Barack, Hillary, supermajorities, and keeping up with the primaries
posted 2-21-2008
amended 2-28-2008

 
My, but things move quickly in primary politics these days; blame it on SuperTuesday. Unless Hillary pulls off a miracle in Texas and Ohio (I'm not betting on that), she likely won't be a significant factor anymore, even with that many delegates. Not even the most faithful of superdelegates wants to be associated with a perceived loser. So it may be moot for her by next week. We'll see.

There are those who say that Sen. Barack Obama is at least not promising much of anything, compared to other candidates, and therefore he’s somehow more realistic. It may also mean he has a dearth of ideas other than some vague notion of change. But these same partisans point out that he’s had less experience and less clout than Sen. Hillary Clinton and imply that he must be somehow more clever than she for him to be so much more ‘realistic’ in not making promises. Nonsense.

Obama’s isn't the kind of 'realism' that inspires anyone, which is why he's on the 'change' campaign instead. In fact, that 'realism' they cite is probably the most Beltway thing about him. The fact that he's not promising anything isn't good: it means he's not even going to try to attack some problems, health care being one of them — at a time when he might actually be able to make some progress and easily get the public on his side on those issues.

There are more people than ever uninsured — more than 47 million, at last count, which was more than a year ago — and more of them are 'middle class', whatever that means these days, than ever before, which provides us with a critical mass of Americans who want drastic change on health coverage and gives the Congress a window of opportunity that they may not have again for another 10-15 years. And I don't think we can afford to wait that long, for many economic reasons. This is NOT a situation that will improve with inattention. Or marginal, token efforts, like 'suggestions' that more people buy their own coverage. (Gimme a break!)

Also, I wouldn't underrate his clout. He has plenty; but it may as well be nonexistent if he won't use it. Obama and his consultant David Axelrod really ought to know that much: they're both Chicagoans, but they act like they've forgotten what they learned here.

So no, he's not actually being smarter than Hillary, he's just trying not to burn any bridges with certain industries this early — and he doesn't have to get specific while he's the front runner. It's not like the press is forcing him to. I don't think McCain will make great enough inroads into independent swing voters to force him to, either.

I decided a long time ago that I'd be fine with whichever one of them, Clinton or Obama, won the nomination; but I'm not fine about either of them abandoning any specific issues, and certainly not about health care being one of them. They need to be poked and prodded about that.

Partisans on all sides seem to rabidly polarized this year. Those with strongly held views don’t let little things like skepticism or facts that are inconvenient for their candidates to discuss get in the way of sticking to their guns. Indeed, they’re not about to be persuaded by even the most well-documented facts. That leaves those still sitting on the fence. As a journalist, my job is to inform, yes, but also to try to persuade those still not-quite-decided swing voters about what they should be demanding from all of the candidates, regardless of who wins the primaries, and persuading those voters not to let up the pressure after the inauguration.

That's when the real work begins, and the honeymoon will only last so long — which is why you have to come in with guns blazing and put out your most audacious, ambitious proposals up front during that first month or two and be prepared to ram them down Congress's throat with a lot of sugar, friendly backslapping, and inspirational (yet detailed) speechmaking: because that's when you're most likely to get it through. If Obama were taking his JFK lessons seriously, he'd already know that. The other three years and 10 months are all downhill after that, unless you've done the work and laid the foundations and the inspiration up front: then you can stretch it out for several months, until your first crisis, anyway (longer than that depends on how well you handle the crisis; but that's getting too far ahead, for now). As ever, my job is to provoke reasoned thought, a thankless task if ever there was one ... but somebody has to do it, eh?

So: since I’m busily provoking thought, here’s another one: regardless of which Democrat might yet win the race to the White House in November, that person will be hamstrung unless the voters give him or her a supermajority in Congress — that is, enough to win over a veto. In fact, that may be as important as the presidency itself. LBJ knew that yet even he had to twist arms to get some of his and JFK’s agenda through.

For those of you who haven't been paying attention: the Dems have a very thin margin, not a supermajority (66 votes in the Senate, 66 percent in the House), which is what you need to overcome a veto — and Shrub has been handing out vetoes like candy on anything that reasonable non-rich people might actually want or need. Without a supermajority, the Democrats need the aid of the very few moderate Republicans, who aren't going to be helpful during an election year: they can't afford to alienate their own party until after November, and even then, House members have to be careful as they run again in two years.

Neither Clinton nor Obama will be able to do much of anything, let alone get health coverage for all, unless there's a supermajority. That should disturb anyone who wants real change greatly. The senators both should be campaigning for other Democrats in the states as well as for themselves.

As for audacious proposals, a new president NEEDS to make the most audacious ones s/he can up front, because one of two things will happen as a result: 1) if there's too thin a margin and no supermajority even with a few moderate Republicans, there will be horse-trading and compromises that will eat away at the proposal bit by bit until it's either neutered or small enough/uncontroversial enough/cheap enough to pass both houses; or 2) you'll have a party leader or ranking member among the Dems who can twist a lot of arms firmly like LBJ did because s/he knows where the bodies are buried, and therefore little to no compromise will be needed — and nearly all of the ambitious version will actually be passed (YES!). Nice.

On the other hand, if you start by watering down your own proposal even before it gets to Congress, it won't be worth shit by the time they're done with it. You have to start by asking for A WHOLE LOT MORE than you think you'll get, so that you can afford to give things away (this is not the preferred strategy, but the fallback position — the preferred strategy is to know where the bodies are buried; in short, to snoop around and save your chips for the big deals like LBJ did).

For an excellent example of what Johnson was able to accomplish that way (but which, unfortunately, Nixon undid), see Krugman's article this week about poverty, entitled Poverty Is Poison.

This is an abject lesson on how good programs that deliver the kind of change voters seem to want right now can be undone when the opposition party takes charge and guts those same programs.