Legal Commentary

Obama's Failed "Washington Strategy" For Health Care Reform

By Big Tent Democrat

Ezra Klein obliquely labels the Obama Administration political strategy on health care reform a failure:

The cost argument wasn't working to marshal public support. But that wasn't its real failing. [I]ts real failing was that it didn't work to marshal Washington support. That, after all, was the audience. "Bend the curve" was a strategy with particular potency in the Beltway. People care about the deficit here, or at least pretend to. And the plan was to keep this in Washington: Pass the House and Senate bills by August, use the recess to reconcile the two pieces of legislation, and take a vote in September. That required a Washington-centric argument. It failed.

Even as a Washington strategy it was destined to failure. The reason is obvious for anyone with a memory - Republicans were never ever ever going to play along. What Klein is saying is, and it is an amazing statement - that the Obama strategy on health care reform was to count on Max Baucus and his "bipartisan" Gang of 6. What an amazing blunder. It seems inexcusable really. Who came up with this one? No doubt it was Rahmbo and his sidekick (and former Baucus CoS) Jim Messina. More . . .

Ezra continues:

Now the argument moves to the country, and it's going to sound a lot different. The opposition hasn't found purchase making arguments about cost. They've found resonance with government control and rationing and death. You don't win appealing to the wallet, you win by grabbing the gut. And the White House is following suit.

But if Ezra's previous commentary (and Matt Yglesias') on the power of the 60th Senator versus the feeble power of the President, none of this is going to matter anyway. Ezra wrote:

I don’t know how many times a president has to fail to solve this problem before we admit that it’s not a matter of presidential messaging, or toughness, or will, or strategy. FDR, Truman, Nixon, Carter and Clinton all took runs at this prize. All of them failed. And Lyndon Johnson went for Medicare and Medicaid because he was daunted by the challenge of comprehensive health-care reform.

Well since, according to Klein and Yglesias, it can not be the President's fault and the President has no power to influence this policy, what's the point of even covering what Obama is doing here? If, as Ezra says, Obama's Washington strategy has failed, then isn't it over already, by the analysis Klein and Yglesias repeat ad nauseum? Shouldn't we instead by wondering how Rahmbo is going to escape the blame for this failure? Like this story. Rahmbo is already running for cover. He accepts and adheres to the "weak President" theory espoused by Klein/Yglesias.

I think Obama himself and David Axelrod do not. They seem to believe that the President can do something about the state of play. I think they are right. But I also think Rahm Emanuel, Jim Messina and Max Baucus will have to be sidelined for the duration.

We'll see what happens.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on August 15, 2009 (boomark / email).