It has been a long time since we had a victory like this. Sure we won elections before. Obama becoming President was historic. But Presidents come and go. Congressmen get elected and re-elected. Most don't make a difference. This time it's different.
Armageddon. That is what they are calling it. Waterloo. Tyranny. The end of freedom. Really? I don't see any asteroids falling from the sky. Some of our countrymen can't tell the difference between losing and the end of the world.
May be because they have not had much practice. Ever since Reagan got elected they have been on a roll. Thirty years of Right Wing dominance has come to end only now. Sure, Clinton got elected in between: just barely, on a plurality. Despite valiant efforts he could not pass health reform. Then he had a hostile Congress for the rest of his term. They impeached him, and all but tarred and feathered him.
Only a month ago it looked like the same would happen to Obama. Kissinger said that Obama reminds of him of a grandmaster who is playing a dozen games simultaneously. "I would like to see him win one of them." Now he has. May be not the one Henry wanted him to win though.
Obama could coast from now on leave office in 2012 and still be a historic President. Of course he won't. He is about to sign a nuclear treaty with Russia, to renew the one Reagan signed with Gorbachev. Financial Reform is moving along. The same people who pronounced health reform dead are saying it won't pass. We will see. There is even hope of a peace treaty in the Middle East and a victory in Afghanistan. Okay, may be that is expecting too much.
So what is the opposition doing? They are going to sue the Federal `Gummint'. Great. Continue to fight the battle you lost already. First there were the Truthers. Then the Birthers. Now we have Healthers.
Am I the only one to notice a certain similarity between the Right Wing nuts of today and lefties of yore? Back then, as Reagan was wiping the floor with us, the left thought of him as a clueless actor. With his wit and that cute little shake of his head, Reagan changed the arc of American history. There was a lot of anger on the left back then, mostly born of impotence. Now it is our guy who has the quick wit."John, A President ought to be able to do more than one thing at a time."
I even suspect that some of the teapartiers of today are the same people who marched ineffectively against Pershing missiles and held vigils for the Sandinistas. Thirty years older and a hundred pounds heavier-but still as skimpily clad as ever- they now show up at Town Halls full of the same rage.Even if the bodies are not the same the spirit is: the same intolerance towards moderates on their side, the grade-school level name calling, the limited command of facts.
What we are up against is not an organized movement. This is not the fearsome Republican Party of Lee Atwater and his successor Karl Rove. These guys have no strategy. But they are not idealists either. Random quotes from Thomas Paine is no substitute for an ideology. "Hell No! We won't prevent an insurance company from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions!" is not a winning slogan.
So what if we lose a few seats in Congress in 2010? What is the point of winning elections if you can't make needed changes? In any case, the Congressmen most likely to lose are the ones that hedged their bets on health care. I will not cry for Stupak or Lincoln. Sadly, Nelson looks unbeatable.
The unity of Republican Congress will crack. It just hasn't sunk into them that they live in a new political era. They honestly did not think that Democrats had the balls to go the reconciliation route. As Obama was roping them in with the day long Health Summit, they still had hope that Democrats would defeat themselves. Republican unity played right into Obama's hands. He was seeking permission from the American people to go ahead without a single vote from them.
Stupak and Nelson were also among the losers that day: the strategy of passing the Senate Bill and pushing through changes by reconciliation made those guys irrelevant. Obama just had to issue an executive order reiterating existing policy. It was written on an ancient material: fig leaf.
Next up: financial reform. Fingers crossed.