Saturday, September 05, 2009
WWHD?
Jackie Calme's piece in NYT on what Obama learned from the Clinton '94 health care defeat:
I think Hillary would do a better job on health care reform. She'd set the bar higher with more space to lower it. Let's remember Hillary's bases of support during the primary. She was winning the Democratic equivalents of the Repugs now showing up at those town halls: Retirees, white working class, suburban moms, Blue Dog Democrats. Had not Bill so outraged African-Americans in South Carolina, I believe she would have kept the good will of Black voter. As president, she'd be well-positioned to push health care reform. She didn't run on "Change you can believe in." She ran on her experience as a political insider capable of doing what she said she would do. She would line up her dominoes, & be less interested in bipartisanship than in using the Democratic majorities she & Bill failed to corral in '94. But they were outsiders then, the rubes from Arkansas.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Lesson 1: Failure Is Not an Option.With years to mull it over & a full term in the Senate, I'm fairly certain Hillary Clinton learned those same lessons. I'm not the only one asking What would Hillary do? Several of the reasons I voted for Barack rather than Hillary no longer hold. I knew she was more "liberal" than Barack on health care reform, & a few other major issues. She was far more experienced, more "qualified." But she was a Clinton. Barack's administration so much resembles the Clinton-the-Sequel I'd imagined that now I'd reconsider my primary election choice. By appointing Hillary SoS, she was removed from the health care debate when there's no one to pick up Ted Kennedy's torch. It's one of her specialties.
Lesson 2: Know your audience - insured taxpayers.
Lesson 3: Move before the honeymoon ends.
Lesson 4: Leave the details to Congress.
Lesson 5: Co-opt the opposition.
Lesson 6: Take what you can get.
I think Hillary would do a better job on health care reform. She'd set the bar higher with more space to lower it. Let's remember Hillary's bases of support during the primary. She was winning the Democratic equivalents of the Repugs now showing up at those town halls: Retirees, white working class, suburban moms, Blue Dog Democrats. Had not Bill so outraged African-Americans in South Carolina, I believe she would have kept the good will of Black voter. As president, she'd be well-positioned to push health care reform. She didn't run on "Change you can believe in." She ran on her experience as a political insider capable of doing what she said she would do. She would line up her dominoes, & be less interested in bipartisanship than in using the Democratic majorities she & Bill failed to corral in '94. But they were outsiders then, the rubes from Arkansas.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama
