Legal Commentary

Anti-Base Mobilization

By Big Tent Democrat

Nate Silver endorses the White House strategy of depressing base voters going into the 2010 elections:

How close they could have gotten if Obama and Harry Reid had done everything in their power to whip the votes for it, we don't know. Instead, it's been pretty obvious, from the reporting of people like Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn, that the White House regarded the latest reincarnation of public option as a nuisance that they hoped would go away. But frankly, I think the White House is right on the politics of this. Yes, as public option proponents are fond of pointing out, the measure polls well in the isolate. But that's true of a lot of the individual components of the bill -- and the public option is not one of the most popular components, nor one of the ones that ordinary voters consider to be the most "important". The overall package fares poorly not because of concerns about the presence or absence of certain individual measures, but because people are exhausted and turned off by the process and have vague and ill-informed concerns about what the bill would do.

(Emphasis supplied.) Hilariously obtuse. I'll explain why on the flip.

While "ordinary voters," whatever that means, may not consider the public option important, or the most "important," issue, Dem base voters DO think it is. Whether passage of the public option succeeded or failed, to be seen as TRYING to pass it matters to Dem base voters. Frankly, the Obama Administration has this completely wrong on the politics. It did not have to lead the fight, after all it has played Bystander to this for a while now. What was clearly a political gaffe was Gibbs' "they don't have the votes" defensiveness in the press conference.

The perception now is that the White House is actively AGAINST the public option. Village bloggers like Klein and Cohn may be pleased by this, but the Dem base voter will be further demoralized just months before the 2010 election. This is so obviously politically stupid that it amazes that anyone would think it was smart politics. Unless of course shilling for Obama is your favorite pasttime. Oh wait, this is Nate Silver we're talking about -- of course that is his favorite pasttime.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 24, 2010 (boomark / email).