There is only one way to get any kind of health reform passed this year: the House should pass the Senate version. If you have to hold your nose as you vote for it, you should. But get it done. Avoid another vote in the Senate.
It is hard for Liberals to take Yes for an answer. We get bogged down in interminable discussions of minutiae. Mastery of mind numbing detail is how Liberal activists distinguish themselves. Conservative activists on the other hand, make their name throwing verbal fireballs. If you don't simplify you lose in politics. In its essence, this health care bill is about requiring insurance companies to cover everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions; and helping everyone to buy coverage. Everything else is detail.
Get what we can now and work for more later.
That is how FDR passed Social Security. In its original form it only covered half the senior citizens.
That is how LBJ passed MediCare. Part B, C and D of Medicare were added on later. The correct way to get a public option is as a Part E of Medicare. Not as part of this particular reform bill.
Mark Twain once said that if someone's livelihood depends on him not understanding something it is impossible to explain it to him. The livelihood of many bloggers depends upon not understanding the need for unity. Nonsense such as "Baucus will Faucus" are written by the same people who wrote diaries titled " Obama should fire Bill Burton" during the campaign. Such naivety is not faked: if you are paid to be naive it is easy to be genuinely naive.
One of the worst things you can do in politics is to pretend that you know what is good for voters better than them. Most people do want health care reform. But they are worried about the possibility that the Government is taking over health care. That is the reality. Slicing and dicing polls is not going to change that. The way to get health care enacted and to profit from it politically is to present it as a limited solution to a problem, one step in a process. We want to cover everyone because it is the right thing to do and because it is cheaper in the long term.
We should not talk as if the people owe us their support. They do not owe us anything. It is up to us to make the case that we deserve their support. It was a mistake for the Coakley campaign to suggest that she is running for the "Kennedy seat" in MA. There is no Kennedy seat. There is no Democratic seat. The Republicans jumped on it to say the obvious: the seat belongs to the people of MA. We would do the same if some one were to say that the Senate seat in Utah is the Orrin Hatch seat. Whether Coakley wins or not the lesson of MA is the Democrats can be as guilty of hubris as anyone else.
Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher have caused more harm than good for the Liberal cause. Their acolytes post diaries on DKos and are able to manipulate the recommending system to make it look as though they speak for the Liberal base.Their passion is admirable, but not their strategic sense.
DKos diaries are not just an internal debate among Liberals. They can influence the larger political conversation. Firing up the base is fine. But in that process we should not obstruct the other essential part of politics: compromise. Not compromise with Republicans, but with moderate democrats.
Get what we can now. And continue to work for more in the coming years.
Obama said yesterday
Sometimes I get a little frustrated when folks just don't want to see that even if we don't get everything, we're getting something. King understood that the desegregation of the Armed Forces didn’t end the civil rights movement, because black and white soldiers still couldn't sit together at the same lunch counter when they came home. But he still insisted on the rightness of desegregating the Armed Forces. That was a good first step
Pass the Senate version of the health care bill in the House and sign it into law before the State of the Union.