His stunning failure to grasp the importance to most Americans of a solid public-option health insurance alternative, and surprising unwillingness or inability to lead effectively in getting that passed as part of health care reform, will define Barack Obama’s first years as president.
Sure, many Americans tell pollsters they want to see the partisan divide bridged.
Of course people are hesitant about House and Senate health care reform bills so riddled with compromises, so chock-a-block with back-and-fill changes, and so soiled by deals like the one DINO Sen. Ben Nelson extorted, that senators and representatives are hard put to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”
Way late in the game, Obama has massaged and synthesized key reforms in both big bills into a simpler proposal, one he vainly hopes might garner some trace of bipartisan support. You can read a good synopsis of his handiwork here.
Politically, the problem for Obama going forward is that, as Ezra Klein explains, even if his compromise of all compromises goes through, Obama has forfeited the chance to be a hero and look like a winner.
Obama can’t expect attaboys from the Democratic left, which comes out of this year of muddle and attempted appeasement feeling spurned, scorned and burned. What John and Jane Public wanted all along was solid results, with benefits they get to see and feel soon — not at some indefinite time between now and 2019 — rather than a sudden blossoming of bipartisan goodwill in D.C.
If our president doesn’t realize by now that his efforts to work productively with Republicans are futile, that his persistence looks more and more like sappiness, we are in for a political ride that mirrors his haphazard drive to get the health care reform Americans need and want.
Democrats up for re-election in November had better don their helmets, tighten their seatbelts and brace for the worst.
290 bills have been passed by the House, some of them with decent bi-partisan support, so 41 Senators are holding up business by using the filibuster rule. I don’t know how the President can get over that?
That’s easy. A punch to the face.
Holte, what’s needed is leadership as practiced by FDR, Truman and LBJ — including some really hard hardball. There are times when a president can be a consensus builder. We’re not in one of those times. The president has a range of carrots and sticks he can use. He’s got the bully pulpit and majorities in both houses of Congress. What he seems to lack is the spirit and fortitude to wage a sustained, determined, head-on fight, since unfortunately Republicans have made it clear doing that is his only chance, and Democrats’ only chance, to accomplish things the people need and want to have done.
The bitter irony is that voters won’t thank Obama and the Democrats for this hard-headed effort to achieve bipartisanship. Voters will look on them as disorganized wimps who can’t deliver, and will sweep them aside.
Did you read Klein’s short post?
Randal, one of these days, McConnell, one of these days: pow! right in the kisser.
I keep hoping that Obama and Congressional Democrats will take the reins and do whatever they have to do. They may not care about us, but they care about their own careers. Being politicians, they have to be intelligent enough to know that if they don’t perform, the public will vote them out for 1) not listening to the will of the voters; and 2) being weak and allowing themselves to be paralyzed by the Republican minority.
I think Obama and most Dems — obviously, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman are exceptions — care about the people and want to help. I think congressional Dems are hobbled by White House insistence on seeking bipartisanship, and in the Senate by less-than-stellar leadership. But you’re right about what voters are likely to do if they judge Dems to be weak and ineffective. They’ve done it before and will do it again.
I think when the President did his wrap-up today after the summit that as usual produced no progress because of the GOP, he may have finally laid down the gauntlet. He basically was saying that if the Senate can’t come up with a bill in the next month then the Dems should go ahead without the GOPers. Reconciliation is the only chance now to get this done, but done it must be. I do agree, he pushed for bipartisanship longer than he should, but the Senate Dems weren’t much help either in getting it done. There is blame enough to go around. We really do need an LBJ – unfortunately there aren’t any of those types anymore. They’re all too scared to rock the boat or lose a vote, and too in cahoots with corporate interests.
I think Obama did a good job at that meeting today, and Republicans came off looking like what they are. This whole episode hasn’t been a credit to Senate Democrats, I agree. But there’s a fact that seems to get lost in all this about them and about House Dems: both passed a health care reform bill.
If the President now goes the reconciliation route, and the death panels haven’t consigned tens of thousands of us to the trains by November, the President can claim a win. He can then say “it isn’t all I wanted, but it’s a good start,” and save a few dems who would otherwise be sacrificed.
Or he can continue to play footsie and cost the dems at least 30 seats. The choice is his.
JR, I think you’re right. I hope Obama’s meeting today makes clear to everyone he’s tried to work in good faith with Republicans. I hope it makes clear to him he’s just beating his head against a brick wall. And then, I hope he’s finally gotten this grubbing for bipartisanship out of his system, and will do what he needs to do, and what the country and party need for him to do.
Starship Reconciliation… ramming speed captain!
Demeur, exactly right. Reconciliation or whatever it takes.
Obama put everyone in the room to shame. All the fiery Democrats weren’t there.