Town Squall

We haven't weighed in on health care much here at FFB, I suspect b/c we're all in some agreement: the reform plan in front of Congress is absolutely necessary, the public option is a critical part of that plan, and delay is death. I don't have the policy chops to weigh in on too many of the specifics, but I have been interested in the debate now raging in town halls across the country. A few observations:

1) The fact that most of the opposition to the plan, especially the loudest of it, has been based on outright lies is a good sign for us. If there were an easily exploitable truth that made the plan a problematic sell to the public, we surely would have been hearing about it ad nauseam for the last several weeks. But we haven't. Instead, it has been "death panels," and "enemies lists," and taxpayer-funded abortions, and gutting the VA and Medicare, and illegal immigrants, and Nazis, socialists, and Maoists, oh my. In other words, the opponents of this reform have looked at its outlines and said to themselves, "We got nothin!" So they went with the most demagogic but also transparent and easily debunked falsehoods they could muster. Lies always have a short term advantage in politics (hence Twain's quip about a lie getting halfway around the world before the truth could get its boots on). But they have long term disadvantages, as J. S. Mill argued persuasively. The advantage that opponents had here was that the short time frame needed to pass reform gave their lies an edge. They are, however, bad liars, and their own window of falsehood is rapidly evaporating.

2) The Blue Dogs must be kicking themselves for having argued for delay. They're the ones who have the toughest districts, and the August recess will hurt them the most, since they'll tend to face the most concerted resistance. The debate has gotten so polarized that they've put themselves in a lose-lose scenario. Oppose reform and they crush the enthusiasm of their own base voters; support it and they run headlong into angry (and now organized) teabaggers. I sympathize for my own MC, Bart Gordon, who has been cagey on the public option and issues related to cost and financing. This district went +20 for GWB in 2004 and +26 for McCain in 2008. Yet I'm certainly not going to provide Gordon any help or write him any more checks if he doesn't go with the party on this one.

3) One of the funniest complaints I've heard, one that Claire McCaskill got today at her Missouri town hall is this notion that Congress should be forced to live with the same health plan they force on the American people. Um, that's called the "public option," folks. If you want ordinary Americans to have the same opportunity for government health care that members of Congress get, you can't then argue against including a voluntary option for consumers to get a government plan.

4) Obama continues to be the best spokesman for his own plan. His NH town hall today was masterful and unusually civil. He exudes a confidence that belies the recent media spin about growing opposition. I actually suspect the tide is going to turn thanks to teabagger overreach. Their hysteria is just too bonkers to take seriously, and the Dems will eventually look good for having stood tough in its face. If this reform goes through--and I'm confident something reasonably good will--and the economy really does pick up next year, Obama and the Dems could be very well positioned for 2010 and 2012.