President Obama is carefully executing a Bill Clinton 1996 Re-Election bid, following Dick Morris' advice to triangulate hard to the right. This improves his chance of keeping the White House, but it implements most of the Republican agenda, and it seriously hurts Democratic chances in Congressional races. Congress goes red because a triangulating Democratic Party has an enthusiasm gap. It doesn't get out the vote.
So he's making the deal to slash domestic spending, roll back Medicare and Social Security, and protect tax breaks to the filthies. The triangulation plan can be summarized by breaking policies into three left-right vectors. On economic policy, he's moved to the right of Reagan, embracing Hoover. On foreign policy, he's close to Reagan, favoring foolish intervention but not without limit when failure is too embarrassing. On social policy, he's to the left of Reagan and well to the left of, say, Bush Jr., but still on the right side of the Democratic party.
So his coattails will probably be no stronger than Clinton's were in 1996, an election that ended up with Speaker Gingrich and a preposterous impeachment. Democratic candidates for Congress thus can't hope to gain seats that way. Fortunately, there is a better approach. Democrats running for Congress can run as real Democrats. And we've got the issues right in front of us.
Undo the cuts!
Restore Medicare and Social Security!
And if they have been renewed, then undo the Bush tax cuts for the rich.
The Grand Compromise (or as I call it, 120% of what the Republicans asked for) to get an increase in the debt ceiling will probably end up cutting Social Security in two steps. One is to move to a chained CPI. The second is to let "automatic" cuts kick in when the deadline approaches, or have a new "Supercongress" commission do it. (I know the term "cat food commission is controversial here but the "gang of" business is tired too.)
Those are bad, but the Medicare cuts are far worse. Raising the age to 67 puts people in an untenable situation. Right now, the Medicare age is no higher than the usual retirement age (already raised to 67). So large group employer-based plans cover the employee up to 65 or maybe 67, but Medicare is there to help the oldest. And if somebody is self-employed, or in a small group whose rates are underwritten based on the group's demographics, or in a small group whose rates are not averaged among its members, their age sets the price. Capping it at 65 is pretty bad already. Rates generally get hiked at every 5-year age interval. My rates were raised at 55, and will go up again when I hit 60. I pay over $1800/month already for family HMO coverage, and that's well below the Massachusetts Health Connector rate which models the ACA exchanges. Imagine what a 65 or 66 year old would pay!
There is literally no private insurance market today for that population; Medicare does the heavy lifting and private Medigap just covers the deductibles. Only a small fraction of the population would be able to afford private insurance at age 66. Costs in real terms are several times higher than they were in 1965 when Medicare came along. We can't go back there.
Now the hard-core believers in 11-dimensional chess will assume that this is just a clever scheme to force single payer or a public option upon the public, because there's no way that the feds would really let that happen. But welcome to the Randist Republic of Liptonia. If you can't afford to pay, you can't have it, and it's your fault.
So let's Just Say No to this idiocy. What we need is a political movement within the Democratic Party that campaigns on a simple message: Undo the cuts! We the voters did not get asked if we wanted spending cuts during a depression (which is the correct term for the economy as it exists, especially given the recent corrections to past quarters' reportedly good news). We the voters did not say we wanted the hedge fund billionaires' carried interest loophole preserved. We did not say that we wanted corporate dividends to remain taxed at a very low rate. We did not say that marginal tax rates on incomes over a million dollars should be lowered. And we most certainly did not say we wanted Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to be rolled back. And we should make that clear.
Democrats should campaign for Congress by running hard to the left of Obama, but squarely supporting positions that polls say are popular. Congress can take away, but Congress can give back. If we win a resounding Congressional victory in 2012 by running against teabagger cuts, then any "deal" made by hostage takers can be undone. And let's be open about that. Undo the hostage-takers' deal. Give the people their money back and do what's necessary to get the economy moving again -- yes, more stimulus, spent more wisely than last time, when too much went to tax cuts. Spend directly on jobs that have a good multiplier. Economic growth will, as St. Ronald said, lead to higher revenues. What better way to pay down the deficit than by an upward spiral?
That may sound like an audacious bet to Village insiders, who are totally fixated on Hooverism. But it's an obvious strategy for Democrats who want to win.
P.S. For some reason the poll question got truncated: Would this be a successful strategy for Congressional Dems?