Legal Commentary

Who Obama Bargained With

By Big Tent Democrat

Related to this post. Matt Yglesias writes in disagreement with Ezra Klein:

What happened in the health care debate is that interest groups were able to get their way on most key points without needing to seriously attempt to deliver votes in exchange. [. . .] Basically thanks to their influence over “centrist” Democrats, the interest groups were able to get 85 percent of what they wanted in exchange for absolutely nothing.

Is this really true? I think not. Making deals with PhRMA on no drug reimportation and other interest groups for no public insurance program kept them on the sidelines but I doubt it swayed many Blue Dogs. What is more telling is who Obama did not have to bargain with - progressives. This is because they knew progressives would be rolled. This brings us back to MaryB's point:

I think the problem with the progressives is the same problem that Silver has - they do not have in their minds a clear definition of who the "counterparty" is and they have, therefore, created some imaginary counterparty who they have imbued with superpowers. Or possibly who they have imbued with such stupidity that they think they are unable to read the tealeaves.

If the Progressives had kept their eye on the ball from day one they would have (i)realized that the only counterparties who mattered to THEM in this negotiation were Obama and a few non-progressive Democrats, (ii)Obama and the non-progressive Democrats weren't stupid and would realize the progressives were from safe districts, and (iii) the progressives were always going to be able to claim victory on the baseline progressive goal of expanding Medicare.

The Progressives' inability to treat the White house as the counterparty is at the heart of their bargaining failure. Today we see it from progressive activists who whip for a bill in which they were completely rolled.

The reality is there is no authentic progressive activism - just Obama activism. The inability to keep their distance from the White House is their major failing. The unions have no problem being able to do this. It is why they achieve some success. Until the progressive view changes, nothing will change regarding the failure of progressive bargaining.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 20, 2010 (boomark / email).