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Political Realities

Kevin Drum writes:

Obama has always kept his distance from both the netroots and the broader lefty base, and the congressional leadership largely did the same during healthcare negotiations. And it's not just that they ended up with a policy choice that progressives were unenthusiastic about. It's that they never even pretended to take progressives seriously. This is a mistake that George Bush and Karl Rove never made. The conservative base frequently didn't get what it wanted from them, but they always felt like they had a friend in the White House whose heart was in the right place. Progressive groups, conversely, have mostly felt like they got the back of the hand from the White House on healthcare. So it's understandable that they've either given up or, in a few cases, actively turned against the whole process.

This seems both right and wrong to me. It's true that the White House and SENATE Dems ignored the concerns of progressives on health care. And Villagers berated progressives (and unions) for not accepting political reality (now they berate the House Dems in the same fashion.) What is wrong though is the notion that the concern was about the process, as opposed to the policy. Indeed, Kevin reflects the condescension that the White House, the Senate and the Village has demonstrated throughout this health care debate. I'll give you two examples -- the excise tax and the public option. These issues are more than symbols. They are honest to Gawd serious issues for progressives and unions. More . . .

When the history of the health care issue in 2009 is written, I think that one of the main goats will be Jon Gruber, and the White House and Senate leaders who embraced his call for an excise tax.

Think what you want about the policy itself, it should have been obvious that the politics of the excise tax created the very significant risk of killing the bill. The unions, one of the most important Democratic constituencies, absolutely hated it. The inclusion of the excise tax was a disastrous political mistake.

But to this day, the White House, Senate leadership and the Villagers are willing to fight to the death for the excise tax. In short, they are willing to kill the bill unless there is an excise tax.

Kevin wrote that "this is also utterly pathetic because....well, it just is. So Max Baucus didn't listen to us. Big deal." On the excise tax, it was the biggest deal. It will likely kill the bill.

It is pathetic of proponents of the Senate health bill that they are so committed to an excise tax that will kill the whole bill if it is not included.

If progressive and union support is necessary for passing the Senate bill, then proponents of the Senate bill need to address their concerns. That is how politics works. If the Senate bill proponents want it passed, they need to round up the votes for it. That means winning support, not berating folks who do not support it. If they want to garner GOP support (good luck with that), then they need to make concessions to Republicans. If they want progressive and union support, they need to make concessions to progressives and the unions. That is how politics works.

It is pathetic to me that so many "pragmatic" Villagers do not understand this elementary principle of politics. The political realities seem foreign to them.

Speaking for me only

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    Let me add that (5.00 / 6) (#1)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 11:48:27 AM EST
    convincing me, or Jane Hamsher or any of the usual targets is not the problem.

    I'm not here beating the drum for not passing the Senate bill.

    The Speaker of the House of Representatives has said, in no uncertain terms, that she can not pass the Senate bill without a reconciliation fix that eliminates the excise tax.

    That is the unions talking.

    A pragmatic person with a grasp of the political realities would realize that the precious excise tax has to be gutted if you want the Senate health bill to pass.

    It is as simple as that.

    Will the excise tax purists kill the bill? that is the question now.

    Maybe I see it as just so much sacred hamburger? (none / 0) (#19)
    by pfish on Mon Feb 08, 2010 at 03:47:29 PM EST
    But exactly why the excise tax on union health plans is such a mortal sin that a behind-closed-doors-deal needed to be cut, and yet the rest of us were still expected to pay it?  Well, that always had a very fishy stink to me.

    Parent
    The problem with killing the bill (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by katiebird on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 12:00:02 PM EST
    I'm inclined to think that the excise tax purists would be happy to kill the bill. But, the problem is that we are actually in the middle of a health care crisis that is only going to get worse without Congress taking action.  They've also convinced themselves (if no one else) that passing some/any bill is success.

    So, passing nothing is failure.

    They've boxed themselves in pretty neatly.  It's a lot of "fun" imagining how they'll get out of it.

    I'll bet you anything (none / 0) (#4)
    by andgarden on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 12:19:09 PM EST
    that some genius in the WH political office thinks they'll just ram the Senate bill through the House in the lame duck session.

    Parent
    Folks running in 2010 (5.00 / 3) (#5)
    by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 12:25:32 PM EST
    must love that idea.

    Parent
    Passing the Senate health insurance (5.00 / 3) (#8)
    by MO Blue on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 12:34:01 PM EST
    bill without modification is bad policy and IMO political suicide. It is my understanding that rank and file union members ignored union leaders and independently organized to elect Brown in MA because of the excise tax.

    Republicans smell blood in the water and will be out in force come November. Polls show independents do not favor the legislation. Seniors and rank and file union members voting for Republicans to repeal the bill will not be conducive to the Dems winning in November. Can't offset them with independent voters who do not support it either.

    Don't understand why Drum and others want to ignore this possibility.

    Parent

    Can we teeter like this until November? (none / 0) (#6)
    by katiebird on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 12:25:49 PM EST
    That sounds like a long time to keep a bill undead.  And it would absolutely need 60 votes by then wouldn't it?  I thought tha the reconciliation option expires soon.

    Parent
    Hadn't thought of that (none / 0) (#9)
    by NealB on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 12:35:56 PM EST
    So they're going to say to the 40 or 50 Democratic losers: "Look, you're gone anyway. Why not do something good for the President and the Party before you leave?"

    Will the losers buy that?

    Parent

    NO (none / 0) (#10)
    by andgarden on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 12:40:43 PM EST
    Pragmatism has been redefined (5.00 / 1) (#11)
    by Coral on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 01:21:14 PM EST
    as "capitulation by the people I disagree with."

    Apparently, progressive voters don't (5.00 / 1) (#12)
    by esmense on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 03:33:33 PM EST
    deserve honest representation.

    We deserve it (none / 0) (#15)
    by shoephone on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 11:42:12 PM EST
    We just can't afford the campaign contribution$.

    Parent
    Has anyone read Tim Dickinson's article re (5.00 / 1) (#13)
    by DFLer on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 04:32:58 PM EST
    the fate of Organizing for America after Obama was elected in Rolling Stone ?

    If so, whaddaya think?

    One theme: First mistake, instead of remaining a force after the lection, they turned OFA over to the DNC...

    As a candidate swept into office by a grass-roots revolution of his own creation, Obama was poised to reinvent Washington politics, just as he had reinvented the modern political campaign. Obama and his team hadn't simply collected millions of e-mail addresses, they had networked activists, online and off -- often down to the street level. By the end of the campaign, Obama's top foot soldiers were more than volunteers. They were seasoned organizers, habituated to the hard work of reaching out to neighbors and communicating Obama's vision for change.

    As president, Obama promised to use technology to open up the halls of power and keep the American people involved. "If you want to know how I'll govern," he said, "just look at our campaign." His activists wouldn't just be cheerleaders; they would be partners in delivering on his mandate, serving as the most fearsome whip Washington had ever seen. "At the end of the campaign, we entered into an implied contract with Obama," says Marta Evry, who served as a regional field organizer in California for the campaign. "He was going to fight for change, and we were going to fight with him."

    The problems started before Obama was even elected. While his top advisers worked for months to carefully plot out a transition to governing, their plan to institutionalize its campaign apparatus was as ill-considered as George Bush's invasion of Iraq. "There was absolutely no transition planning," says Micah Sifry, the co-founder of techPresident, a watchdog group that just published a special report on OFA's first year. In what Sifry decries as a case of "criminal political negligence," Obama's grass-roots network effectively went dark for two months after Election Day, failing to engage activists eager for their new marching orders. "The movement moment," he says, "was lost."



    I am not sure (none / 0) (#2)
    by JamesTX on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 11:58:20 AM EST
    it is real politics anymore...

    It is pathetic to me that so many "pragmatic" Villagers do not understand this elementary principle of politics.

    I think it may be show business, and the people are the audience -- not the directors.

    Dr. Margaret Flowers live blog... (none / 0) (#7)
    by lambert on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 12:29:23 PM EST
    I don't remember HCR being (none / 0) (#14)
    by kidneystones on Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 11:21:04 PM EST
    a biggest part of the 2008. I thought history-making, climate change, all US troops out of Iraq in sixteen months, all bills posted online for the public to scrutinize, and C-Span invited in to televise the sausage-making.

    I repeated questioned whether hcr could work at the national level, but I don't remember any inside the blogway luminaries warning that if Feingold was against this kind of sweeping reform several years ago, the legislation might be premature.

    The left bought into the 'we're all on the same team' bs early, and continued to stay on side well after it was clear that the big, early Wall St. and big healchcare money was also part of the team.

    So, guess which part of the team Obama listens to?

     

    It's also striking. . . (none / 0) (#16)
    by RickTaylor on Mon Feb 08, 2010 at 08:43:13 AM EST
    It's also striking in contrast to "centrist" senate Democrats how much progressives have been willing to compromise. First the public option was weakened, then eliminated entirely, then the Medicare expansion was removed, all under the call of arguments to be realistic about what was politically possible in a Senate where Lieberman and Nelson shamelessly used the filibuster to give them veto power over any part of the legislation they didn't care for, and with promises it wall be fixed in conference.

    Depressing (none / 0) (#17)
    by Militarytracy on Mon Feb 08, 2010 at 12:21:34 PM EST
    Being gone for well over a week taking care of serious health business and discovering that once again I was all alone in doing this.  As for Kevin, let's not get all misty eyed over the Bush administration's connection to their base.  They blew up their whole damned party.  The only thing left remaining are a bunch of confused aimlessly wandering broken down souls and some total effing crazies called "teabaggers".

    This seems like a dangerous (none / 0) (#18)
    by pfish on Mon Feb 08, 2010 at 03:37:05 PM EST
    The only thing left remaining are a bunch of confused aimlessly wandering broken down souls and some total effing crazies called "teabaggers".

    underestimation of what's looking like a resurgent GOP.

    Parent

    It is not my goal to seem like an a$$ (none / 0) (#20)
    by Militarytracy on Tue Feb 09, 2010 at 02:16:41 AM EST
    by making an argument that could seemingly be seen as one having a rightwing bias.  I have almost none of that outside of what needs to be done about Al Qaeda.  I seem to disagree with a majority of the internet liberal base on that, but they are also usually very intellectually dishonest about addressing the Obama administrations actions in this area and are constantly trying to lay blame elsewhere for war decisions.  Truthfully, in my field of vision, if our own party wasn't such a bunch of sold out pathetic losers right now.....there would be zero chance of any GOP resurgence.  People at this point are literally voting for the next person looking for one that serves their constituency and not just big business with the big bucks.  Since Dems control everything right now and are just as sold out and giving the American majorities a huge eff off finger, people will instantly vote for whoever the other person is seeking someone who will represent them first and it doesn't matter if there is an "R" or a "D" after their name.  Almost everyone I know at this point is making claims now to being an Independent.  I have at times.....dirty business during the primary, I moved beyond that and saw reasons to once again lay claim to a strictly Democrat identity.  I will indentify with who represents me though, and the Dem pols have become as soulless in addressing their base as the Republicans now.  Obama can get a Nobel prize for not being the other guy and for no other reason than that, and a politician can thrash an incumbent for essentially the same reason at this time.

    Parent