On the other hand, all the polls show massive and still-growing opposition to government-controlled health care and the enormous costs and deficits and rationing it will entail. Obama’s popularity is tanking, and his coat tails have turned into millstones. Opponents of the health bill are energized and angry and active. Two states just elected Republican governors, independents are massively shifting away from Democrats, and Republicans are leading on generic ballots. The 2010 midterms may well cost the Dems the House and most of their majority in the Senate.
Every Congressman and especially every Senator is a survivor of years of political struggle to reach his or her exalted position. Staying in office, with all its power and perks (and, for many of them, opportunities for corruption) is their overwhelming imperative. Yeah, there may be a few who are so ideologically motivated that they'd sacrifice their political futures for the sake of achieving government control of medicine, but not many. A somewhat larger group may realize that they'll lose the next election no matter which way they vote (either pissing off their base or pissing off the majority of the constituents), so they might as well go down voting for socialized medicine. But that's still not a big number, especially since they tend to have large egos and a capacity for self-deception.
So with that background, let's look at the political equation which Pelosi and Reid and Obama are trying to solve. Time is against them: the longer this drags out, the more public opinion moves against them, and the closer the 2010 midterm disaster looms. Pelosi had very little margin of error: The House vote was extremely close (although she undoubtedly had a few emergency votes in her pocket had more been necessary) and she had to compromise on the Stupak anti-abortion amendment. Reid has zero margin of error, since even a single defection can prevent cloture.
There are at least half a dozen Senate Democrats who are far more worried about their re-election prospects than they are about passing a health bill. I predict that the Landrieu $300 million “Louisiana Purchase” is going to backfire horribly. Voters may like a little pork and wink at a little log-rolling, but they become indignant when the bribery is too blatant, and I expect polls to show that in the next few days. Landrieu will be backpedaling furiously to try to prove that she wasn't bought off.
Similarly, each of those other Senators will be trying to demonstrate his or her independence from Reid by making a variety of demands, starting with the elimination of the public option. These demands will be incompatible with the demands of other Senators, and trying to craft amendments which will satisfy all 60 Democrats is iffy at best. Desperate appeals will be made to somehow unify because a loss would be even worse politically. But if it looks like even one Democrat might defect and block cloture, half a dozen others will be unwilling to walk the plank in a losing cause.
Even if the Senate finally passes some heavily-compromised and amended measure, melding it with the House bill in Conference will be even more difficult. Almost anything which is left in or taken out, be it the public option or anti-abortion language or immigrant restrictions or taxes or Medicare reimbursement rates, is likely to lose enough votes in either the House or Senate to prevent final passage. Competing blocks of Congressmen will sign letters pledging to vote against the final measure if their hot button item is either left in or taken out. Ditto for individual Senators. Doing so gives them cover with their constituents and an ironclad excuse for killing it.
As Pelosi and Reid search futilely for a formula which can pass both houses, the measure will continue to languish in the Conference Committee, and the election will get closer and closer. Eventually, in desperation, they'll report out a highly stripped-down bill just so they can get something passed and declare victory. But even that may not work, given the subsequent fury of the most liberal Congressmen and Senators and leftist groups like Moveon.org.
It's going to be scary for the next few months, no doubt about it, but there are still good reasons for optimism. And if the above projections are correct, in the end it will be popcorn time.
But there’s also this: the drop in polls and the recent elections have the Democrats circling the wagons. They are tending to band together instinctively—the way the Republicans did after 2008. That said, I think good sense will prevail and a few mavericks will emerge to vote with the Republicans. We’ll see.
Excellent post.