The seeds of the book were planted while he was participating in a Harvard fellowship after leaving Congress.
“When I was up there, I did an outline of a book and thought it would be interesting. I was mad at something in the news [and thought] that’s not right and I would write something,” he said. “I talked to a few people in D.C. and they said, ‘There is no book, forget about it.’”
“I talked to a few publishers and they said, ‘No, no, there isn’t a book here. Your book isn’t extreme right or extreme left so you have no audience,’” he recalled.
But then, he talked to Christian publishing company Covenant Books.
“They jumped on it,” Stupak said.
He said after reading his manuscript, the publishers said they were surprised by how bipartisan he was.
“Again, you have to understand, I was chair of the Congressional Right to Life Caucus, I was chair of the Democrats Right to Life Caucus,” he said. “Even at the end … I was working with [former Republican Sen.] Tom Coburn. [Nancy] Pelosi was against me, [former Sen. Harry] Reid wouldn’t even bring my amendment up. It’s really funny, Reid called me and said, ‘If you speak to the press, you and I never talked.’”
Stupak would like to see some bipartisanship now.
“All we’ve been hearing for the last seven years is [a] political slogan on health care. Maybe now we can get to the serious policy considerations,” he said. “Let’s have an honest debate on health care. Let’s try something different.”
To read the full article written by Alex Gangitano posted on Rollcall.com please click here.
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