Let me begin with an anecdote.
My in-law's water heater destroyed itself two weeks ago. In the process of unmaking itself, it broke the seals on all of the radiators throughout the house, split pipes in the wall, and wreaked a great deal of destruction on their home.
Thankfully, all the damage is covered by their insurance. The process of repairing the damage required them to strip out all their carpets, take down the plaster throughout most of the house, strip the floors, pipe hot air into what was left of the walls to prevent mold growth -- and in the process they discovered asbestos floor tiling hidden under plywood in their bedroom -- this too is covered, and it's going.
They are effectively getting a free rehab of their house because their water heater attacked.
Max Baucus is our collective fucked up water heater. He's done a good deal of harm to the health care bill, which will need to be reamed out and repaired -- but there is a lot of good to be found in the process and we should appreciate that.
First:
I belong to the camp of arm-chair politicians that believes that 85% or more of the public gives not one sliver of a shit which method is used to pass a given bill, or how many republicans vote for health care reform. For most people, all that matters is that the end result works right -- that they don't see their taxes go up, that a G-man doesn't show up at their door with an order to buy health insurance . . . or else.
For these people, the last few months has probably been a scary ride, catching the bits and drips of information they can from the radio, or sitting down to watch a nightly news program. Death Panels? Beurocrats in the ER? ObamanazistalinistOMGHoneyGrabTheKidsWe'reMovingToTexas!!!
If we're lucky, they're looking at all those kooks on the news with Obama-as-hitler signs and associating insanity with the Republican party. Do that enough and it'll stick.
Still, at the end of the day these people will see the effects of policy in their lives. If they see their health insurance premiums go down, and if we can get their attention long enough to take credit for it, then they'll be happy.
So let's assume that the last three months hasn't been about policy, or about that 85% of the populace. The last three months have been, frankly, all about us -- us and our counterparts on the Republican side, and the lobbyists, and the eternally self-referencing bullshit generator that is the Washington press system.
What have we learned? Well -- I've learned to dislike Max Baucus (but he dosen't need my money anyway, since he's fat on insurance lobby dollars). I've learned that there is now a live seat in play in South Carolina that was a safe R to keep a week ago. I've learned that the Republicans still hate me, people like me, and everything that I stand for (I welcome their hatred, it feels tingly). In short, they've brought us deep into the sausage mill folks, and it's a scary place to be, but damn if the party isn't in a better place now than it was on August first (assuming they don't do something stupid like ultimately fail to address our concerns and depress the 2010/12 vote).
Oddly enough, I'm not sure that we've lost all that much from Baucus's dicking around.
Second:
Coverage -- if I'm wrong, if a sizable portion of the population dies care about bipartisanship, than Baucus's ultimate failure to garner a single Republican supporter, after all the hullabaloo and rigmarole, gives us the cover we need to ram reform through.
It's not perfect cover, it won't sway many self-identifying Republicans (but newsflash, they don't like use, and probably won't if we cut the tax rate to zero and hand out free guns at elementary school graduations,) but this is a form of cover. Reasonable people who do not have the time to dive into the details of why we need a public option or a private mandate will be able to look and see only Obama reaching out, Baucus cutting and cutting -- and in the end, the Republicans will sit on their hands no matter what -- they have rendered themselves irrelevant to policy, and made "Bipartisainship" as anything other than a totemic fetish, an empty term.
Again, this is never going to be about getting everyone to say "hey those Dems did their best" that's just not going to happen -- but the cover helps.
Third:
The other kind of Coverage -- the media LOVE a good lazy back and forth story, and the healthcare debate was ALL about lazy back and forth reporting. ("Are there death panels? We bullshit, you decide.") So, healthcare stayed front and center over August, and even the Washington Post has been forced to admit that support for the much-discussed public option is ticking up.
Apparently when one side says "this is important we need it" over and over, while the other cries "Death Panel, Socialism, Nazi," the person actually arguing policy may appear the more compelling speaker -- who could have predicted that?
This ultimately served to lay the ground work for a counter-surge, not just among the public at large, but among us folk that actually do call and write and send money to political types -- we're in it to win it, and that's important.
Fourth:
The Progressives have found their fire. Baucus, and his cohort of evil bipartisainship cultists, gave the progressives something to really rally around and against. They got us activated and energized behind them. We're pushing, they're pushing, and they're primed to make a very clear statement in Washington -- the Progressive causus isn't your bitch baby. You want their votes, your going to have to shift bills toward the liberal side of the scale from time to time, or we might just fuck you up.
Caveats:
I want to cut this off before I get a chain of "stop defending Baucus" comments -- I'm not, he's a dip, he's like the broken water heater -- he as fucked up our house, but now we get to refinish the floors and put up smooth new plaster.
It's zen baby. Take from them what they never meant to give you, and use it to ride over them.