In the vast, ungainly contraption of the American political system, there is always surprise. A couple of weeks ago, as news started to trickle in of the spectacularly awful campaign of one Martha Coakley in Massachusetts, we were warned. And the result was not, in the end, much of a surprise. In a by-election in a safe seat in a deep recession, the voters threw out the de facto incumbent. This happens in politics. When you realize that the seat had been a Democratic party sinecure for decades (it had been all but owned by the Kenney family for half a century) and that voters knew they could vote out the Republican in only a couple of years, it’s even less of an earth-shaker. And if you simply watched the two candidates, it would take a partisan maniac to prefer the wooden, listless Coakley over an affable, moderate Republican who supports universal healthcare (in his home state) and abortion rights.
What doesn’t usually happen is that an entire presidency is suddenly immobilized by one stray result. Washington is still a little stunned by the immediate consequences. But the asteroid hit just as the final, small adjustments on the massive health insurance reform bill were being completed. Getting that far along in the sausage-making – keeping conservative and liberal Democrats together against total Republican obstructionism – was like finishing a book on a lap-top, clicking save, and then watching it accidentally delete the whole thing for ever.
It was staggeringly demoralizing for the Democrats.
In one swoop, the implications sank in. As long as the Republicans refuse to accept or compromise on anything, as long as they insist on filibustering every single piece of legislation Obama favors in the Senate, then nothing can be done. That’s how the system works. It doesn’t matter that the House passed health reform (and cap and trade) by a big margin months ago. What matters is that just one or two senators can hold up the entire process indefinitely. This is, of course, an insane way to govern a country. But it’s right there in the Constitution. Because every state gets two senators, and the empty rural states tend to be Republican, you end up with the fact – illustrated by writer James Fallows – that the Senators favoring health reform represent 63 percent of Americans, while those voting against represent 37 percent. But the 37 percent wins. Hence the great spoof headline of last week: Republicans win 41 – 59 majority in Senate.
The public is evenly divided on such a huge reform in a period of real economic distress. The current polls show 40 percent in favor and 50 percent against. But a swathe of the opposition comes from the left who think the bill does not go far enough. The complexity of the issue makes it hard to sell, and in the current recession, right-wing populism against all forms of government control is as red-hot as left-wing populism against bankers. In an adult political culture, in a period of economic growth, it might be possible to achieve something this complicated and necessary for long-term reform. Most sane people understand that America’s current healthcare system is bankrupting the public and private sectors while failing to provide any care at all to 40 million people. But the centrist reform Obama has laid out – marshalling the policy consensus of the last twenty years – is just too abstract and diffuse to succeed against all these forces at once.
So is Obama finished? Of course not. By last week’s end, even the most panicked Democrats had begun to calm down. The only practical option left is for the House to pass the Senate bill unamended. Last Thursday, Speaker Pelosi said that she didn’t have the votes for that. But she might get them if the House gets to fix its problems with the Senate bill in a subsequent bill that can be passed by a mere 51 senators in a process called “reconciliation.” This process would also be brutally obstructed – but it could possibly win out in the end. And the only way to do that right now, without brutal blowback, is to alter the political dynamic dramatically.
Only Obama can do that. And like many moments in the campaign when he seemed adrift or embattled, he has been given a big speech next week, his first State of the Union address, to recast the debate. And for the first time, he has experienced a major defeat at the hands of his opponents. These two things lead to one obvious battle plan.
What Obama needs to do is not ram the current bill through. He needs to accept, as he has, that the public remains anxious. But he also needs to remind people that he was elected to grapple with the mounting problems, not avoid them. The pivot is obvious: tell the American people that he understands their anger and frustration (hence the big swipe at the banks last week), but that he refuses to stand by and do nothing. If the American people want nothing, they should support the opposition. If the American people want something, they should back the president they just elected in implementing a health reform plan he campaigned on.
In my view, the key to reassuring Independents, the critical swing vote, is the deficit and the long term debt. If Obama can persuade them that the healthcare reform actually addresses that problem and cuts entitlements (as it does), he can combine it with his recently announced plan for a bipartisan commission to cut entitlements and raise taxes. Such a plan can alone reassure the markets that the US isn’t headed toward the fiscal status of a banana republic.
I feel for the guy. His bill was attacked by the left as a sell-out to insurance companies; it was attacked by the foam-flecked right as communism – the end of America as they have known it. The bill remains more moderate than those once proposed by Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Obama has also taken all the blame for the recession and the debt, as if Bush never existed. And he has helped turn the economy around in ways not yet felt on main street.
But this is the big time and politics is a contact sport. How Obama responds to this will tell us a huge amount about him. He cannot and should not reinvent himself as a Democratic partisan. He isn’t. He cannot fake populism. He’s too responsible for that. He cannot ram a bill through by hook or by crook if he is to respect the genuine anxiety about the reform. So he has to be calm, patient, reasonable and somehow harness Democratic anger as well. He is still well-liked and his approval ratings have recently been gliding up. He could easily prosper personally, as Clinton did, by presiding over a Congress dominated by the opposition. But he does not want to be a Clinton; and the times require much more.
If he fails now, the reformist center of American politics, fragile at best, may be gone for a long time. And so his crucible awaits. The promise of his candidacy – that there must be a way to unite Americans in dealing with their longstanding problems – hangs in the balance. I do not know – because no one can – how he will grapple with this. But one recalls that politics, in the country as well as Massachusetts, is always pregnant with the possibility of surprise. And the audacity – for it is truly audacious now – of hope.
