What Will Obama Say?

Getting ready to listen to Obama tonight... Here is my guess on the health care speech. That if Obama rejects a public option in an effort to pass something now, or if Obama retrenches and extends deadlines for passage, then he will have sacrificed some of the glamour of reformer, because to reject a public option is to pass on a potentially good idea and to retrench is politically embarrassing. However, in doing so he would also be putting results first, because to force the public option over Blue Dog Democrats trying to retain support in Republican leaning districts, over Independents skeptical of the legislation, and over Republicans via reconciliation is to pass legislation with the suppport of the left wing only and so sow doubt that reformers will proceed with moderation, with explanation, and with the hard groundwork of building support in the middle. That's my reading of his options. But what does he think? We are on the verge of finding out.

Why Isn't Health Reform Isn't Sailing Through? Because of States Like Arkansas.

Rep. Mike Ross, D-AR, has been in the news a lot lately for leading the Blue Dog conservative Democrats' charge against the health care bill in its current form. John Brummett is sympathetic, noting that Blue Dogs have already been strung out leftward on the cap-and-trade vote and need to look moderate for their swing districts. Michael Tomasky is not, noting that Ross coasted to victory last time out. Local lib provocateur Max Brantley is just bitter, saying that Mike Ross hates poor people.

Tomasky is right. Ross isn't opposing the current bill out of re-election fears. Some people down here, in reference to his political skills, have called him Clinton's second coming. Brummett is right too. Blue Dogs are more conservative on principal. That's what happens when you expand control by winning in more conservative areas. Mike Ross doesn't necessarily have to be facing a tough re-election campaign to wince at the Congressional Budget Office's latest health care tallies. Still, he is a politician and there has to be politics in this. Tomasky just picked the wrong race. Maybe it's not a re-election campaign worrying him so much as a run for the governor's office. That is a statewide race in a state that alone in the country went more Republican in 2008 than in the previous presidential election. Clearly he doesn't think it will hurt him, whether health care sinks or swims, to have been the guy begging Congress to keep the price tag low.

PS - I actually agree with David Brooks; it would be good politics for Democrats long term if they would yield more, not less, to Blue Dog concerns.