There has been some disturbing talk around here that maybe we should just give up on healthcare reform because of the Stupak amendment. Doing that would be a horrible, horrible idea. The Republicans are doing every single thing that they can to kill reform by exploiting Democratic divisions on these wedge issues in order to give themselves a huge win on this by killing this President's signature agenda item and leaving him a wounded and beat up man for the rest of his Presidency who will not get a single item of his agenda through Congress.
I saw what happened when Democrats failed on healthcare in 1993 and 1994. As soon as healthcare reform failed in 1994, Republicans all over the country shot up in polls due to their win on this issue. In my home state of California, Dianne Feinstein went from holding a 13 point lead in the polls over Michael Huffington to a tie in the next poll taken after Democrats admitted defeat on healthcare.
This was not a phenomenon that only reared its head in California. It happened almost everywhere in the United States after the failure on healthcare reform. What happened was that voters saw one party winning on something and the other party losing and voters went shifted to the party that looked strong and was winning on the issues.
If Democrats were to pass no healthcare reform, the party would be destroyed. Even master party strategist James Carville predicted on the Situation Room that Democrats would lose both chambers of Congress if they failed to pass healthcare reform.
Voters are not going to punish Republicans for blocking reform. Democrats hold big majorities in both chambers of Congress and are expected to get this thing done.
Lets hope to hell that we dont repeat history.