Could a Brown win save Obama's presidency?
01/19/10
First, my call for tonight's Massachusetts Special Election: Scott Brown, the Republican, wins by 5 points. (Prove me right, Bay Staters)
But, could Brown's victory have one rather peculiar and seemingly unlikely consequence — namely, saving Barack Obama's presidency?
My contention is, yes.
I'm wont to agree with my good friend Bill Pascoe, writing for CQ Politics, that we shouldn't over-attribute the cause of Brown's victory and Coakley's loss to Barack Obama, anti-Congressional Democrat sentiment or to public dislike of health care "reform". There were other factors at play in this race. Yes, Obama's agenda was a part of it. So was the push for government-run health care. But we can't forget that Martha Coakley ran what was, in all honesty, an abysmal campaign. Pascoe cuts deeper in his analysis:
Brown's victory over Coakley will be an affirmation of an axiom propounded most cogently and compellingly by Michael Barone in his decades as one of the nation's foremost political analysts and historians -- that, ultimately, America's political wars are not about the economy, they're about the culture.
Begin with the fundamental point that's been totally overlooked in virtually all the discussion about the race: Massachusetts is not primarily a liberal state ... it is a Democratic state.
There's a huge difference between the two. ...
Or look at it this way: There are two kinds of Democrats in Massachusetts -- there's the Mike Dukakis Democrat, and the Tip O'Neill Democrat.
The former is upper crust, elite, intellectual, thinks Sunday was made for watching talking heads on TV, and would think holding the Ryder Cup at The Country Club would be proof that he's died and gone to Heaven, if he believed in Heaven; the latter is blue collar, ethnic, Catholic, thinks Sunday was made for worship, and is scared to try to transfer his old VHS tape of the "Hail Flutie" to DVD, for fear that that new-fangled technology might end up just eating his only tangible memento of the greatest game in Boston sports history.
While Pascoe is right that we shouldn't overstate the swirling cacophony of factors that came together to make up the cause, it does not, however, render null the effect.
And the effect is this. The Democrats' filibuster-proof majority, the super majority, in the Senate will be broken. Scott Brown has campaigned openly as the 41st vote against the health care "reform" proposal currently before Congress. With not a vote to spare currently in the Senate, the health care bill with be ostensibly stalled.
(It could still pass if the House passes the Senate version, as is. The House version passed only by the margin of 220-215. Louisiana Republican Joseph Cao as indicated he will not vote for health care "reform" again, leaving the cout at 219-216. Will the blue dog Democrats who voted for the bill the first time vote to accept the Senate version? I think not.)
So what does Obama do then? He can either save his Presidency or step on the gas to ram this through.
Scott Brown's election would present Obama the opportunity to offer one of his "let me be clear" speeches in which he concedes that they "moved to fast". It wasn't for selfish reasons, you see, it was simply because he and Congressional Democrats are "deeply concerned about the state of health care in America" and the people "outside the system and those harmed by the system". He could take Brown's victory as an opportunity to start the process over.
Throughout his campaign, Brown has proposed planks of a health care reform package that he would support — portability, the ability to buy insurance across state lines and tort reform. These are proposals that are supported by most conservatives and most Republicans, and I'd suggest, a good number of Democrats. (That is, of course, sans the whole "tort reform" idea. Being completely beholdent to the trial lawyers will have that effect on Democrats. But as Meatloaf said, two out of three ain't bad.) Obama could symbolically reach out to Brown and bring him into the fold to help negotiate a new, compromise bill.
The process would be slowed down. Legislation that is opposed by 56% of Americans and supported by only 36% would be gone. Obama could even possibly slow the decline of his approval rating.
Much like Bill Clinton got the message in 1994's midterm elections to slow down the left-ward, progressive push, Obama could take a page out of his book and run to the center. He could, as Clinton did, co-opt proposals of the Republicans and ride them to legislative victories that would bouy his Presidency.
He could save his Presidency by governing from the center — the place from which he ran for President, with a few "spread the wealth around" hints of his true colors coming out.
He could. But, I expect, he won't. It's not in the make up of a true Saul Alinsky disciple to do so. Alinsky would suggest that in these most troubled of times for him, he should step on the gas and ram it through. The ends will always justify the means, in all cases. Nancy Pelosi has suggested that health care "reform" is sill on track to pass. They've invoked the possibility of the so called "nuclear option" — passing the bill through the reconciliation process, meaning it would need only 51 votes in the Senate.
The consequences for that shouldn't be hard to figure. The ugliness of the process would be laid bare. Republicans, already leading in many head-to-head polls and on the generic congressional ballot, would most likely be elected en masse, charged with undoing what had been done.
A Scott Brown victory could present Obama the opportunity to save his presidency.
But I doubt Obama has the capacity to accept and to save himself.