Todd: Crist for President?; Remnick Reveals ObamaCare Passed to Gain New Democratic Voters

Friday follies. Before the weekend ends, two quotes from journalists worth noting made on Friday night shows:

♦ On MSNBC’s Hardball, NBC’s Chuck Todd forwarded the notion that if Florida Governor Charlie Crist drops out of the Republican primary -- where polls put him way behind conservative Marco Rubio -- and wins the Senate seat as an independent, “he becomes the most powerful Senator in the United States Senate” and “he becomes, probably, the viable third party candidate in the middle in the country” for President in 2012.

♦ A few hours later on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, David Remnick, author of the new book, ‘The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama,' outed the real liberal agenda behind ObamaCare as he predicted that instead of being an “albatross” that will hurt Democrats at the ballot box in November, all those new beneficiaries will be grateful and vote Democratic:

When you add 30 million people to the rolls of getting health care, access to health care, seems to me a huge gain and the potential widening of the base for the Democratic Party among a lot of people who might not necessarily vote before. So, I don't think you're going to see a repeat of 1994 come this fall.

Of course, few of those 30 million will have any better access to health care by this November than they had before the bill passed.

Todd, Political Director for NBC News, on the April 16 Hardball:

If Crist got elected as the independent Senator from the state of Florida, he becomes the most powerful Senator in the United States Senate and then, suddenly, you know, all this baggage of political opportunism is gone and instead he becomes, probably, the viable third party candidate in the middle in the country.

Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker magazine and former Washington Post reporter, on HBO:

We heard during the health care debate that the Republican Party was going to take the health care bill and tie it around the Democratic Party’s neck like an albatross, it was going to lead to catastrophic losses come November in the mid-term elections. I’m not so sure that’s true. When you add 30 million people to the rolls of getting health care, access to health care, seems to me a huge gain and the potential widening of the base for the Democratic Party among a lot of people who might not necessarily vote before. So, I don’t think you’re going to see a repeat of 1994 come this fall.

From April 5, “NBC Nightly News: Mohammad Ali, Walt Whitman, Annie Oakley and Now...Barack Obama,” recounted:

NBC News is certainly enthralled with David Remnick’s new book, ‘The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama.’ After giving him a guest slot on Meet the Press and an interview on Monday’s Today show, NBC Nightly News on Monday showcased Remnick in an “In His Own Words” segment to expound on his admiration for Obama’s racial identity journey, starting with how Obama follows in the tradition of Annie Oakley:

There are a lot of American characters no matter what the field who make themselves, who create themselves out of what’s in the cultural air. It’s an American thing, whether it’s Mohammad Ali or Walt Whitman or Annie Oakley. And Barack Obama is somebody who grew up in Honolulu and had to learn how to be African-American in the absence of African-Americans. Racial identity is a drama that Obama had to undergo long after he had become comfortable with his own identity.