“‘We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition,’ an aide said. ‘There are lots of different ways to get there.‘” Granted it’s in Politico, which always needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but Team Obama is apparently floating another no-public-option trial balloon. “On health care, Obama’s willingness to forgo the public option is sure to anger his party’s liberal base. But some administration officials welcome a showdown with liberal lawmakers if they argue they would rather have no health care law than an incremental one. The confrontation would allow Obama to show he is willing to stare down his own party to get things done.“
Hmmm. “Getting tough” with the Left (while having Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress) to impress people on the Right who can’t stand you and want you to fail.That doesn’t sound like change we can believe in either, and it’s going to turn off the people who got this president elected in droves. I fear the Third Way/DLC careerist cadre in and around the administration are blowing a historic opportunity here.
Update: “‘It’s so important to get a deal,’ a White House official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid about strategy. ‘He will do almost anything it takes to get one.’” Sigh…I know I’m not a master tactician or anything, but, as with dropping single-payer right away, I would think telegraphing “we’re really really desperate” before coming to the table is not a very good negotiating strategy.
So since it is starting to look as though Obama is fortifying his position as a single-term president, which Republican do you think we’re going to get stuck with in 2012?
Nah, Obama’s a two-termer. I just don’t see the GOP getting their act together by the next presidential cycle — if anything, they’re going in the wrong direction right now.
Plus, on the (admittedly dim) bright side, even if health care reform falls apart, Obama is a full year up on President Clinton, who saw health care reform fall apart in ’94 and still managed to weather 1996 (at the cost of Congress, of course.) Small comfort, but there it is.
I fear the Third Way/DLC careerist cadre in and around the administration are blowing a historic opportunity here.
What was the point of going hell-bent for leather to beat all of these people if he was just going to hire all of them anyway? I know some degree of that was necessary just to have people around who know how to operate the levers of power and to bring together a potentially fractured party(though I still think that was more of a media creation than reality) but the lack of fresh blood and new ideas among his appointees has been terribly disappointing. Not quite as disappointing as the utter neglect of his bottom-up campaign operation and approach after he got elected(which, wow, wouldn’t a huge organized grassroots movement on the left have come in just a little bit handy in the current healthcare fight?), but damned close, and one probably has a lot to do with the other.
I’m not ready to write off his administration yet, but if some kind of decent health care reform(and really, Cap and Trade, but I’m trying to lower expectations enough to avoid utter disappointment) doesn’t get done, then this is an utter fiasco, and a waste of a whole generation’s political idealism, hard work, and goodwill. The Dems will have nobody to blame but themselves in that event.
Well put as always, J. Dunn.
And having the usual suspects in all the usual positions is more problematic than just their careerist mindset and timid moderation. They tend to be carriers of a kind of battered spouse syndrome all too common among a certain class of Dems, whereby if we just accede to this, this, and this, then maybe this time the GOP will get on board and play nice. And, of course, they won’t. The administration could be trying to pass the McCain plan and the Republicans would still be doing their damnedest to kill it.
It’s immensely frustrating to behold. The Democrats have the White House, the House, and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. But when are we going to have the courage of our convictions?
They tend to be carriers of a kind of battered spouse syndrome all too common among a certain class of Dems, whereby if we just accede to this, this, and this, then maybe this time the GOP will get on board and play nice.
There’s also a sense in which his whole administration has been based on not making the mistakes that Clinton supposedly made. Don’t piss off the military or the intelligence community(Gates, slow-walking DADT, refusing to do much of anything about torture and wiretapping and all the Bush-era rule-of-law issues). Don’t piss off Congress(the hands-off approach to the stimulus and health care reform). Don’t rile up the culture war crazies(slow-walking of gay rights issues in general, timidness on racial and economic equality issues, timidness on abortion and feminist issues, and on an on).
They forget that Clinton was elected with a low plurality, in an era of conservative ascendance. Obama was elected with a solid majority, probably even a mandate in this era of hyper-close elections, and on the back of two consecutive Democratic landslides in Congress. Taking a once in a generation leader in a once in two generations political moment and running off-tackle over and over again like this is just idiotic. Go for it! Let him lead. If we die, we die. And so on. What’s the point of getting power if you don’t use it for anything?