The Democrats are upset at their now only near-super majority in the Senate. With the election of Brown over Coakley, as numerous media outlets have pointed out, Democrats only have 59 seats in the Senate and can’t stop a filibuster. This story has several implications, aspects, realities attached to it, whatever phrasing you prefer.
The most immediate is, of course, the health care bill. There are a few options available to Democrats. One is to merge the bills and use reconciliation to pass it through the Senate. There was strong opposition to reconciliation before this special election, and that opposition would remain. In fact, it would simply grow stronger. Everyone across the country is interpreting this as a rebuke of Democrats. Well, at least everyone who can look at this with biases lesser than that of America’s pundits. I’ll admit to not knowing their reaction to the news. If it’s something totally ridiculous or outrageous, I’ll post on the topic again. But, I digress. Reconciliation, if used, would be wildly unpopular. The Democrats think opposition to their health care plans would change, or even reverse itself, once it was passed. However, if it’s passed in what seems to be a blatantly unfair and undemocratic process, I imagine even the most unaware of senators and representatives know they’d suffer a major backlash come November.
For similar reasons, I don’t see them rushing through this merging process before Brown’s election can be certified, paperwork worked out, and his official filling of the seat. This tactic, in fact, could conceivably see a bigger backlash against the DNC than reconciliation would cause. It’s been mentioned as a possibility, but there’s no chance the Democratic leadership is that out of touch.
Getting Senator Snowe to go along with a health care bill, aka giving her a chance to pick off the menu (Like Senator Nelson did) is another option. But Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC all agree that that’s highly unlikely. I’m inclined to agree with them. The House could always just pass the Senate bill unaltered, thus eliminating the need to have the Senate revote on it. But there’s little chance of that happening. They only got it passed the first time by 5 votes. A 3-vote swing, and it’s easy to think there may be three people in that chamber who voted for it the first time but won’t vote for the Senate version. It has several problems in the eyes of House Democrats, not the least of which is the lack of a public option, the tax on cadillac plans, the abortion provisions, and the essential exemption of payment Senator Nelson secured for Nebraska. That last one had led to Governor Schwarzenegger’s infuriation on Meet the Press in a recent interview. It is, by any reasonable standard, an example of Capitol Hill wheeling and dealing at its worst.
So, that leaves two options. One: come to some sort of lowest common denominator agreement and pass that. After this very public fight, that may disappoint those in this country who still support their health care plans, which is still well over one third of the electorate (42-ish%). And there has been part of the electorate that consistently says there’s no need for change. That group, combined with those who want to see a major overhaul and will see such a compromise as spineless Democrats failing, yet again, to get anything done is about half the electorate. Democrats, especially in the House, can expect to see primary challenges this spring if they go this path of compromise. And many of those challenges will win, since it’s widely known that more moderate Democrats and Republicans don’t vote in primaries in quite the numbers die-hards do. The last option available to them is to turn their attention to the economy and hope this very public failure fades from the conscious of the public in time for the primaries and, especially, the generals this November. This strategy has glaring problems. Thus, I predict that we’ll see a lowest common denominator form of compromise with the Republicans.
Part number two of this story is the ineffectiveness of the Democratic Party. They have 59 seats in the Senate still, for crying out loud. But they’re stuck. Comedians like Colbert, Stewart, and even SNL have pointed out how many accomplishments can be tallied up to President Obama’s first year in office. Such lofty rhetoric. And yet, there’s been no environmental bill, no healthcare bill, unemployment’s in the double digits, “Wall Street executives” are getting record bonuses, the deficit’s gone up, entitlements are still a problem, the War on Afghanistan has no end in sight, Al Qaeda’s clearly regrouped/regrouping, our trade deficit hasn’t shrunk, our military forces remain stretched, Guantanamo’s still open, and the list goes on. Let me be clear, not all of these things are necessarily bad, or even the fault of the government. I’ve said before how little effect the president has on the economy compared with the power we traditionally attribute to that office. The same is true of Congress. Record bonuses for Wall Street aren’t necessarily bad, though certainly annoying, and they’re even less necessarily the fault of the administration. I support an escalation of the War on Afghanistan for an indefinite amount of time. The trade deficit may never be fixed, and environmental plans have a clear potential of being bad for an economy still in a recession.
Nevertheless, there’s a whole lot not done compared with what the American people were promised. And the focus has not been on jobs. It’s been on health care, and the environment, and Afghanistan. Of course America’s angry. They care, first and foremost, about the economy right now. I understand that health care is related to the economy, being one sixth of it. I understand that environmental policies can help the economy, particularly when it comes to green jobs (though cap-and-trade, while something we should perhaps introduce, is effectively a tax and not a good idea right now). But it’s not enough for politicians to say, “There’s a connection, trust me.” Americans don’t understand politics and economics and international relations really well, if for no other reason than our understanding doesn’t have to be that extensive, that’s why we elect representatives to know about it.
That, of course, is all related to the third major part of this story: how did a Democrat lose in a Senate election in Massachusetts? They haven’t had a Republican senator for over 30 years. Part of it is, no doubt, the way the campaign was run. Coakley took her victory totally for granted. This much can’t be disputed. But, let’s be clear, it should have been that easy in the Bay State. However much the White House and the DNC want to blame her entirely for the loss, that’s just not reasonable. The president, after all, won the state by 26% in 2008. Of course, the GOP line is that it shows the people are fed up with Democratic rule and the health care bill. That’s no doubt partially true. But I don’t think that wholly accounts for a 31% swing in party preference between now and thirteen months ago. No, I think there’s something else at work here that likely accounts for this more than the GOP line, the Coakley line, or the White House / DNC line. And there’s an understandable reason why none of them want to admit it.
If only the loss of the DNC or GOP wasn't guaranteed to be the gain of the other...
There is, in this country, a resurgence of populism. No one can doubt that, and both parties have recognized and attempted to take advantage of it by claiming to be the party of “Main Street” while their opponents are buddies with the fat cats on Wall Street. When the president announced the “fees” (aka taxes) on the financial sector, Republicans opposed it. President Obama seized on their opposition to claim they’re in bed with Wall Street executives. I mean, it’s not like increasing taxes in the midst of a deep recession is thought of as bad economics or anything. The people don’t like either one of these parties. Our particular system of elections means that there’s really no viable alternative. People refer to third party votes as wasting votes, after all. But they can, and it appears, intend to, switch around the parties in power as often as they feel necessary to keep either party’s agenda from being pushed through. After all, the people may not like the Democrats’ health care plans, but they don’t exactly love the Republican’s foreign policy plans either. The Republican party has been around for 156 years, and the Democratic party 26 years more than that. The Constitution’s only been around for 223 years. So these parties are, unfortunately, not likely to go anywhere. They are way too entrenched. But that’s exactly the problem. They’ve tried to modify their platforms to match the will of the people, but they aren’t always correct in that assessment. And so people are turning away from both parties, disgusted with the entire thing. In Massachusetts, independents outnumber Democrats and Republicans combined. And we’re surprised at the apparent lack of party loyalty? The GOP and DNC can posture all they want, but the people want them both to just stand down for awhile.
