WASHINGTON – A day after Republican Scott Brown’s decisive victory in Massachusetts, President Obama and Democrats were still trying to come to grips with the reality surrounding his unpopular health care bill.
Obama blamed Democrats’ crushing defeat in a critical Senate runoff election on his administration’s failure to focus more on the still weakened economy. Political rebellion against the government’s Obamacare was not on his list of reasons for the downfall of his party in one of the most liberal states in the country.
Sure, many issues fueled voter discontent — especially double-digit unemployment, a stimulus spending spree that failed, trillion-dollar budget deficits, unprecedented debt and future higher taxes.
But exit polls at polling places across the state showed that 52 percent of voters said they opposed health care legislation, and 42 percent said they cast their vote to lend a hand Brown stop the president from passing the health care bill.
But as senator-elect Brown prepared to fly to Washington, White House aides continued to insist that Tuesday’s election was not a referendum on Obama’s presidency or a reflection of deep dissatisfaction with his health care legislation.
Democratic strategists who spoke with party leaders said the White House was even reluctant to acknowledge that the country’s independent voters were leaving the party in droves over health care.
Even some of the staunchest Democratic supporters of health care reform now recognize the political dangers posed by the $2.5 trillion tax-and-spend mechanism that Obama and his aides have pushed to implement quickly before Tuesday’s vote.
Days before votes were cast, longtime liberal crusader Bob Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect, admitted that “the health bill has already done incalculable political damage and will likely do even more.”
“It’s hard to say what will be a bigger political failure — losing the bill and appearing weak, or passing it and leaving it as a piñata for Republicans to attack between now and November,” the Boston Democrat said in an analysis published on The Times’ Huffington Post website. Obamacare “has become politically radioactive,” he said.
Democratic leaders were desperately trying to come up with a plan to save the centerpiece of Obama’s domestic agenda, which by the end of the week had become a huge political liability.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, defiantly promising that the bill would pass despite voter rejection, pushed the idea of simply passing the Senate-passed bill and sending it to the president’s desk. But key measures that helped the Senate bill barely make it through the Senate, such as a $100 million Medicaid payout to Nebraska in exchange for Sen. Ben Nelson’s vote, were poison pills that House Democrats hated.
Plus, Pelosi has had little room to maneuver within her party since the House first passed her version last year. It passed by just five votes and now has less support in the face of congressional district polls that show growing public opposition. One campaign adviser says he’s advising his Democratic clients to “jump right in.”
In Ohio, Republican Steve Driehaus of Ohio’s 1st District, a reliable supporter of the party leadership, is 17 points behind his Republican rival. In Michigan, Rep. Mark Schauer was nine points behind his Republican challenger. In Arkansas, Republican Vic Snyder was in danger of being crushed by his GOP rival, who was leading in polls by 17 points before he announced he was stepping down earlier this month.
“This message is resonating not only in Massachusetts but across the country,” the National Republican Congressional Committee wrote the day after Brown’s victory. “Unarmed Democrats who continue to support their party’s reckless actions on health care will make the Massachusetts special election look like a walk in the park.”
Adding to the growing confusion among Democrats has been a cacophony of mixed messages coming from the White House and the party’s rank and file.
In a post-election interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, Obama seemed to suggest that the bill might be pared down to its core provisions and that it was time to engage the public in a longer discussion about the achievements of his health care plan. He added that his main goals still include regulation of insurance companies and price fixing.
But there was a growing sense that Democratic leaders were losing control of their health care agenda as members reassess the political costs of marching toward whatever plan congressional leaders might put together if they chose that path.
Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin said Democrats need to “go back to the drawing board.” Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, who voted for the bill, now wants Democrats to rethink their approach to governance.
Perhaps the message is starting to sink in among rank-and-file Democrats that there is no way they can sell the turkey on health care, no matter how much they transform it. “This measure is so unpopular,” Kuttner wrote, that Scott Brown “built his entire wave of opposition to (Democrat Martha) Coakley on the promise that he would become the 41st senator to block the bill.”
Brown not only won a Senate seat, but may have stopped the bill before he even cast a vote.
