Nate Silver Battles Bill Killers

Nate Silver launched into possibly the dorkiest blog feud ever last night, getting into a lengthy, heated policy debate with liberal bloggers who want to kill the Senate’s health care bill. Silver argues that Democrats will never have a better chance to pass reform, and that it would “take a miracle” to pass the public option. “I don't know how many times you can bang your head against the wall before this sinks in.”

Silver began by posting 20 somewhat serious, somewhat sarcastic “questions for bill killers” at FiveThirtyEight.com, which Markos Moulisas (DailyKos) and Jon Walker (FireDogLake) happily answered, saying they aren’t happy with the individual insurance mandates, want better cost controls, and think Democrats could get a bill with a public option using reconciliation. Silver thinks the subsidies for the poor trump most concerns, doubts the efficacy of reconciliation, and says further public option talk “begins to smack of the First Stage of Grief.” (More Nate Silver stories.)