Robert Creamer wrote a really good piece in the HuffPo called: Why Health Insurance Reform Will Pass This Fall — It’s the High Political Ground. I direct you to it since it blows a hole… no, four holes… in the stuff Morning Joe and his friends were putting out this morning.
The basic points (read the article for the expansions):
1). Most Americans – including swing voters – can’t stand the health insurance industry.
2). The Obama Administration will use every ounce of its political capital to win this battle.
3). As the vote grows closer, many moderate Democrats will begin to realize the price they will pay personally if health insurance reform fails.
4). Finally, the pundits have ignored a critically important new development : the Obama base has been energized.
Creamer has hit the nail squarely on the head: Obama is not going to lose this because he CAN’T lose this. It has been a long time since we have had a Democratic President with this kind of focus… and when he uses his incredible ability to have a positive finish we will find ourselves not only supporting him, but forgetting about most of the crap that has happened during the Congressional break.
The real losers in the Health Care fight are going to be the Grassleys, the DeMints, the Inhofes and the Enzis who will take the $17 million plus they have received from the Insurance Industry and try to explain to their constituents why their perceived strength was only an excuse to make a buck.
After this goes through the polls will show that Americans never had any doubt that Obama and the Democrats would get reform through.
I sincerely wish to share your optimism. Barack Obama is a complicated man who believes deeply in his personal convictions, which aside from all of the stupid past Republican misinformation, is due in large to his Community Organizer background. Barack clings religiously to the belief that in all things, at the end of the day, compromise is always possible.
Contrary to their behavior, the Republicans are not stupid, far from it. When Obama won the Presidency, it took the Republicans a while to figure him out. That is why they youtube’ed all those silly soundbites calling him a super celebrity and comparing him with Britney Spears and such. But now they have had the opportunity to get their measure of the man. Originally, they looked with a sharp skeptical eye at his appeals for Republican support and bipartisanship in crafting legislation. But now they are throughly convinced that this is who Obama is and they attacked driving desire for compromise as a weakness that they could well exploit. The idea is to continually reject any proposal from the White House until Obama gets so desparate for some sort of compromise, that he will wind up settling for anything that they offer, short of nothing at all.
Currently, I would say that the Republicans have been playing the Obama administration like a well tuned fiddle. Hence, my pessimism. Under the dome of the U.S. Capitol, EVERYTHING is politics. The teapartys and the Town Halls, K street and all the rest of that crap along with Wopo and the MooneyTimes is all extraneous theater BS. The real art of politics goes on behind the scenes and this will ultimately determine the fate of the Health Care Reform bill.
After Obama make his speech to Congress, there will be a “for sale sign” on the White House, and whatever political entity or coalition that delivers a Health Care Reform bill for the President’s signature will “own” the White House. What does “own” mean? It simply means the deliverers of the bill will gain a White House rubber stamp on their legislative packages for the remainder of the Obama term. Now the Republicans know that there will be a lot of delicious apples growing on the Government trees in the upcoming years, such as renewable energy, the national electric grid, stem cell research, genetic engineering, rebuilding of America’s transportation infrastructure (rail and highway), revitalization of America’s manufacturing sector including the automobile industry. With all of these high powered activities scheduled to move to center stage, the “powers that be” recognize that in order for American business to capitalize on these industries of the future that the nation MUST HAVE a viable well trained and HEALTHY work force to get the job done. These facts and these facts alone will be the reason WHY HEALTH CARE REFORM will get done. The nation needs to get the “pesky” problem of health care out of the way, if America is to lead the world in the 21st century. It is no longer a “Union” issue, it is in this new era of the 21st century, a “business/corporation” issue!