from inside the Clinton White House at the time:

I was part of the Clinton White House team on the health care reform issue in 1993/94, and no Democrat did more to destroy our chances in that fight than Jim Cooper. We had laid down a marker very early that we thought universal coverage was the most essential element to getting a good package, saying we were to happy to negotiate over the details but that universality was our bottom line.

Cooper, a leader of conservative Dems on the health care issue, instead of working with us, came out early and said universality was unimportant, and came out with a bill that did almost nothing in terms of covering the uninsured. He quickly became the leading spokesman on the Dem side for the insurance industry position, and undercut us at every possible opportunity, basically ending any hopes we had for a unified Democratic Party position.

In the glowing Nashville Business Journal article, Cooper also claims that he was "vilified" for the failure of health care reform in the 1990s and he is being "a little bit vilified now," and says that while his preferred plan with no public option - the Healthy Americans Act - is still "doable," the legislation on the table right now is "not going to have an easy time getting through Congress."

Last night, MSNBC covered the possibility of a progressive primary challenge to Jim Cooper on both the Ed Show and Countdown with guest Howard Dean (video above)... and apparently Cooper's office was watching.

On The Ed Show, Ed Schultz called out Rep. Cooper for not supporting a robust public option - the only sensible interpretation of Cooper's actions: he has said he would said he would support weakened co-ops, bragged that his preferred plan does "not have a public option in it", was quoted in a press release for a Blue Dog statement of principles that argued against a public option and endorsed triggers, and admitted he would not support about half of the "eighteen" different public options he thinks might exist.

According to one viewer, at the very end of the show, Schultz read out a statement on air (see the update below for the transcript) stating that Cooper's office had called MSNBC during the show to object to their reporting and stating that Cooper's office indicated that he does indeed support a public option. (Does that really sound like the actions of a politician who "ain't scurred"?)

Later, on Countdown, guest host Lawrence O'Donnell brought up the question of whether Democrats should be challenging Blue Dogs like Cooper on health care to former DNC Chair Gov. Howard Dean. Here was Dean's take:

Look, here's the problem. The problem is that we have a very big majority. But if you don't use your majority you lose your majority. And that's exactly what's happening right now in the Democratic party. There is no reason -- 65% of the people, Lawrence, 65% of the American people in a CBS poll that was put out a couple of days ago want a public option.... of course people are going to be upset, if they ask you to do something, they're paying your salary, and you're voting with the people that give you huge campaign contributions, of course people are going to get upset about that.

Update: Here's the transcript of Ed Schultz from the end of last night's show describing the phone call placed to MSNBC from Cooper's office:

SCHULTZ: ...Our staff has received a phone call from Congressman Jim Cooper"s office in Tennessee. He says he is firmly supporting a public option. Two great things. Number one, I'm glad they're watching. And number two, most of all, he's on the correct side of the issue.

The second point is, of course, highly debatable - and mostly between Jim Cooper and himself.

This morning, Accountability Now PAC Executive Director Ben Tribbett appeared on Liberadio(!) with Mary Mancini and Freddie O'Connell to discuss a potential primary challenge to Jim Cooper in TN-05. Here are a couple of clips (full audio available via the podcast here):

On whether a serious primary challenger will emerge, and why Jim Cooper is vulnerable:

"The polling suggests that [Cooper]'s more vulnerable now among Democrats than he is among Republicans or Independents, and I think that doesn't bode well for him when there's a Republican primary for governor on the same day as this election would be, because a lot of Republicans that are happy with his job performance are going to opt into their own primary for governor, and he's going to have to rely on Democrats to win this primary. And if the Democrats aren't happy with him, he's not going to survive a strong primary challenge."

On the role of Accountability Now in this and other potential races:

"In Nebraska, Sen. Ben Nelson, there was a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll that was put into there. And Democrats overwhelmingly favored what he was doing. So we're not going to go into Nebraska. We're about helping locals who are interested in making a change. We're not about going in and telling people that they need to make a change...

"In Nashville, our initial guess was [Cooper] probably was vulnerable, people were unhappy, the polling indicated it was much greater than what we even knew. Nowhere in the country that I've ever seen does a Democratic member of Congress poll lower on health care than Republicans or Independents."

Here's some of the latest news coming out of TN-05:

• There's been a torrent of heated discussion and comments in both the Nashville blogosphere and the traditional media about the possibility of a primary challenge to Jim Cooper. Keep it going in the comments below.

• Sean Braisted posts on the small number of Democrats who put Jim Cooper into office in 2002:

  Thirty-Two Thousand, Three Hundred and Sixty One

  That is the number of people in 2002 who effectively decided that Jim Cooper would be the Congressman for life, as seems to be the position of many Democrats in and around Nashville. There are over 600,000 people living in Davidson County (most of which is in the 5th Congressional District), a good minority of whom have moved here or came of voting age after the 2002 Democratic Primary in which Jim Cooper won 46% of the vote against folks like John Arriola and Gayle Ray.... For me, there are things I like about Jim Cooper, and things I don't like...this health care fiasco is just one piece of the pie. But when it comes to our country, I like having choices. I enjoyed getting to choose from a crowded 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary to find the person who best represented me and my views. And I'd enjoy the opportunity of having a real say in who represents me in Congress...not simply choosing between Cooper, some no-name liberal activist, or some no-name rightwing lunatic. Give us a choice, give us a debate, and if Cooper comes out on top, so be it.

• Accountability Now's Executive Director Ben Tribbett appeared on Liberadio(!) this morning to discuss the organization's mission and how the local effort to hold Jim Cooper accountable is going so far. More, including audio, up soon.

• Jane at FDL has an extensive and must-read timeline of Blue Dog obstruction on health care since Obama's inauguration, led in large part by Jim Cooper. Here are some of his greatest hits in the game he has played this year:

  June 8 -- Here's where it starts to get incoherent. The Blue Dogs release a "statement of principles" on health care reform, co-authored by members of the Health Care Task Force including Mike Ross and Jim Cooper....

  As Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post noted, this represented a complete turnaround for both Cooper and Ross, who had been signatories to the HCAN principles trumpeting the virtues of a public plan....

  July 26 -- Jim Cooper writes an op-ed stating that he doesn't support the public option contained in the House bill, he supports some "fantasy" public option that doesn't exist. And brags about how much better he and his fellow Blue Dogs are making the bill. ...

  August 1 -- Ross cuts a deal for H.R. 3200 to pass the Energy & Commerce Committee, with reimbursement rates no longer tied to Medicare. The CBO will later estimate that these Blue Dog changes Jim Cooper was bragging about will actually add $85 billion to the cost of the bill over the next 10 years. Blue Dogs Ross, Jane Harman and Baron Hill and Bart Gordon all vote for it....

  August 17 -- Jim Cooper plays word games, insists that "co-ops" are a public option much like rural electrical co-ops that "worked really pretty well over all the country for 70 or 80 years." But only last year, Cooper blasted the rural electric co-op model, saying that they had become "anti-consumer" and were cheating them out of money.

• Jerome Armstrong at MyDD on the effort to hold Cooper accountable:

  I don't always get behind these primary challenges. In fact, I've been pretty vocal with the other members that we need to go into competetive open primaries as well. Cooper is one though that stands out in his defiance toward being a voice of progress. While representing a very Democratic CD, he does next to nothing but carry the load given to him by lobbyists.

Before President Obama even took office, Jim Cooper had already signed on to support a public option as a key part of Health Care for America Now's "core principles":

- A choice of a private insurance plan, including keeping the insurance you have if you like it, or a public insurance plan without a private insurer middleman that guarantees affordable coverage.

Along with Rep. Cohen, Cooper was and remains one of only two members of Congress from Tennessee to have signed on to support the public option in the HCAN principles. But as the fight for real health care reform was engaged over the summer, the backsliding began.

In January, Cooper was already warning the new administration about the Blue Dogs' ability to join with Republicans to bring down legislation of President Obama's which they wanted to kill.

In May, he joined Blue Dogs in arguing for more Republican input to the House health care bill, which would have surely meant an eviscerated or completely scrapped public option:

"Especially in the House there's too much of this attitude that if it's bipartisan, that just means you didn't negotiate hard enough. I hear that a lot from folks," adding, "They are almost looking for ways to eliminate Republican support."

And then, in June, Cooper's Blue Dog Coalition issued their own statement of principles which specifically argued against a public option, and for a triggered version whose entire reason for existence would be that it would never be instituted. From the Blue Dog statement of principles:

"The availability of a public option would occur only as a fallback and in the absence of adequate competition and cost containment. Fundamental insurance market reforms and increased choice through the Exchange should improve access and contribute to lower costs. However, should the private plans fail to meet specific availability and cost targets, a public option would be triggered and be allowed to compete on a level playing field subject to the conditions outlined above.

While the Blue Dogs are not a monolithic group, Jim Cooper seems to have agreed with the sentiment, as he was quoted in the June press release announcing the Blue Dog principles that included a triggered public option:

Pledge-signer Cooper put is also quoted in the announcement of the principles. "The key to successful health care reform is building as broad a coalition of support as possible," said Cooper, Blue Dog Health Care Task Force Vice Chairman. "The conditions we're laying out today ensure that Americans who like their current health insurance can keep it; that they will have access to their choice of quality, affordable health care plans; and that any public option exist on a level playing field. And of course, we strongly support President Obama's commitment to keep health care reform deficit-neutral."

Just days later, at the same time he was working in D.C. to slow-walk and kill the public option in the House, Cooper brazenly appeared back in front of Tennesseans in his district and praised the public option to supporters. That led Richard Kirsch, National Campaign Manager, Health Care for America Now - the same organization whose core principles including a public option Cooper signed on to back in 2008 - to release this statement days later slamming Cooper and his lack of honesty in response:

"We now know Jim Cooper talks out of both sides of his mouth on health care. On June 6, 2009, he stood before Organizing for America in Tennessee (video) and praised President Obama, his leadership, and his call for a public health insurance option. Now Cooper is trying to slow down reform and sacrifice what’s best for the voters for the sake of bipartisanship. In his quote today, Cooper said he was with the President but then specifically took out one of the President’s key goals – choice of plans, including the choice of a public health insurance option.

"Rep. Cooper is infamous as the Democrat who led the charge against President Clinton’s health care plan. Clearly, he thinks he is going to make a name for himself again by trying to thwart the Obama plan. One thing is clear. No one on either side of the aisle can trust Jim Cooper.

"It may be easiest for some in Congress to get along by going along and pleasing their big campaign contributors from the health care industry, but doing so just for the sake of bipartisanship doesn’t help the American people who are looking for real solutions to the health care crisis."

Of course, HCAN's skepticism about Cooper's commitment to the public option has since been justified even further. Unfortunately, if Jim Cooper gets his way, there will be no public option to cover the whiplash from which so many observers of his double-talk in this process must already be suffering.

(Photo of crowd at the Let's Get It Done Rally by TN Change that Works Campaign, Nashville, TN, 9/2/09, on Flickr)

Last night, Rachel Maddow talked about the growing pressure being brought to bear on Blue Dog Democrats representing constituents who strongly favor a public option, including Jim Cooper (apx 2:30 in):

Support for the public option is wide and deep - among Democrats and Independents (and even, according to the latest NYT/CBS poll, Republicans), in Tennessee's 5th district and across the country. A recent poll commissioned by Health Care for America Now of 91 conservative and Blue Dog swing districts:

The poll and its accompanying memo — which is being circulated among House Dems and was sent over by a source — also send a strong warning to conservative Dems that if health care fails, the resulting damage to the President will rebound on them.

The poll, by respected Dem pollster John Anzalone, finds that 54% of these swing district voters support the public option, and makes the case that these voters emphatically don’t want a “trigger,” the compromise of choice in some quarters.

Earlier this week, Jeff Woods at the Nashville Scene picked up Jim Cooper's dubious characterization to NPR of just how hard he says he is fighting for real health care reform:

NPR suspects a quid pro quo here, but Cooper denies it:

"The chief impetus of this whole effort is to help the uninsured. It's unquestionably true in politics that powerful interests have probably a disproportionate voice, but we're doing double back flips to help the uninsured."

But while the Blue Dogs may be trying to help the uninsured, as one person in the NPR article points out, they're also trying really hard not to hurt the insurance industry too much in the process.

It's hardly debatable that Rep. Cooper has been doing "double back flips". But only in the pursuit of obfuscation and his own political survival. Here's what he has told different audiences regarding his position on the public option:

Jim Cooper to right-wing radio listeners: "My favorite bill has no public option in it."

Jim Cooper to progressive bloggers: "I have repeatedly said that I'm FOR a public option, and that there are multiple ways to do it."

Jim Cooper to the D.C. press: "I have been a leader in trying to define what a public option really could mean... there are about 18 ways to define a public option and at least half of them could win my support"

Jim Cooper to NPR: "We're doing double back flips to help the uninsured"

Double back flips? Try quadruple.

In the summer of 2007, Open Left drew a list of two simple criteria for defining "Bush Dog" Democrats, the right-wing Dems who had betrayed their constituents and enabled President Bush. The two votes they used to define the original list of 38 Bush Dogs were two key issues (and losses) for Democrats and progressives that year: the vote to capitulate to Bush on Iraq and the original vote to give Bush warrantless wiretapping powers.

Unsurprisingly, Jim Cooper voted the wrong way - against his constituents - on both, giving him the ignominious honor of being named an Original Bush Dog.

What's more, while Cooper was leading the charge to empower George W. Bush on Iraq and warrantless wiretaps in 2007, he was representing the 2nd most Democratic district of the entire list of the 38 right-wing Democrats.

Cooper's support for Bush on Iraq in the summer of 2007 continued a pattern of support for Bush since he began representing his new district in Nashville in January 2003, voting for blank check after blank check to fund the war, and even voting for a Republican resolution in 2006 that voiced support for Bush's war policies and rejected setting a date for withdrawal. And in the midst of the FISA fight in 2008, Cooper was one of 21 Blue Dogs who in March 2008 actively worked to ensure immunity for telecommunications companies remained in the final legislation. (Unsurprisingly, according to OpenSecrets.org, AT&T has been Cooper's 7th top contributor over the course of his career.)

When President Bush was in office, Jim Cooper was a leader in enabling some of Bush's worst abuses on Iraq and FISA. Since President Obama has taken office, Jim Cooper has been a leader in working against some of Obama's most important priorities on the stimulus and health care. And through both administrations, he has answered to his corporate donors ahead of his constituents.

Jim Cooper is getting worried. Yesterday, it took him less than 24 hours to reply to The Hill to a critical column by Markos Moulitsas. In the his letter to the editor, Cooper accuses progressives of misrepresenting his views on the public option:

Not only the Daily Kos but also Firedoglake has accused me of being against “the public option.” The truth is that I have been a leader in trying to define what a public option really could mean, and I have repeatedly stated that there are several definitions that I support. By my calculation, there are about 18 ways to define a public option and at least half of them could win my support and, in my opinion, a majority in Congress.

But that mealy-mouthed equivocation - "there are about 18 ways to define a public option and at least half of them could win my support" - is very different from what Rep. Cooper has emphasized in front of Republican audiences.

On the morning of August 24th, during what was billed as a "Radio Town Hall" on health care on the right-wing Ralph Bristol Show on WTTN, one of the first questions Jim Cooper was asked by the host was whether he supported a public option. He responded:

"My favorite bill has no public option in it."

During the interview, Cooper quickly went on to specifically praise weak co-ops, and not a robust public option. Here's the audio:

And this is all a far cry from how Cooper represented his views the same day in a somewhat frantic response to the DKos/R2000 poll showing Democrats in his district disapproving of his performance on health care:

"I have repeatedly said that I’m FOR a public option, and that there are multiple ways to do it."

When he talks to right-wingers, his "favorite bill has no public option in it." When he talks to Democrats, he is "FOR" a public option in all-caps. And when he talks to the D.C. press, "at least half" of the "18 ways to define a public option" could win his support.

Cooper has not been clear about where he stands, but his constituents have. 80% of Democrats and 64% of Independents in TN-05 support a public option, and want a Representative in Congress who will fight for one, not insurance companies doing everything to kill it.

According to The Hill, the House Blue Dogs have thrown their weight behind Sen. Baucus' Senate Finance Committee health care bill released today, which includes no public option, no triggered public option, not even robust co-ops, but instead intentionally weakened co-ops. The Hill:

“The draft released by Chairman Baucus addresses two central goals of the Blue Dog Coalition and the administration: It is deficit-neutral, and it takes real steps to bring down the cost of healthcare over the long term,” Herseth Sandlin said....

Herseth Sadlin called the release of the Baucus bill "an important step forward as Congress moves to send responsible healthcare reform legislation to the president’s desk."

Many other Democrats in both the House and Senate, including Sen. Jay Rockefeller have made it clear that Baucus' bill falls far short. Rep. Anthony Weiner has called it "dead on arrival" in the House.

80% of Democrats and 64% of Independents in Tennessee's 5th Congressional District support a public option. Will Jim Cooper stand with his constituents and oppose the Baucus bill disaster?