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PERCEPTUAL QUESTION OF THE DAY.
How much do Republicans fear the Obama administration's coming health reform campaign today? How much did they fear it a week ago?
To put it slightly differently: A lot of the Republican strategy will be predicated on whether they think, from the outset, that they can kill health reform and hand Obama a failure on the very issue that he said voters should use to "judge my first term as president." If they think they can, they will. And then they will invite voters to judge him. If they think they can't, then some Republicans might defect in order to avoid being on the wrong side of a popular accomplishment. Perceptions are important here, and my hunch is that perceptions in the GOP strategy meetings are very different today than a week ago.
COMMENTS (5)
perceptions in the GOP strategy meetings are very different today than a week ago
[jim peeks at mirror behind Ezra to determine what poker hand he's holding - but mirror is mispositioned]
Jim bets: The GOP leadership is now confident Obama can be rolled to strip out the tender bits from bills, and they'll deploy that strategy (let's call it the rat-bite plan), without voting for the final, weakened bills. $10.00
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | February 4, 2009 11:15 AM
The Republicans are going to oppose every major piece of legislation simply as a matter of course, and they're going to devote significant resources to keep a united front on that opposition.
They have almost succeeded in derailing the stimulus already. (http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/~r/wp-dyn/rss/linkset/2005/03/24/LI2005032400102_xml/~3/U269kh2vpRE/AR2009020304024.html) If they can maintain party discipline on that, they can damn sure keep it up against the Dread Spectre of OMFG WTF SOCIALIST HEALTHCARE!!!1
Obama needs to stop trying for genuine "Jim DeMint likes me!" bipartisanship and start focusing on the 4 or 5 potential GOP swing votes. All this "high ground" hope and change stuff is going to look pretty dumb if it keeps the Democrats from passing any legislation.
Posted by: NS | February 4, 2009 11:25 AM
What NS said.
I assumed Obama was not as naive as he seemed. It appears he actually is. The U.S. is fucked.
Posted by: Obama Loves the Steelers | February 4, 2009 11:33 AM
OK, Daschle was a colossal screw-up, and don't kid yourself, Ezra: as much as we'd all like the reason to have been the health industry ties, to paraphrase, "It's the taxes, stupid." Also, nobody knows what was up with the Gregg imbroglio; were the major players, like Lynch & Shaheen, not even asked what would happen?
Having beaten those two issues into the ground, I think a lot of this is based on that first Senate amendment vote. People, we got 58 votes with:
- No Franken yet,
- Kennedy in & out,
- Landrieu off the reservation (she & Ben need to be woodshedded about cloture votes; I nominate Rahm for the job)
I'll admit more force is needed, but this was never gonna be simple, especially in the Senate, but with all that, we're about there.
Posted by: BCHS 1980 | February 4, 2009 12:08 PM
It's kind of odd to see someone with a football-based pseudonym doing the equivalent of judging Obama's quarterbacking skills while the ball is still in the air.
Until the bill arrives at Obama's desk nobody really knows what it's going to look like.
Posted by: Chris | February 5, 2009 10:11 AM