It may be a bit premature, but what happened to healthcare reform was so predictable, and so easy to head off, that I can't resist assigning blame in the diary below. I confess this is a bit of an "I told you so," which I understand is an unappealing trait, but the Democrats have been so feckless and weak on this issue that I hope it serves as a wake-up call. It's still not too late to learn lessons from this and reverse what looks to be a very serious electoral slide, if there is the political will -- admittedly, a very big if.
At any rate, below is my list of the top three villains/failures on HCR. I'd be very interested to see what others think.
There's lots of blame to go around -- so much, that I can't cite one person, but I'm down to three: Baucus, Reid, and Obama.
Note that I didn't include any Republicans because their opposition was a foregone conclusion. If this had been handled right, Republicans would have been irrelevant. For the same reason, I don't include Lieberman or Nelson; again, if this had been handled right, they would have never been in a position to screw over meaningful reform.
Baucus: For being played for so many months by Grassley and Snowe. How can you be so stupid to keep negotiating in "good faith" with someone who said, point blank, his goal was to delay so he could kill the bill? Baucus also "wins" points for taking single payer and public option off the table.
Reid: For general weakness and fecklessness, but especially for handing control of the process to Baucus; not to mention his refusal to consider reconciliation when it could have put some real pressure on the Republicans, and possibly even forced them to come to the table.
Obama: His sins are legion on this one. He exerted no leadership whatsoever. If he had insisted that Reid bring the bill to a floor vote before the August recess, healthcare would be a done deal now, we would have avoided all the town halls and tea parties, and we probably wouldn't have lost the seat in Massachussetts. But he's made missteps galore: taking single payer off the table, refusing to commit on whether he wanted a public option, cutting the deal with Pharma and then lying about it . . . if Obama doesn't learn to use the powers he has, he won't have them for long. See Jimmy Carter for an object lesson.
In fact, I have to make Obama the leading villain in this whole mess. He said this was his most important domestic priority, but exerted absolutely no effort (other than a few speeches) to making it come true. Congressional Democrats were pleading with him for guidance, but he preferred to keep his powder dry. I guess he wanted to preserve all options, so no matter what passed, he could claim victory. But in the end, look what happened: he lost even more political capital, and it is questionable now whether anything can pass.
This diary would be merely a meanngless "I told you so" from a Monday morning quarterback, if it didn't at least attempt to provide some constructive suggestions. So what have we learned? (Perhaps I should say, what do we hope Obama and the Democratic leadership has learned, because many of us in the progressive movement have been making these points consistently since day one.)
- Forget bipartisanship. You've made more than ample attempts to reach across the aisle. If the Republicans ever show any inclination to cooperate, fine, but the present-day Republican party -- at least its members in Congress -- have no desire or intention of cooperating with you on anything. The only way they can recover power is for the Democrats to be abject failures. Why would they lift a finger to help you accomplish anything? For the good of the country? Don't make me laugh. They've already shown that they care nothing about that (or, more charitably, that their vision of what's good for the country is so diametrically opposed to ours that they sincerely believe that the best thing they can do for America is destroy Obama and the Democrats). Anyone with eyes or ears could have known this. Rush Limbaugh, de facto leader of the Republican party, said from day one he wants Obama to fail. Jim DeMint said he wants to defeat healthcare to break Obama, to cause his Waterloo. Bill Kristol explained that the Republicans had to defeat healthcare because, otherwise, the voters would see that government could provide meaningful benefits and would reject the conservative philosophy (heaven forbid that we help Americans).
- You can't beat the Republicans at their own game. No matter how much you try to appease special interests and Wall Street, the Republicans will always be better at it, and will get their support. You have to stand up for the little guy -- not just because it's right, and good policy, but because it's good politics.
- You have to have the courage of your convictions. Somehow, Reagan, followed by 1994, has done permanent damage to the psyche of far too many Democrats in Congress (as well as Obama?). They seem to truly believe that America is a conservative country, that Republican/conservative policies are better/more popular than Democratic/liberal policies. They seem to feel like they have to trick people or discguise what they are doing. This is crazy! After eight years of Bush, the American people were crying out for a new way. The Democrats have blown a once in a generation opportunity to change the direction of the country. They should adopt the Howard Dean/Allan Grayson approach. Be proud of your policies, proclaim them, put them in context; make it look like you believe in something (and in fact, it's even better if you actually do believe in it)! As Bill Clinton observed, people would rather vote for a strong leader who's wrong, than a weak leader who's right.
- Following from 3 above, don't be so scared of losing. I hated Bush and Rove, but they understood this. They didn't wait for a sure thing, they didn't try to preserve political capital. They used every means available to push through their agenda. It would have been far better politically for Obama and the Democrats to push a progressive meaningful healthcare reform, even if they lost, than to come up with a giveaway to the insurance companies in the hope it would squeak by. If they had really fought for it, they probably could have passed it; but even if they didn't, then they could truly run against Republican lockstep obstructionism. (Look how effectively Bush used this against the Democrats in the judicial confirmation context.)
- Finally, quit delaying to attempt to reach a consensus with everyone. It will never work anyway. Momentum is everything in politics. Last spring, 60-70% of the public supported healthcare reform, Obama had a 70% approval rating, the Republicans were in the toilet in terms of favorability, and even the major industry groups viewed healthcare reform as inevitable. Obama and the Democrats should have come up with a simple bill, easy to explain to the public, and passed it. Obama's instincts were right when he demanded passage before the August recess. He should have kept demanding it. He should never have let Reid and Baucus talk him into attempting to reach a bipartisan consensus. I don't see how supposedly intelligent people could have ever thought that was possible. And unfortunately, I don't see when we'll ever have such a good opportunity again.