Once upon a time there was a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House of Representatives. In fact, in 1993-94 Bill Clinton was President, the Senate had 57 Democrats and 43 Republicans, and the House had 257 Democrats, 176 Republicans, and one independent that caucused with the Dems.
Bill Clinton set out to enact health care reforms that would have provided near universal coverage. The Republicans decided that they would do everything in their power to prevent a bill from passing. They succeeded, and then they took both houses of Congress in the 1994 midterms.
Clinton turned to his old friend Dick Morris, who counseled co-opting the Republican agenda and then taking credit for it. This became known as triangulation, and the common wisdom became that Bill Clinton saved his Presidency by following this strategy.
We are witnessing at least one similar feature in these midterm elections. After ‘winning’ re-election in 2004, George W. Bush decided to make privatizing Social Security his top priority. Many Democrats thought we should offer compromise proposals. Nancy Pelosi disagreed. She made sure no counteroffers were forthcoming. The Dems killed Social Security reform, and that, along with a plethora of other issues, set the stage for murderous gains for the Democrats this November.
Regardless of whether or not the Democrats take both houses of Congress, things in Washington are a lot different than they were back in 1993 and 1994. I was reminded of this while perusing a book about Clinton’s failed health care reforms by Haynes Johnson and David Broder, The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point (1996).
The book engages in a lot of Higher Broderism about the great shame of partisanship in the Capitol. But it is the best book on the politics of health care that I’ve ever read. Below the fold I bring you an excerpt that I expect will bring out a lot of visceral feelings for people. It harkens back to a time before Hillary Clinton was considered a demon by most of the right, before Newt had become speaker, before the Dems lost Congress. A time of Democratic power and hope. And then we hit the iceberg and sank in the frozen Atlantic.
Until Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Capitol Hill to begin those three days of televised hearings, only two other First Ladies had ever testified before Congress. Both times they dealt with far narrower issues. No First Lady had assumed the leading role Hillary Clinton played in developing and delivering major national legislation.
Those earlier precedents were much on the minds of the First Lady and her devoted staff as she prepared for her full emergence into the public spotlight. “This is as big as it comes,” one of her aides told Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. “This is Eleanor Roosevelt time.”
Eleanor Rooselvelt was, of course, the first to appear before Congress. But myths notwithstanding, Eleanor Rooselvelt testified only twice: during the Depression, about the plight of migrant workers, and during World War II, about slum-housing conditions in the District of Columbia. The other First Lady was Rosalyn Carter, who testified about mental health efforts in the late 1970’s. Hillary Clinton’s appearances before five congressional committees- three in the House, two in the Senate- far eclipsed any public role her predecessors had played.
Mindful of that history, and eager to do all he could to make her Hill appearances both symbolic and successful, Ted Kennedy thought of having her appear in the grand Senate Caucus Room, where his brothers had announced their Presidential candidacies. He instructed his staff to do research into some other historic events there. They reported back that hearings on the sinking of the Titanic had been held in the Caucus Room. Uh-oh, Kennedy thought, that’s not one we want to advertise. This could be another Titanic– a huge ship with a big prow that can’t turn easily when it’s heading straight toward a massive immovable object.
For all her confident public demeanor, privately Hillary Clinton displayed her anxiety as she prepared to go to Capitol Hill. During a “prep” session with her staff at the White House the night before, she almost “jumped down the throat” of one staffer who tried to make a couple of suggestions to her. The next morning, as she was about to leave for the Hill, her staff saw her again, and she was, understandably, “very nervous.” But she displayed none of those emotions when she strode through the crush of reporters into the bright lights that sharply illuminated the hearing room for the TV cameras. She was cool and poised as she sat alone, without notes, expressing herself clearly and convincingly hour after hour, easily fielding all questions. The few critical remarks directed at her were deflected with an earnest reply or self-deprecating humor. Introducing herself as “a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a woman,” she also consciously appealed to all women, seeking to undercut the tensions that exist between America’s homemakers and its career women. It was a bravura performance.
Most members of Congress, in that male dominated bastion of political power, were almost obsequious- many women thought patronizing- in their praise. “I think in the very near future the President will be known as your husband. Who’s that fella? That’s Hillary’s husband,” gushed Dan Rostenkowski when she testified before his House Ways and Means Committee. Her testimony, Rosty added effusively, had fundamentally altered the terms of the debate. No longer was the question whether America would have health reform, he said, “but what type of reform we should have.” John Lewis, a Democratic member of Congress from Georgia who as a young black civil rights marcher had been clubbed nearly to death by segregationsits, added his praise: “I really believe when historians pick up their pens and write about this period, they will say that you were largely responsible for health care reform in America.” …
…The praise was bipartisan. In the Senate, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, a Republican moderate with a strong independent streak, publicly endorsed the Clinton approach after she testified, telling her, “I am pleased to be the first. I am absolutely confident I will not be the last.” His words were echoed by another Republican moderate, Jack Danforth of Missouri. “We will pass a law next year,” Danforth flatly predicted after the First Lady’s appearance.
In her appearances, Hillary Clinton did not miss any opportunity to win her audience’s favor. Whereas Bill Clinton was notoriously late, Hillary Clinton arrived before the appointed time. The members of Congress spoke of her competence and respect for their well-regulated procedures. She also showed she knew how to play to their highly developed egos with ingratiating flattery…
…The most celebrated moment of her triumphal round of Hill appearances came when the First Lady neatly, and surgically, put down one of her, and her husband’s, most caustic critics, the conservative Republican Dick Armey of Texas.
Armey was the chief lieutenant for Newt Gingrich’s combative House Republicans, noted for his “go for the jugular” style of political exchange. Not long before the First Lady came to the Hill, Armey had compared the Clinton’s ideas to those of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the so-called suicide doctor who helped terminally ill patients die. Armey denounced the Clinton plan as a “Kervokian prescription for the jobs of American men and women.” Months earlier, Armey had said publicly of Hillary Clinton, “Her thoughts sound a lot like Karl Marx. She hangs around with a lot of Marxists. All her friends are Marxists.”
Now, when Armey’s turn came to question the First Lady, he began with an attempt at graciousness. “Mrs. Clinton,” he said, “let me also express my appreciation to you for the work you’ve done and your willingness to come before this committee today, and tell you what a joy it is to see you here.”
“Thank you,” the First Lady said, smiling brightly.
“I listened to the chairman’s opening statement,” Armey continued, beginning to apply the stiletto, “and while I don’t share the chairman’s joy on our holding hearings on a government-run health care system, I do share his intention to make the debate, the legislative process, as exciting as possible.”
Nodding calmly, and continuing to smile, the First Lady answered, with wry double meaning, “I’m sure you will do that, Mr. Armey.” Laughter filled the hearing room.
“We’ll do the best we can,” said a flustered Armey.
The First Lady continued to smile disarmingly. Then she quietly replied, “You and Dr. Kervokian.” This time the laughter in the room was loud, sustained. and punctuated with strong applause.
Armey appeared stunned. He leaned forward, his face flushed, and said grimly, “I have been told about your charm and wit, and let me say”- he was interrupted by more laughter- “the reports of your charm are overstated and the reports on your wit are understated.”
The First Lady, unruffled, still smiling, but in a thinly veiled tone, replied, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
